WATCH: Vivek Ranadivé thinks Sacramento Kings could someday be worth billions

The Sacramento Kings sold for a record enterprise price of $535 million last year. A decade from now, Vivek Ranadivé thinks they’ll be worth at least five times that amount, maybe more.

The Kings majority owner recently appeared on Forbes SportsMoney, a television show broadcast on the YES Network, and was asked for his prediction on how much the Kings might be valued in the next 10 years.

Well, there’s only 30 of these teams and they’re getting a global audience. And so you have 82 games times three hours – 246 hours of original, real time content that will always have a market. You also have the ultimate social network with all the people that are part of the Kings nation in this case. And so I believe that these teams are going to be worth billions…Whatever we look at right now, it’s a small fraction. If you look at any business and if you redefine it as a social network, it’s worth five to ten times that. And so I believe that these teams are going to be worth billions in the future.

Ranadivé also weighed in on the changing landscape of talent evaluation. With analytics becoming a more prevalent and universal way to assess ability in the basketball world, the Kings owner suggested that future executives have to think of talent evaluation as a “big data problem”.

Well, as basketball enters the 21st century, the leadership model changes as well. And so now you need people that are really data scientists – people that are open and are able to understand and make use of the data. Now, there’ll always be science and there’ll always be art and so you have to find the right balance between the two. But, the new leaders will be those who have an understanding of how to use and leverage that data.

Ranadivé weighs in on much more regarding the technology and business of basketball.  You can watch the complete interview in the video below.