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Fact check: Did any US president own a basketball team?
Executive Summary
No credible reporting in the provided documents indicates that any U.S. president has ever owned a professional basketball team; the sources instead document sports owners' political donations and interactions with presidents and presidential candidates, with particular attention to Dallas Mavericks owner Miriam Adelson and former president Donald Trump’s dealings with football franchises and leagues. The material reviewed between 2024 and 2025 shows media coverage focused on owners’ political influence and Trump’s attempts to buy football teams, but contains no evidence linking a sitting or former U.S. president to ownership of an NBA or other professional basketball franchise [1] [2] [3].
1. Big Money, Sports, and Political Influence — Who the Sources Spotlight
The central theme across the documents is the intersection of wealthy sports franchise owners and political donations, rather than presidential ownership of teams. Multiple pieces identify Miriam Adelson as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and report her donations tied to Republican causes and to renovations connected to Donald Trump’s White House [1] [2]. Reporting from late 2024 and October 2025 highlights owners’ roles as major political donors and funders of campaigns, underscoring a pattern where franchise ownership functions as a platform for political influence, not as a role ever held by a U.S. president according to these accounts [2] [4].
2. Donald Trump: Attempts at Football Ownership, Not Basketball in These Sources
The collected analyses specifically document Donald Trump’s long-standing interest in football ownership and league ventures — including reported attempts to purchase or influence NFL teams and involvement in the USFL — but do not link him to owning an NBA franchise [3]. These sources frame Trump’s approach as transactional and league-specific, emphasizing his football dealings and political activities. The absence of any mention of presidential ownership of basketball teams in discussions about Trump’s sports investments suggests the contemporary controversy centers on sports owners’ political activity, not presidents owning basketball franchises [3].
3. Repeated Null Findings: Multiple Pieces Fail to Show Presidential Ownership
Across three distinct groups of articles and analyses, none provide evidence that any U.S. president has held ownership in a basketball team; instead, the writing consistently attributes team ownership to private individuals such as Miriam Adelson and other owners who donate to political causes [1] [2] [4]. The sources’ explicit focus on donations and relationships with political figures, while detailed about owners’ identities and contributions, offers no counterexample or archival reporting that would substantiate a claim that a president owned a basketball franchise, a notable omission given the spotlight on sports-politics overlap [1] [4].
4. Why the Coverage Focuses on Donors, Not Presidential Ownership
The reporting pattern suggests a newsroom and public interest in how franchise owners influence politics through donations and access, which naturally directs attention toward private owners and their connections with presidents or presidential candidates rather than presidents as owners themselves [2]. Stories about the Dallas Mavericks’ owner donating to Trump-related projects and NFL/MLB/NBA owners’ political giving fit this framing. That framing helps explain why the reviewed materials detail owners’ donations and interactions but do not document any historical instance of a U.S. president owning a professional basketball team [2] [4].
5. Peripheral Mentions: Michael Jordan and Political Endorsements Are Not Ownership Evidence
Several analyses discuss Michael Jordan’s political neutrality and false endorsement claims, clearly unrelated to presidential ownership of franchises [5] [6] [7]. These items reinforce that the dataset mixes sports personalities and political narratives, but they do not produce any evidence connecting presidents to team ownership. Their inclusion demonstrates the articles’ broader investigative focus on celebrity political activity and misinformation rather than uncovering historical cases of presidents owning professional sports teams [5] [7].
6. What Is Missing and Why It Matters for the Claim
The most notable omission across the materials is any archival or historical reporting asserting a president once owned a basketball team; this absence is meaningful because the sources actively catalog contemporary owners and donor relationships and would likely mention such an extraordinary fact if it existed. The consistent lack of evidence across pieces from October 2024 through October 2025 indicates that the claim “a U.S. president owned a basketball team” is unsupported by the reviewed reporting and that the dominant verified theme is owners’ political donation behavior rather than presidential franchise ownership [1] [2] [3].