The Detroit Pistons announced Friday that billionaire California investor Tom Gores has agreed to buy the struggling NBA franchise, ending a drawn-out sale by longtime owner Karen Davidson that stretched back before the season.

The tentative deal, which also includes The Palace of Auburn Hills and DTE Energy Music Theatre, must be approved by the NBA. Terms were not disclosed, but the deal is expected to close by June 30.

Gores, the chairman and CEO of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Platinum Equity, also is buying the operating rights to the Meadow Brook Music Festival.

Davidson became the owner after her husband died in March 2009.

"We are pleased to welcome Tom Gores as the new owner of the Detroit Pistons and Palace Sports and Entertainment," she said in a statement. "Just as my late husband, Bill Davidson, was the face of the Pistons, I am confident that Tom will bring the same energy, dedication and love to this organization. I look forward to seeing Tom follow in Bill's footsteps, and carry on his legacy."

Gores founded Platinum Equity in 1995, and in its 2010 list of the 400 richest people in America, Forbes put him in a tie for 153rd with a net worth of $2.4 billion. Gores, 46, is a Flint native and has a degree from Michigan State University, though he now lives in California with his wife and three children.

"I am very proud to have this opportunity to be part of such a tremendous organization," Gores said. "I know it's been a long process, and I appreciate the patience and support of the Detroit community. I have been impressed with the Davidson family and the way it has protected and built such a storied franchise.

"I grew up here, I am glad to be back and I am very excited about all the possibilities looking forward."

Davidson had hoped to reach a deal to sell the team before the season. The Pistons were negotiating terms with Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch around that time, but those talks fell apart. Gores was among the other suitors last year, along with The Postolos Group president George Postolos.

"We are very pleased that the Pistons will continue to call the Detroit area home," Ilitch said in a statement. "Even though we were only engaged in the sale process for a short period of time last year, I was truly amazed by all of the kind words and tremendous support we received from fans and the entire community."

The Pistons play in suburban Auburn Hills, in Oakland County. County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said it's a sale with "many complex parts," referring to the team, The Palace and other entertainment venues.

"I wasn't surprised to see long negotiations," he said. "I am delighted with Gores' ownership. He's made it clear he's keeping the team in Auburn Hills in Oakland County, and there's no question where my loyalties are."

Gores' private equity firm made a popular splash a year ago in the community of Cadillac, 200 miles northwest of Detroit. Platinum Equity essentially bought the bankrupt Four Winns boat manufacturing company in a move officials said saved or created hundreds of jobs.

"I am completely convinced that unless Mr. Gores had bought the company and his particular interest in Michigan that the facility would close down, and they would have moved all their manufacturing out of Michigan," said Paul Brown, vice president of capital markets for the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

The Pistons' sale, if approved, will end the long and storied ownership of the team by the Davidson family.

NBA Commissioner David Stern released a statement through a league spokesman.

"We are pleased that Karen Davidson has found a worthy successor for ownership of the Pistons and we are looking forward to introducing Tom Gores to the advisory-finance committee at next Thursday's meeting," Stern said.

Spurned in his bids to buy the NFL's Detroit Lions and NHL's Red Wings, Bill Davidson became majority owner of the Pistons in 1974.

He acquired the team from the late Fred Zollner, the man who founded the team in Fort Wayne, Ind., in the 1940s. The franchise moved to Detroit in 1957.

Davidson bought Roundball One for the Pistons, making them one of the first pro sports team with their own airplane. He built a state-of-the-art practice facility for the club and was among the first to put luxury boxes closer to the court in arenas.

The Palace was built for $90 million -- all of it Davidson's money -- and won instant acclaim as a sports and entertainment venue when it opened in 1988. The Pistons won three championships when Davidson was the owner, including back-to-back titles in 1989-90.

Alan Ostfield, Pistons president, said he believed Gores was committed to keeping the team at the Palace.

"We're now in a downward cycle and he's aware of that," Ostfield said. "From a non-basketball perspective, he thinks he's buying a business on the upswing."

Gores, who coaches youth sports and serves on the board of trustees for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will have a challenge returning the Pistons to prominence.

In 2009, Forbes valued the Pistons at $479 million, but that figure was down to $360 million this year.

Detroit won the NBA championship in 2004, part of a six-year streak in which the team reached at least the conference finals, but the Pistons went 27-55 last season and haven't been any better in 2010-11.

Detroit was 27-51 and in 11th place in the Eastern Conference heading into Friday night's game against the Milwaukee Bucks. Empty seats have been common at The Palace this season, and that, coupled with feuding between coaches and players, have only added to a sense of gloom.

