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Get to know an NBA owner!

Maybe we could just agree that the US is a land of great opportunity, but not unprecedented opportunity, and move on...
 
r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t said:
I'm not anti- (or pro-) owners, or players. I do think the knee-jerk public support of the owners is ridiculous. These guys are a joke. Six of the ten profiled in this thread essentially inherited their wealth. Kroenke married his. Prokhorov and DeVos are scammers, and McClendon probably is too.

I guess my "take" would be that this is simply a case of ownership using leverage to extract money from the players, thus improving their bottom-line a bit. What can the players do? The owners see the opportunity to make another buck, and they're taking it. Like Hot Rod used to say, it is "like shooting fish in a barrel".
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Fair enough, my support for the owners has nothing to do with believing them to be deserving of more money or any of that sort of thing, The way I see it, the more concessions the owners can get, the better position and more leverage the FO will have in making and changing our team. That's all. I couldn't care less about their fortunes and what not.
 
billyshelby said:
If the majority of owners were making good money, they would have already caved. No business owner is going to sacrifice the profits of doing business for the losses of not doing business unless there aren't profits to doing business...
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Re-read the profiles in this thread. All of these guys doing substantial business outside of their teams. In fact, for most of them their teams are just a sideshow... like a pimple on the arse of their business empires. What difference is it to them if they are "making good money" or even breaking even? The whole thing has to make money. They are running this money grab to improve their bottom-line. Why? Because they can, and they can afford it.
 
r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t said:
Re-read the profiles in this thread. All of these guys doing substantial business outside of their teams. In fact, for most of them their teams are just a sideshow... like a pimple on the arse of their business empires. What difference is it to them if they are "making good money" or even breaking even? The whole thing has to make money. They are running this money grab to improve their bottom-line. Why? Because they can, and they can afford it.
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So you start by explaining that the cost of owning an NBA team is nothing to these guys and they don't need to make money off the team by actually playing games, which means that they can sit out the season because the whole thing has to make money, which is why they are running this "money grab," all because they can afford to do it like that.

I don't follow.
 
Gameface said:
So you start by explaining that the cost of owning an NBA team is nothing to these guys and they don't need to make money off the team by actually playing games, which means that they can sit out the season because the whole thing has to make money, which is why they are running this "money grab," all because they can afford to do it like that.

I don't follow.
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Sorry, when I wrote "the whole thing", I meant all of their businesses combined. The chance to lockout (squeeze) the players doesn't come along very often. They are taking advantage of it, and using the public for leverage with their sob stories about losing money.
 
The new owner of the Philadelphia 76ers is Joshua Harris. Mister Harris made his $1.45 billion fortune as a partner at Apollo Global Management. The previous owner of the 76ers was Ed Snider. Mister Snider paid $130 million to become owner of the team in 1996. He sold the team to Mister Harris just days ago for $280 million, more than doubling his original investment. His $150 million profit, while owning the team for just 15 years, is particularly amazing considering that the NBA is "losing money", according to commissioner David Stern.
 
The new owner of the Atlanta Hawks is Alex Meruelo. Mister Meruelo has a net worth of $14.5 billion, among the highest of all NBA owners. He has reportedly agreed to pay more than $300 million to become owner of the Hawks. The previous owner was the group called "Atlanta Spirit". Atlanta Spirit purchased the Hawks in 2004 for $208 million. Their investment in the team accrued at least $100 million in just seven years.
 
The profits in the previous two examples are only about 7% annualy. There are many investments that have done much better than that over the same period of time. If the owners really are losing money every year (and their willingness to cancel games strongly suggests that they are) they have a more reasonable case than I previously believed.
 
r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t said:
The new owner of the Philadelphia 76ers is Joshua Harris. Mister Harris made his $1.45 billion fortune as a partner at Apollo Global Management. The previous owner of the 76ers was Ed Snider. Mister Snider paid $130 million to become owner of the team in 1996. He sold the team to Mister Harris just days ago for $280 million, more than doubling his original investment. His $150 million profit, while owning the team for just 15 years, is particularly amazing considering that the NBA is "losing money", according to commissioner David Stern.
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....and his REAL claim to fame is drafting then signing the first NBA player to put a jailhouse tat...ON HIS NECK!
 
r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t said:
The new owner of the Atlanta Hawks is Alex Meruelo. Mister Meruelo has a net worth of $14.5 billion, among the highest of all NBA owners. He has reportedly agreed to pay more than $300 million to become owner of the Hawks. The previous owner was the group called "Atlanta Spirit". Atlanta Spirit purchased the Hawks in 2004 for $208 million. Their investment in the team accrued at least $100 million in just seven years.
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....his greatest claim to fame is.....signing a couple of inept knot-heads to the most RIDICULOUS long term contracts in NBA history!!!
 
