Miami Heat managing general partner Micky Arison looks on during one of his team’s NBA basketball practices in 2019. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)WILFREDO LEE/AP
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The cruise line mogul and Miami Heat owner has delegated management of his basketball team to the sport’s savants. It’s his secret sauce behind three decades of success—and what could be an unprecedented NBA championship.
By John Hyatt, Forbes Staff
Asthe Miami Heat celebrated their Game 7 victory over the Boston Celtics in the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals, the team’s 73-year-old majority owner, Micky Arison, did not appear on camera, but his presence loomed large in the personnel assembled: Pat Riley, the Heat’s president since 1995; head coach Erik Spoelstra, who first joined the organization as a video coordinator; and Alonzo Mourning, a former Heat All-Star and the franchise’s vice president of player development since 2009.
“My philosophy is, hire the best people you can hire, and let them do their job,” Arison explained in 2013. (He did not respond to a recent request for comment.) “In all our businesses, that’s my approach. It’s not to micromanage people because you’re not going to get great people if you micromanage them. You’ve got to give them the opportunity to do what they love to do.”
That formula has worked well for the Heat, who have now made seven NBA finals appearances and won the championship on three occasions since Arison took majority control of the franchise in 1995. Only three teams have won more NBA titles during that time. This year, the team became only the second No. 8 seed ever to make the finals, on the backs of breakout undrafted players like Caleb Martin, Max Strus and Gabe Vincent. If Miami can overcome Stan Kroenke’s Denver Nuggets in a series that starts Thursday night, it will be the first No. 8 seed to win it all.
Under Arison, the Heat have become one of basketball’s most recognizable brands, featuring at different points all-time greats like LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal, who gladly took their talents to South Beach (as James memorably quipped).
The Heat’s success has also boosted Arison’s fortune. As of October, the team was worth an estimated $3 billion, up from $2.3 billion in 2021 and less than $1 billion a decade ago, per Forbes’ latest NBA team valuations. That makes the Heat the 12th-most-valuable NBA team. The team has been a great investment for Arison, who paid a reported $68 million for his stake back in 1995. His 88% stake is now worth $2.3 billion (accounting for team debt).
A fourth championship this year could make the Heat even more valuable—not that Arison needs it. He placed No. 171 on last year’s Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans. His estimated $6.3 billion fortune also includes about 7% of Carnival Corporation, the world’s largest cruise operator, which his father founded and which he led as president and CEO for over three decades until 2013. Arison holds another $3.1 billion in estimated cash and personal investments.
Micky Arison was born in 1949 in Tel Aviv. His father, Israeli businessman Ted Arison, moved the family in 1954 to the United States, where he cofounded Norwegian Cruise Line in 1966, only to depart a few years later to launch competitor Carnival Corporation in 1972. That same year, Micky Arison dropped out of the University of Miami to help his father run the one-ship company. He rose to the position of president in 1979 and CEO a decade later.
Arison’s tenure at Carnival was at times controversial. In January 2012, the company’s Costa Concordia ship ran aground off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people. One year later, an engine fire on the Carnival Triumph left the ship without power and a raw sewage blockage. (Media dubbed it the “Poop Cruise.”) Amid the growing public backlash, Arison stepped down as Carnival’s CEO in the summer of 2013, although he remains chairman of the board and the company’s largest individual shareholder. Today, Carnival operates a fleet of 91 cruise ships, and it brought in revenues of over $12 billion last year, a strong rebound from the company’s pandemic dip. (It generated less than $2 billion of sales in 2021.)
Like Carnival, the Heat have been an Arison family affair. In 1988, Ted Arison and two of his partners—ex-basketball star Billy Cunningham and sports agent Lewis Schaffel—paid a little over $30 million in expansion fees to bring the Heat to Miami. His son bought out him and two other owners in 1995, and has served as the organization’s general managing partner ever since. Micky Arison’s son, Nick Arison, age 42, has been the Heat’s chief executive officer since 2011.
In 1995, Arison’s first move as team owner was to send a first-round draft pick and $1 million to the New York Knicks for the rights to head coach Pat Riley, who was already an NBA legend after coaching the Los Angeles Lakers to four championships in the 1980s. Riley then recruited Mourning, a big man, and point guard Tim Hardaway, who led the Heat to multiple winning seasons. In 2003, the Heat drafted Marquette star Dwyane Wade, and a year later, they lured O’Neal, a three-time champion, away from the Lakers. That dynamic duo led the Heat to their first NBA championship in 2006.
In 2010, Riley orchestrated groundbreaking deals that saw James, then a superstar with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Toronto Raptors big man Chris Bosh join Wade in Miami. The triumvirate, led by first-time head coach Erik Spoelstra (who took over in 2008 while Riley stayed on as team president), guided the Heat to four consecutive NBA finals appearances and back-to-back championships in 2012 and 2013.
When James returned to the Cavaliers after the 2013-14 season, Arison said he was “shocked and disappointed” but thanked the superstar for the memories and reassured fans in an open letter that the Heat “are not done—not even close.” In the nine NBA seasons since, the Heat have made the playoffs in all but two years. The 2019 arrival of All-Star Jimmy Butler put the Heat back into contention: The team has made it to the Eastern Conference finals in three of the last four seasons. In 2020, they advanced to the NBA finals but came up short against the James-led Lakers.
Despite the Heat’s storied history, few pundits expected them to make a serious run in 2023. The team had a mediocre regular season and squeaked into the playoffs by winning a play-in game. But the group has defied all expectations, and NBA precedent: Only one other No. 8 seed (the 1999 New York Knicks) has ever advanced to the NBA finals.
If the Heat do emerge victorious, don’t expect Arison to claim any credit. “The focus is on me and Pat [Riley], but it’s everybody,” Arison said in 2013 after the Heat won their third championship. “It’s a shame that Pat and [I] get a little bit more focus than some of the other guys, but believe me, they put in a whole lot more work.”