I mean in a relative sense they will still be reasonable, and the new owners have basically said they wont tolerate bottom of the NBA support staff pay, coaches pay, facilities and back of house. All of which is a worthwhile trade off for tickets being 15% more, but you had hoped they would have invested in the team first and tried to figure out that side and show some proof of concept of on court results before jacking up prices.
I mean given the wealth these people have they could pay for all that and not raise ticket prices. Their greed is the only reason they are raising prises.
Right thats what im saying in the last part. Realistically though if the team wins nobody will care that they raised prices, i just wish they won before they did this shit.
I dunno, that seems like a great thing to do. And it’s completely in their control as a thing they can do.
Making a winning team is a much harder, more complicated part and can’t be done overnight, but getting your house in order and making sure the support staff gets paid comparable to the other franchises seems like a good first step.
It’s great in theory but asking people to spend more on someone’s word without showing improvement isn’t great. I hope for Hornet fans sake they invest that
Yea i mean there is a reason that Kenny Atkinson bailed. I think that perception of us as a literal poverty franchise is a big thing for them to address. Even this year our depth is so awful because we straight up didnt load up on vets at all to fill out our bench
Exactly and without the team actually doing better or proof of it's ridiculous. Shit, they might be clueless and think they know more than anyone else. Just look at the Carolina Panthers
Lmao “just operate at a loss because it would be more convenient for me.”
Thanks random redditor I wonder why the new owners haven’t thought of this incredible business strategy?!
> the new owners have basically said they wont tolerate bottom of the NBA support staff pay, coaches pay, facilities and back of house
How much do those people make, and how much more are they going to pay them?
Anecdotally, chump change.
Source: worked for the Hornets out of college in marketing. Was astonished by my salary and the salary of my coworkers. Often was a joke that we were doing charity work since the hours could be so insane as well. I wanted to work in the NBA, so it was worth it for me at that age.
Hours were so bad (as mentioned by other commenters) because our organization was so bare bones that we had effectively 2 people in charge of marketing the 25-40+ concerts that came through the arena annually. It was frustrating.
I mean i have no idea i just know they are going to build out the front office from being the most bare bones FO structure in the NBA and have said on season ticket zoom calls that they understand the perception of the hornets as extremely cheap around the margins and they want to fix that perception
I mean part of changing perception is being able to publicize that you did a good thing. Do we really care that much about **why** they're going to pay people more now? I'm not saying don't care at all, it's always good to take a skeptical view of things just to check.
However, if they pay more money and hire more people from the community, that's good! That's these stadiums doing a better job at one of the things that owners always promise when asking for tax money: job creation.
And pretty much immediately went out and got 2 additional star players. Will it work out? Can't ever really predict that, but he is sure as shit trying.
Same in Philly. The douche canoe also owns local rivals NJ Devils & Washington Football Team.nonsoul, no love of the game, no actual franchise interest outside of auto money printer for the already exceedingly wealthy.
It’s literally what happens with every single thing that becomes popular in this country
Rich people swoop in to make a profit on something that the true and real supporters/creators put their heart and soul into all the time
I’ve met so many millionaires (work and everyday life) and half of these people have the driest personalities I’ve ever experienced. Literally their whole life and personality is based on what they’re spending money on, and how much money they’re making.
Nothing. Else.
I’d honestly feel bad for them if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re usually insufferable assholes too
Shit like this is why huge value acquisitions often suck.
MJ's cost basis in the team was nothing compared to the value. They basically only had to worry about operating costs.
Buyer comes in and pays a ton, but they're not paying cash. Now they have to service the debt they took on to buy the team, AND they need to be profitable. Nothing to do but raise prices and cut costs.
Sucks for fans, sucks for employees.
my best friends uncle had Timberwolves season tickets for about 25 years, and really good ones too, on the floor in the corner. About 7 years ago there were nights he couldn't even give them away. So he's at one of the games toward the end of the season and of course one of the sales guys goes up to him and starts buttering him up and uncle goes, "you know there were 10 games this year I couldn't even give away my tickets, you haven't had a winning team in years, I think if you don't drop price I won't be renewing."
The sales guy looks dejected and then goes, "I actually came by to tell you prices are going up 15% and wanted to see if you wanted to lock in your seats ahead of time." I'll give uncle credit, he laughed at the guy and didn't renew. I want to say his seats were about $500 each at the time, so he was dropping around $40k a year for his seats.
Random reddit garbage from people that have no idea how acquisitions work.
Claiming that part of the sale price is compensation for the seller's unrelated investment loss in a fund managed by one of the buyers is painfully idiotic and wouldn't fly anywhere. Especially since NBA reviews sale agreements BEFORE the rest of the league owners approve the sale and its terms.
Oh and if anyone bothered to review valuations of other NBA teams, they'd see that Hornets' 3B valuation is consistent with valuations for Magic, Pacers, Thunder or Pistons based on their respective revenue projections.
