PORTLAND, Ore.: The Portland Thorns have been acquired by the Bhathal household, traders within the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, the National Women’s Soccer League staff introduced Wednesday.

RAJ Sports bought the staff for $63 million, in accordance with an individual accustomed to the deal. The individual spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to publicly focus on the matter.

Merritt Paulson, whose Peregrine Sports additionally owns Major League Soccer’s Portland Timbers, put the Thorns up on the market in late 2022 amid a sequence of abuse and misconduct scandals that rocked the NWSL.

The Bhathal household was a part of the group that purchased the Sacramento Kings in 2013. RAJ Sports is led by siblings Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, co-founders and companions within the Southern California-based agency Revitate, which makes a speciality of sports activities, actual property, and shopper model investments.

The new homeowners plan to maintain the staff in Portland, and they’ll proceed to play at Providence Park, the downtown stadium which additionally hosts the Timbers. The staff will proceed to coach on the stadium till a brand new girls’s observe facility is constructed.

Lisa Bhathal Merage will function controlling proprietor and can symbolize the staff on the NWSL Board of Governors. Alex Bhathal will function an alternate on the board.

“As followers ourselves, and as seasoned sports activities and actual property operators, we consider in the way forward for Portland and the NWSL, and within the super alternative that surrounds this iconic staff,” Bhathal Merage said in the statement. “I would like to thank Merritt Paulson for believing in our vision for this club and for all that he and the Thorns have done for the growth of the NWSL and women’s soccer in this country.”

The Thorns had been among the many eight authentic groups within the NWSL and gained the league’s first championship in 2013. The staff additionally gained league titles in 2017 and 2022.

A pair of former Thorns gamers, Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim, got here ahead in 2021 with allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct involving Paul Riley, who coached the staff from 2014-15.

Riley, who denied the allegations, was subsequently fired by the North Carolina Courage, the place he had been teaching, and NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird resigned within the wake of the allegations.

After a pair of investigations detailed widespread misconduct and mishandling of complaints throughout the league, two Thorns executives had been dismissed in 2022. Paulson stepped down from his decision-making position with the membership however there have been persistent requires him to promote the staff and the Thorns had been put up on the market in December 2022.