Steve Apostolopoulos: The Greek tycoon who wants to buy Jordan's Hornets

The greatest basketball player of all time has "run" the NBA team for almost 15 years but decided to give it up and according to the media in the USA he is asking for the amount of 1.8 billion dollars.

There are many people interested in buying the team that has not done anything important in the NBA and one of them is Greek diaspora member Steve Apostolopoulos.

One after the other, the major foreign networks mention him as a potential buyer, noting that his fortune tops 4 billion dollars. At the same time, they write that he is also a candidate for the Washington Commanders of the NFL, which is a team worth more than 5 billion dollars.

The patriarch of the family

Steve Apostolopoulos was born in 1977 in Toronto, Canada and is the son of Andreas Apostolopoulos.

The latter was the "patriarch" of the family. He was born in 1952 and in 1969 he decided to leave Kalamata. From Messinia he immigrated to Canada where he spent difficult years.

He worked as a worker in a plastic bag factory, as a janitor, as a foreman. He raised some money and slowly bought up small companies. Over the years he founded the Toronto-based Triple Group of Companies, which is a real estate company.

Andy, as he was called in Canada and the US, used to buy real estate in run-down areas, which he turned into ... fillets. It quickly spread to the US and in 2009 became known worldwide by purchasing the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan.

Andreas Apostolopoulos' company paid $583,000 for an 82,000-seat stadium and invested millions to transform it after 2010 into a multi-purpose sports and entertainment venue.

The complex's stadium was for years home to the NFL's Detroit Lions and the NBA's Detroit Pistons. The NBA All Star Game was also hosted there.

Panathinaikos' game against Milan

The football stadium hosted matches of the 1994 World Cup and also the friendly match between Panathinaikos and Milan in 2010 while it was bought by the family.

“From the beginning, my family has wanted to bring a sporting event of this caliber to the Silverdome, and we are incredibly excited to bring top international soccer back to Detroit. This game will be a celebration of the revival of the Silverdome as a world-class sports and entertainment venue," said Steve Apostolopoulos at the pre-match press conference with a Panathinaikos jersey on the table in front of him.

For the sake of history, the champion Panathinaikos drew 0-0 with Milan but lost 5-3 on penalties. The game was billed as a 'Match of the Titans'.

The death of the father and the sequel

Andreas Apostolopoulos died aged 69 in 2021 and the command was taken over by his son Steve, who also has two other brothers, Peter and Jim.

Steve Apostolopoulos continued to grow his father's company but in 2017 he founded another company called SIX Ventures. It is a Toronto-based venture capital firm that invests in companies operating in technology industries.

According to ESPN Steve studied at Harvard. He has developed an intense philanthropic activity. The Apostolopoulos family owns the largest real estate company in Canada and one of the largest in the US.

The family owns a majority stake in a casino, hotel and restaurant complex in Ontario.