Coach John Kuester, who's had a rough second season, did not speculate about his future, saying only that he was happy for the Davidson family and "excited Mr. Gores will bring a lot of excitement to the organization."

Ben Wallace, one of the key players during Detroit's run to the 2004 NBA title, echoed his coach.

"I'm happy [Karen Davidson] was able to sell the team and happy there's a new owner who loves Detroit and loves Detroit basketball," Wallace said. "He's going to try to change this around and get us back on track."

General Manager Joe Dumars did not comment and Pistons media relations staff said Gores would not be attending Friday's game.

One of the franchise's all-time greats, Dave Bing, is now mayor of Detroit. Bing said Friday he was "pleased that there appears to be some finality to the ownership question" of a team he would like to see move downtown.

"While relocating the team to Detroit may not be an option or priority, they are always welcome back home to Detroit," Bing said.

Unable to decide how to divvy up $9 billion a year, NFL owners and players put the country's most popular sport in limbo Friday by breaking off labor negotiations hours before their contract expired.

The union decertified, and 10 players, including MVP quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, sued the owners in federal court, putting the NFL on a path to its first work stoppage since 1987.

"We are locked out," union president and former player Kevin Mawae said in a text message to The Associated Press. "We were informed today that players are no longer welcome at team facilities."

Despite two extensions to the collective bargaining agreement during 16 days of talks overseen by a federal mediator -- and previous months of stop-and-start negotiating -- the sides could not agree on a new deal. The league said it hadn't decided as of Friday evening whether to lock out the players, who, meanwhile, went to court to request an injunction to block such a move.

"The parties have not achieved an overall agreement, nor have they been able to resolve the strongly held competing positions that separated them on core issues," mediator George Cohen said. "No useful purpose would be served by requesting the parties to continue the mediation process at this time."

By dissolving and announcing it no longer represents the players in collective bargaining, the union cleared the way for class-action lawsuits against the NFL, which opted out of the CBA in 2008. The antitrust suit -- forever to be known as Brady et al vs. National Football League et al -- attacked the league's policies on the draft, salary cap and free-agent restrictions such as franchise-player tags.

Invoking the Sherman Act, a federal antitrust statute from 1890 that limits monopolies and restrictions on commerce, the players are seeking triple the amount of damages they've incurred. That means the stakes here could be in the hundreds of millions.

It could take a month for there to be a ruling on the union's injunction request, and antitrust judgments should take longer.

The court fights eventually could threaten the 2011 season for a league whose past two Super Bowls rank as the two most-watched programs in U.S. television history. The last time NFL games were lost to a work stoppage came when the players struck 24 years ago, leading to games with replacement players.

The CBA originally was due to expire last week, then was extended twice, in hopes that the sides could find common ground on the key issues: how to divide more than $9 billion in annual revenues, and how much financial information the league would be willing to turn over.

In the end, it appeared the sides were about $185 million per year apart on how much money owners would get up front during the new collective bargaining agreement -- well down from the $1 billion that separated them for so long. The union refused to budge any further without getting detailed financial information for each team.

"I would dare any one of you to pull out any economic indicator that would suggest that the National Football League is falling on hard times," NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said. "The last 14 days, the National Football League has said, 'Trust us.' But when it came time for verification, they told us it was none of our business."

It all set the stage for a lengthy court fight that eventually could threaten the 2011 season. The last work stoppage came when the players struck 24 years ago, leading to games with replacement players.

"We remain committed to collective bargaining and the federal mediation process until an agreement is reached, and call on the union to return to negotiations immediately," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a letter to fans posted on NFL.com Friday evening. "NFL players, clubs, and fans want an agreement. The only place it can be reached is at the bargaining table."

Even though the NFL is early in its offseason -- and the regular season is six months away -- this is hardly a complete down time. Free agency usually begins in March, and there are hundreds of free agents now in limbo. Also this month, under a regular schedule, offseason workouts would start, and the owners meet to establish rules changes.

Plus, March and early April are when many sponsors and corporate partners renew their deals with the NFL, part of why the league says hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue are going to be lost now.

"This obviously is a very disappointing day for all of us. I've been here for the better part of two weeks now, and essentially ... the union's position on the core economic issues has not changed one iota," New York Giants owner John Mara said. "One thing that became painfully apparent to me during this period was that their objective was to go the litigation route."

Just after the players' union decertified, Brady, Manning, Drew Brees and seven other players filed suit against the NFL in U.S. District Court, seeking class-action status. They also filed a request for an injunction that would keep the NFL and the teams from engaging in a lockout.

