Brooklyn Nets Co-Owner Recognized in Forbes 50 Over 50

The Tsai's have helped lead both franchises through unprecedented growth.

Aug 11, 2024; Paris, France; Clara Wu, wife of Joseph Tsai, looks on before in the women's gold medal game between France and the United States during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Accor Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images | Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

Since acquiring full ownership of the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty in 2019, Joseph and Clara Wu Tsai have helped lead both franchises through unprecedented growth.

Even before becoming majority owners of the team, they seemed to have their sights set on the franchise for a while, acquiring a 49% ownership stake in 2017 from former owner Mikhail Prokhorov with the option to buy the remaining stake of the organization by 2021.

Once they full purchased the team for $2.35 billion, it was the most expensive acquisition of an American professional sports franchise at the time. While speaking on a panel at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit, Clara Wu Tsai mentioned that the Nets are now worth $6 billion, nearly triple the price that they originally bought the team for.

The Nets' parent company, BSE Global, oversees the Nets, Liberty and the Barclays Center. Before being purchased by the Tsai's, the Liberty were playing in the Westchester County Center, a 90-year-old building that rarely drew a crowd above 2,000 people. Once Clara Wu became heavily involved, they underwent an entire transformation, relocating to the Barclays Center, winning a WNBA Championship and currently have a $80 million-dollar state-of-the-art practice facility under construction that is expected to open in 2027.

In a recent post made to Forbes' X page, Clara Wu was spotlighted as one of the 50 most successful people above the age of 50 years old.

Clara Wu Tsai and her husband bought the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and WNBA’s New York Liberty in 2019, vowing to give the latter team facilities equal to their male counterparts. (Photo: Manny Carabel Stringer via Getty Images) #ForbesOver50 Lifestyle: https://t.co/iqAI7wSsQa pic.twitter.com/51PoRTHKs8

— Forbes (@Forbes) August 6, 2025

While speaking at the Summit, Tsai explained that despite the diversification of her assets, the consistency and recognition of the NBA still remains second to none.

“The NBA is a fantastic asset. It’s as blue-chip as it gets. You hold it because it's scarce, its premium, there is definitely going to be franchise upside,” said Tsai.

One thing that has helped generate buzz since Tsai became an owner is the consolidation of the Nets and Liberty to the Barclays Center, which the family also bought in 2019 for nearly $1 billion as part of a separate deal.

“I want to point out how important Barclays Center is to our world and our ecosystem,” Tsai said. “It lets us control our full experience and it's the anchor for what we do in the community,”

Besides their lucrative business moves, BSE Global has also led the charge in immersing the organization into the community, particularly with their Brooklyn Basketball initiative.

This summer, Brooklyn Basketball has led several camps, one-day clinics and training programs for young athletes. By this fall, construction on an 18,600-square-foot Brooklyn Basketball youth training center should be complete, which will allow the organization to have a home base and even host after-school programs for children.