One more, for the road: Dan Gilbert is the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Mister Gilbert is the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans, the largest online mortgage retailer in America. He made his estimated $1.1 billion fortune during the housing bubble, that eventually burst in 2007. The subsequent decline of the housing market has resulted in the worst US recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mister Gilbert contributed to a $240,000 loan to scandal-ridden Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick when he was released from prison after serving six months on obstruction of justice charges. He said, in a statement, he "wanted to help care for his family until he could get back on his feet." Mister Kilpatrick violated parole soon thereafter, and was returned to prison.
 
r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t said:
One more, for the road: Dan Gilbert is the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Mister Gilbert is the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans, the largest online mortgage retailer in America. He made his estimated $1.1 billion fortune during the housing bubble, that eventually burst in 2007. The subsequent decline of the housing market has resulted in the worst US recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mister Gilbert contributed to a $240,000 loan to scandal-ridden Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick when he was released from prison after serving six months on obstruction of justice charges. He said, in a statement, he "wanted to help care for his family until he could get back on his feet." Mister Kilpatrick violated parole soon thereafter, and was returned to prison.
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Are you saying this guy actually tried to help a fellow human being? What a jerk!
 
r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t said:
One more, for the road: Dan Gilbert is the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Mister Gilbert is the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans, the largest online mortgage retailer in America. He made his estimated $1.1 billion fortune during the housing bubble, that eventually burst in 2007. The subsequent decline of the housing market has resulted in the worst US recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mister Gilbert contributed to a $240,000 loan to scandal-ridden Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick when he was released from prison after serving six months on obstruction of justice charges. He said, in a statement, he "wanted to help care for his family until he could get back on his feet." Mister Kilpatrick violated parole soon thereafter, and was returned to prison.
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This is the same guy that is one of the loudest of the hawks in the owners camp that previously had this to say about owning a team:

Dan Gilbert said:
To me, NBA franchises are like pieces of art. There are only 30 of them. They aren't always on the market, especially a franchise that would have been such a natural fit. … If you just looked at the Cavaliers in terms of revenues, profits and balance sheets — and you paid this amount for it — people would say 'You're insane! You're nuts.' But if you look at all the tentacles, the impact on our other venues, it makes tremendous sense. We have now opened a Cleveland office [of Quicken Loans] and that's tremendously successful. Our employees love it that we're associated with the Cavs and can come to games — that helps us attract and keep better people. There are a lot of nonprofit things that can be done with pro sports. It brings an unbelievable amount of excitement.
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To quote the piece in Grantland I took this from*: What's the matter Danny? Don't like your Rembrandt anymore?

*https://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7021031/the-nets-nba-economics
 
Joe Bagadonuts said:
The profits in the previous two examples are only about 7% annualy. There are many investments that have done much better than that over the same period of time. If the owners really are losing money every year (and their willingness to cancel games strongly suggests that they are) they have a more reasonable case than I previously believed.
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I agree. If they are only making 7% off their investment annually, plus losses from running the team. What makes that, a 5% gain? As far as investments go, that is very poor, especially such a large investment. It is not wise to have $300 million tied up in ONE "stock" especially when that "stock" is doing nothing to make itself better, but continuing on a path that will yield such poor returns.

The owners need to fix basketball. The good news is, if the owners fix basketball properly (which means "screwing" the players), it should make the small market teams actually have a chance to win a title. So, GO OWNERS!!!!
 
You know, the value of these franchises aren't guaranteed to appreciate.

They could move the other direction as well. Will the players give back their money if that happens?
 
I wish the hardest workers, responsible, most dedicated in the gym, love the game players were heading up the negotiations. No elitists .. just real dudes .. not showing off, just being fair and desiring to get on the court and play ball.
 
green said:
I agree. If they are only making 7% off their investment annually, plus losses from running the team. What makes that, a 5% gain? As far as investments go, that is very poor, especially such a large investment. It is not wise to have $300 million tied up in ONE "stock" especially when that "stock" is doing nothing to make itself better, but continuing on a path that will yield such poor returns.

The owners need to fix basketball. The good news is, if the owners fix basketball properly (which means "screwing" the players), it should make the small market teams actually have a chance to win a title. So, GO OWNERS!!!!
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1) over the last 7 years increasing an investment by ~50% is a pretty good return. For comparison the SP500 is up 8% over that period. The return on investment of an nba franchise is admittedly not that high. But its an essentially risk-free investment, so for that alone its worth it. Also, you're not accounting for all the favorable treatment given to the outside businesses of owners in their host cities.

2) market-size is irrelevant in the nba - the only thing that matters is having a SUPERSTAR. In this collective bargaining agreement we have

5 Lakers titles
4 Spurs titles
1 celtics title
1 pistons title
1 heat title
1 mavericks title

what do all those teams have in common? all but one had a superstar offensive player, and all of them had elite defensive 7 footers. Only half were large markets.

What if we look at all the finalists and not just the title winners?

7 lakers appearances
4 spurs appearances
2 celtics appearances
2 pistons appearances
2 mavericks appearance
2 heat appearances
2 nets appearances
1 pacers appearance
1 76ers appearance
1 cavalier apperance
1 magic appearance
1 knicks appearance

again every team had either a top 10 player or a very large center. most teams had both. market size really doesn't matter in the nba*

*market-size doesn't matter but market-desirability does. Phoenix and Miami are not big markets, but players want to play there.
 
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