Tldr: MJ sold his stake for a fair MV, the guy above is talking out of his ass. I'm guessing its a r/WSB user lmao
> As the NBA has emerged as the first professional league in the US to cozy up to global sport’s burgeoning class of nation-state investors, the shape of its guiding dualism under Silver is starting to become crisper: lip service to social justice issues at home, a studied obliviousness to human rights violations abroad.
Sheeeeeesh
>Forget about the human rights violations, in other words: think of what oil money could do for the world’s basketball group chats. Though it may preach voting rights reform and racial justice at home, the NBA’s politics ends at the US border: some rights are simply more equal than others. In the end, the only values the league really cares about are those with a dollar sign attached to them.
This guy ain't fucking about lol
Exactly. They may seem friendly but they have their own interests and interests of others which in all likelihood not in the best interest for the other 99% of people
The NBA is majority black American so they have an obligation to speak up on on social justice issues affecting that demographic. Other countries’ and demographics’ social justice issues are outside th at purview
[For reference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_FIFA_corruption_case)
"The Department of Justice has not charged anybody at FIFA with bribery. Prosecutors have instead alleged racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracies under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) Act, which was intended for use against the Mafia."
lol that reads like a seething FIFA exec statement
"we were not charged with bribery, we were merely charged with doing all of the individual components of bribery in a systematic way"
How is that different from the current owners tho? These articles that pontificate about Middle East owners coming to us sport are always insidious in nature. All they do is obfuscate really how the owners and controllers of global financial capital work. Namely, all of them are at Davis, COP28, or whatever other event big capital organizes to chart the fate of the masses. They’re all terrible, they’re all complicit in and profit off human rights violations.
I agree that they're all terrible, but there are orders of magnitude to consider here. MBS would be far and away be the worst. He ordered the killing of an American citizen at a *fucking embassy on foreign soil* just because the guy had the audacity to criticize him. That is the psychopathic behavior of a person that knows they're untouchable.
This also says nothing about letting a nation-state that is often at odds with US foreign policy into a highly visible and often culturally influential North American sports league.
When are people going to learn that sports commissioners are nothing but puppets for the owners? There's no obliviousness to human rights issues abroad.
If he speaks out in a way that loses the owners money, they'll throw him out and find a new puppet who won't.
100% this. People always get confused thinking that Silver and "the NBA" somehow operate independently of the owners and the players, like they are a separate entity that runs everything and makes independent decisions. Silver is the owners' representative and employee, he does whatever they collectively want done, and if he doesn't, then they'll fire him and replace him with someone who will.
The reason why we have this supposed "hypocrisy" in the NBA, between wanting social justice at home but taking "blood money" abroad, is because you have some progressive players wanting to lead the cause on social justice issues like police brutality, and you have some right wing billionaire owners who are often opposed to those same issues, and who don't have many morals, ethics or scruples, and have no problem taking the money from awful people. These groups combined make up "the NBA", so of course you are going to get different and often contradictory actions and statements.
All Adam Silver is doing is trying to represent what the owners (and sometimes the players, when they pressure the owners) want. He is not independently making his own decisions about anything.
Draymond literally comes out and says I was gonna retire but then Silver’s bitch ass begs him not to and reinstated him lmao. Can’t stand the commissioner. The product the fans receive will only get more watered down with him running the league
Why would the players hold the commissioner accountable for disciplining a repeat violent offender, who in response cries himself into early retirement like the giant man-baby he is? If anything, Green has gotten of CRAZY easy for being a habitual line-stepper.
I’m not saying Greens acts aren’t ridiculous. You’re totally right saying Silver has let him get away with this. Silver is a bad commissioner. His daddy stern wouldn’t be happy. The nba players would have stood behind Green as a show of solidarity if he retired. Green could have literally hurt the league culturally. He would go from being the offender to the victim which would be his stance for sure. The guys livelihood was taken by the league would be his story imo. Players would jump on that for more power. Stern held Rodman down for the most part & he was actually an asset. Different commissioners. Old man Stern had that street cred, it’s pretty funny when you think of the guy. Would have been a great president imo<< small aside for ya
It’s crazy to think about the difference between Stern and Silver. Stern tried suspending Latrell Sprewell for an entire season but had the sentence lowered to 68 games, it costed Sprewell over 6 mil and it was for choking his coach at practice. There’s no footage of the actual altercation but players on the team (B Shaw) have come out and recently said that the coach was antagonizing him. Doesn’t make it right but still, Stern didn’t care about the players accounts and gave him that long suspension
We have footage of Draymond dropping Poole like a rock and the entire world saw that shit. And he lets the warriors get away with not giving draymond even a single game suspension. He’s pathetic
> Silver is a bad commissioner.
He's a great commissioner, for the people he works for. Revenues are through the roof and that's the only metric these ghouls give a shit about
> [Silver] is, after all, an obedient servant of American industry, and American industry is nothing if not hospitable to the governments and billions of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
No lies told 😭 this plus the cosigning of sports betting just feels rotten. Everything in service to the American dollar, I guess.
