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| My heroes |
The NBA will pay two brothers
$500 million to end a deal that required the league to give the former
ABA owners an annual share of the league's television revenue. As part of the NBA-ABA merger in
1976, Ozzie and Daniel Silna accepted a share of the NBA's "visual
media" rights in exchange for folding their ABA franchise, the Spirits
of St. Louis. The deal was to last "in perpetuity." With the growth of
the NBA and its television revenue, the brothers were receiving 1.9% of the revenue in recent years, or about $17.7 million annually.
This is one of the most entertaining stories in the history of sports, and certainly the greatest boondoggle. The NBA wanted the Silnas to fold the Spirits because they were big-time money losers. The Silnas have now made almost $300 million off this deal since 1976, which would make the Spirits of St. Louis one of the most profitable of all NBA franchises over that time – without ever playing a game. And the money the Spirits owners received all these years was a share of the broadcast revenue from the four former ABA clubs who had abandoned the league in their rush to join the NBA. So not only did the Silnas make a killing, but they also got to thumb their noses at the clubs who were quick to jump ship and abandon them. The NBA was willing to cut this enormous cheque because it would like to believe its broadcast rights are going to continue to grow, and three of the four franchises ponying up this coin every year – Denver, Indiana, and San Antonio – are smallerish franchises who were tired of forking over $4+ million a year to some rival from three decades ago that had bamboozled the NBA and taken the league for a ride.
The fourth of those former ABA franchises which has been paying up all this time, the Brooklyn Nets, don’t have quite so much trouble doing so, of course. But the Nets also flirted with moving to St. Louis at one point. The situation was so pathetic at the Meadowlands in the late 1980s-early 1990s that Michael Jordan played before 80 sellouts in 82 games one season, the only two non-sellouts being Nets home games. It was also about this time in their inglourious history that they considered changing their name to the Swamp Dragons. The league discouraged this courtship with St. Louis and ‘worked with’ the franchise to find yet another local owner at the time – ‘local’ meaning anyone who would keep that turkey of a franchise mired in the Meadowlands morass, because hey, it’s New York, and so long as you’re in the New York area you’re relevant even if you suck. The league also basically nixed the idea of the then Vancouver Grizzlies relocating to St. Louis, whose original NBA franchise had moved to Atlanta and, for several decades, was one of the largest and most logical markets in the U.S. without an NBA franchise. But so long as the NBA was paying out millions to a St. Louis franchise that didn’t exist, there was ZERO chance an actual existing franchise would relocate there. (Although calling both the New Jersey Nets and Vancouver Grizzlies existing would’ve been charitable.)
Now that the Silnas are being paid off and the little Napoleon in the NBA commissioner’s office is retiring, St. Louis could conceivably have an NBA franchise again down the road. It would be unlikely, given that the market has slipped in size and status and the fact that the Blues have first dibs on the arena, but NBA franchises are currently toiling away in far dumber locales than that.
I love the game of basketball, but I also make no secret of my contempt for David Stern and his joke of an operation. For sticking it to the NBA all these years, the Silnas are my Heroes of the Week for this week and pretty much every week since 1976.
