Friday, October 2, 2009

Ownership Change Rumored for Atlanta Dream



From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Kathy Betty, widow of former EarthLink CEO Garry Betty and a major contributor to Georgia Tech's basketball teams, has emerged as the top prospect to buy all or part of the Atlanta Dream, Central Atlanta Progress President A.J. Robinson said.

"Talks have involved into her taking that role or taking a bigger role in the team," Robinson said late Friday morning.

Current Dream owner Ron Terwilliger told the WNBA in August that he wanted to relinquish his position of primary owner of the two-year old professional women's basketball team. Terwilliger, chairman and chief executive officer of Atlanta-based Trammell Crow Residential, said he intended to remain an investor in the team.


More information on Betty below:

Kathy Betty was the wife of Garry Betty, known for taking dial-up Internet company EarthLink public in 1997, a year after he joined the company. He died of cancer in 2007 at age 49.

Betty is a major contributor to the men's and women's basketball programs at Georgia Tech and is on the board of the Jimmy V Foundation.


(Note: I can't do anything about the AJC's slow-loading links. Linear B was deciphered more quickly than waiting for those pages to load.)

1 comment:

afoundingfan said...

Very sad when Betty died.

That said, the company took a more streamlined approach under the new management (sigh)..

My partner was one of at least a thousand folks laid off (she at 8 mos pregnant at the time) by Earthlink in the last few years. Thus our moving away from Atlanta and no more Dream season tickets. :(