The players allege in the lawsuit that the organizations conspired to deny the players' ability to market their services, "through a patently unlawful group boycott and price-fixing arrangement or, in the alternative, a unilaterally imposed set of anticompetitive restrictions on player movement, free agency, and competitive market freedom."

The collective bargaining agreement with the league expires at the end of Friday.

The case was assigned Friday afternoon to U.S. District judge Patrick Schiltz, not his colleague David Doty, who has overseen NFL labor matters since the early 1990s and has several times ruled in favor of the players. The lawsuit still could end up in front of Doty. New cases are randomly assigned to judges when they're filed, but they are sometimes reassigned to others on the bench with expertise in a certain issue.

Doty, who helped engineer the initial agreement between owners and players that opened the doors to free agency, issued a ruling last week that backed the NFLPA in a dispute over $4 billion in TV revenue that players argue was illegally collected by the owners as a war chest to survive a work stoppage.

The league has tried in the past to remove Doty from the case, alleging bias toward the players.

Also involved in bringing the lawsuit: San Diego receiver Vincent Jackson, Minnesota linebacker Ben Leber and defensive end Brian Robison, New England guard Logan Mankins,New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora, Kansas City linebacker Mike Vrabel, and Texas A&M linebacker Von Miller, who is entered in this year's draft.

The NFLPA also decertified in 1989. Antitrust lawsuits by players led to a new CBA in 1993 that included free agency, and the union formed again that year.

"I will tell you this: Any business where two partners don't trust each other, any business where one party says, 'You need to do X, Y and Z because I told you,' is a business that is not only not run well, it is a business that can never be as successful as it can be," Smith said.

At 4:45 p.m., Smith and the union's negotiators left. About 15 minutes later, the union decertified.

"No one is happy where we are now," NFL lead negotiator Jeff Pash said. "I think we know where the commitment was. It was a commitment to litigate all along."

A league statement added: "The union left a very good deal on the table."

The public acrimony that arose Thursday night seeped into Friday.

After Pash spoke, outside union lawyer Jim Quinn said: "I hate to say this, but he has not told the truth to our players or our fans. He has, in a word, lied to them about what happened today and what's happened over the last two weeks and the last two years."

The NFL said its offer included splitting the difference in the dispute over how much money owners should be given off the top of the league's revenues. Under the expiring CBA, the owners immediately got about $1 billion before dividing the remainder with the players; the owners originally were asking to roughly double that by getting an additional $1 billion up front.

The NFL released the rest of what it described as a summary of its proposal to the union:

• An entry-level compensation system based on the union's "rookie cap" proposal, rather than the wage scale proposed by the clubs. Under the NFL proposal, players drafted in rounds 2-7 would be paid the same or more than they are paid today. Savings from the first round would be reallocated to veteran players and benefits.

• A guarantee of up to $1 million of a player's salary for the contract year after his injury the first time that the clubs have offered a standard multiyear injury guarantee.

• Immediate implementation of changes to promote player health and safety by: reducing the offseason program by five weeks, reducing OTAs (organized team activities) from 14 to 10 and limiting on-field practice time and contact; limiting full-contact practices in the preseason and regular season; and increasing number of days off for players.

• Commit that any change to an 18-game season will be made only by agreement and that the 2011 and 2012 seasons will be played under the current 16-game format.

• Financial disclosure of audited league and club profitability information that is not even shared with the NFL clubs. That was proposed by the NFL this week, and rejected by the union, which began insisting in May 2009 for a complete look at the books of all 32 clubs.

• Owner funding of $82 million in 2011-12 to support additional benefits to former players, which would increase retirement benefits for more than 2,000 former players by nearly 60 percent.

• Offer current players the opportunity to remain in the player medical plan for life.

• Third-party arbitration for appeals in the drug and steroid programs.

• Improvements in the Mackey plan (designed for players suffering from dementia and other brain-related problems), disability plan and degree-completion bonus program.

• A per-club cash minimum spend of 90 percent of the salary cap over three seasons.

The players' union immediately shut down its websites, NFLPA.org and NFLPlayers.com. A search for NFLPA.org yielded this message: "Error 404: Football Not Found. Please be patient as we work on resolving this. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

When Goodell, Pash, and owners Jerry Jones of the Cowboys, Jerry Richardson of the Panthers and John Mara of the Giants emerged from Cohen's office shortly after 5 p.m., they sounded hopeful that negotiations would soon resume.

"We are prepared to come back here any time the union is ready to come back here," Pash said.