Dan DeVos to Orlando Sentinel: Family has no intention to sell Orlando Magic

The Orlando Magic’s ownership was put in some flux after Rich DeVos passed away earlier this month. But the DeVos family has no intention of selling.

The Orlando Magic will wear a special black stripe on their jerseys this year with the initials “RDV” to honor Rich DeVos, the team’s longtime owner who passed away earlier this month. It is the same stripe they wore to honor his wife Helen DeVos, who passed away just before the season started last year.

The team is in a state of mourning.

Rich DeVos has owned the family since 1991, just three seasons into the Magic’s existence. He came to Orlando with his family and fell in love with the city. After flirting with selling the team in the early 2000s, the DeVos family helped make the Magic a staple in the community. That change of heart as DeVos described it then likely saved the Magic from moving out of Orlando.

The question of what the DeVos family would do with the team was one of the last questions to ask in the immediate days after Rich DeVos’ death. But the question lingered as there would any time there is change at the very top of an organization — even if it comes from tragic circumstances.

The Magic will prepare to play their first season in 25-plus years without Rich DeVos this season. But there appears to be no shakeup or change coming to the team’s ownership structure.

Dan DeVos was at the Orlando Magic’s media day on Monday and told Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel the family has no desire to sell the team.

The Devos family has prepared for the eventuality of their patriarch’s death for several years. The team is owned jointly by Rich DeVos and each of his children. It is truly a family business in that way.

Dan DeVos has taken over as the team’s chairman and representative at the board of governors meetings since 2011. He has been much more involved in the day-to-day decisions of the team than his father since that time.

In that sense then, not much will change with the Magic ownership structure even with the patriarch’s death. It is not something that will change the Magic organizationally.

DeVos was 92 years old and had two major heart surgeries. There were clearly plans in place for when he would die. And part of the way ownership was split among his family was done for estate planning purposes.

There was plenty of idle speculation that Rich DeVos’ death would lead to a shakeup with the Magic organizationally. That is inevitable whenever a person of DeVos’ magnitude passes away and the team is left without its longtime leader and owner.

But the family has made its intentions clear over and over again. The team will not change hands or change very much in the wake of this news. The DeVos family plans to keep the team in the family and continue its steady and consistent ownership.