Report: 76ers Likely to be Sold This Week

Rumors regarding the sale of the Philadelphia 76ers have bounced around for a while now, but it looks like the saga might be coming to a close. Via Bloomberg: “The Philadelphia 76ers likely will be sold to a group led by Joshua Harris, a director at Apollo Global Management LLC, in the next few business days, two people familiar with the negotiations said. Harris will pay about $280 million, according to one of the people, who were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the sale publicly. Harris co-founded Apollo Management in 1990, and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a master’s degree from the Harvard Business School. Apollo went public in March. Comcast-Spectacor, the holding company that owns the National Basketball Association team, said a month ago that it was exploring a sale. Harris’s group includes David Blitzer, who moved to London from New York in 2002 to create the European office of the Blackstone Group LP (BX), the biggest private-equity firm. Michael Preston, a spokesman for the 76ers, declined to comment. Ike Richman, spokesman for Comcast-Spectacor, didn’t immediately respond to a voice mail left at his office or an e- mail. Neither Harris nor Blitzer immediately responded to e- mails seeking comment.”