WNBA says sale of Atlanta Dream, Kelly Loeffler’s co-owned team, is “nearing completion”

The Atlanta Dream, the WNBA team co-owned by outgoing Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, is about to be sold, the league confirmed to CBS News on Tuesday. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported on the possible sale.

“As for the Atlanta Dream, we understand that the sale of the franchise is about to end,” a WNBA spokesman told CBS News. “Once the sale negotiation is completed, additional information will be provided.”

The same day the news of a potential deal appears, Loeffler, a Republican, he is ending his term as a senator.

The WNBA and Dream were headliners with their support of the entire Black Lives Matter league over the summer wearing BLM warm-up suits and shirts. But Loeffler opposed the practice in June and called on WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert to end the practice.

In a statement mocking the protest in August, Loeffler called the players’ shirts a sign of a canceling culture. “This is just one more proof that the culture out of control cancels out the culture that wants to exclude anyone who disagrees with them,” he said. “Clearly the league is more concerned with playing politics than basketball and I’m on the side of what I wrote in June.”

In response, Atlanta Dream and other WNBA members supported one of their opponents in the Senate, Democrat Raphael Warnock, who went so far as to wear “Vote Warnock” T-shirts to his games. Just two days after players wore the shirts, the campaign had raised more than $ 185,000 online, added 3,500 base donors and increased Warnock’s Twitter account by nearly 3,500 followers, a campaign official said. and CBS News.

Loeffler was defeated by Warnock in the Jan. 5 election, which saw Georgia’s two incumbent Republican senators lose to Democratic challenges, shifting the balance of power in the Senate.

Although the players ’protest also called for Loeffler’s withdrawal, neither she nor co-owner Mary Brock had said the dream was sold out publicly before the WNBA statement. The potential buyer is not known at this time, but Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James threw his hat in the ring on Jan. 6. suggesting on Twitter who wants to “gather a group of property” to buy the equipment.

CBS News turned to Dream for comment, but did not respond immediately.

Zoe Christen Jones contributed the information.