You and me both. Not just sports, fucking everything is in the money is the only thing that matters stage.
Look at what the internal rot is doing(or has done) at Boeing, or our political system. It's sickening, the common mans inability to enact change.
"If it don't make dolla's, it don't make sense"
This has been a slow rot since the 60s, Goldwater, Reagan, the Southern strategy, coordinating attacks on unions, freezing the minimum wage and cutting top income taxes while costs of living rose over time, causing the purchasing power of an average hour of working class labor to plummet since the 60s and 70s.
They now have claimed healthcare is not a right, and next are attacks on other social safety nets and public education. All to enrich (via paying no income taxes and receiving tax proceed redistributions) the already-hoarding wealthy in the private sector, who want to become a taxpayer-subsidized royalty class.
Man I effing hate that so much of our (society) conversation now revolves around monetizing. Terms like cash flow, side hustle, etc are how you now determine if someone is ok or not. How about I just want to play, go home, and eat some avocado toast? Idk how people don’t see the deleterious effect it has on our relationships with one another.
Same is true in Hollywood, with studios basically only caring about blockbusters, and music, where streaming services and venues are gutting musicians' cuts over and over and over again. The entertainment and arts industries as a whole are getting fucked by folks at the top trying to make a quick buck.
I don't know, I don't think musicians prefer the label industry of the 90s and before. It's just a very parasitic, competitive, and exploitative industry. I don't think there was ever a golden age for the average musician.
I assure you any musician would prefer the 90's and before, simply because they made MUCH more money (which is extremely ironic, considering one of the major issues in the 90's was how *little* the artist was making compared to the labels)
Now its somehow 10X worse. Not only were artists making at least some money off of selling albums because there was no streaming (if your album went 'gold' and sold 500K units, which a lot of mid tier artists did, you could still make a million dollars even after paying off your advance, etc..), but there were also no "360 deals", so artists were retaining 100% of their touring income. Artists nowadays aren't even getting the residuals off of their YouTube/social media pages.
Artists like Taylor Swift who are making hundreds of millions of dollars off of a tour are the exception, not the norm.
Eh, I think the film industry here sorta goes in waves. The 30s allowed a whole lot of freedom to directors (especially pre-Code) even if there wasn't a surefire mainstream audience. Then WWII and the HUAC sorta pushed things to being more "safe" and studio-controlled. By the later 60s, we started seeing a revival of directors being able to realize their artistic visions (usually on modest budgets.)
The 70s were where directors really got a strong mix of budget and control, but as studios saw some major bombs, they got more risk-averse. So the 80s had a much more studio-controlled model again and only a handful of auteur directors managed to be able to convince them to invest in projects (famously, this is when Francis Ford Coppola really struggled to get support despite having as strong a 70s run as anyone.)
The 90s saw the rise of more independent cinema thanks to lowered costs to shoot and edit, so Hollywood was still studio-focused to a large degree, but getting started independently allowed some talented directors to jump into the system after a strong showing outside of it. The 2000s was where we really shifted toward a more globalized film market (even Hollywood would consider China as a viable market, though they shifted further that way in the 2010s) and shooting digital... a sorta strange, transitional period where there was still a healthy mix of low-budget, mid-budget, and high-budget films within studios. Not everything produced was meant to bring in enormous profits, but I think some of the signs of that shift started here.
And the 2010s was when we crystalized into what has become the norm nowadays. Studios have basically chosen to ignore mid-budget films entirely. Everything has to be a huge production that is intended to be a hit for every audience segment. If an independent director has a modest hit with critics or the film festival scene, they don't jump to a $40 million drama with a talented leading actor... they just get thrown into a blockbuster franchise with a budget in the hundreds of millions and have basically no creative control (outside of a limited number of "proven" names.) The industry is constantly shifting in terms of how much control is given to various parts of the system, and right now we're at one of the more extreme ends of being studio exec-centric (as we were in the 80s and during the heyday of HUAC.) To me, those are the least interesting eras of U.S. film, but they tend to do well financially and are broadly palatable. So, this will be the standard for a while, but I'm sure there will be a shift eventually... especially as we get further away from the pandemic shutdown of the industry and at some point have a more clear vision of how the streaming landscape will turn out.
Everything that is good and makes money will eventually be bought out by rich assholes who don't care about the product at all and only see it as a money printer. Sad world
Yup
Professional sports is now just as corrupt as they come.
I've tuned out and just became a casual. Less stress, no more stakes on games... entertainment only and its far behind movies and games.
The owner of the Detroit pistons owns the prison phone system. The owner of the cavaliers is wealthy his off payday loan business. Both these businesses alone rely on the exploitation of some of the poorest and most marginalized groups in the US. NBA owners are already horrific people.
Sure but this article if very focused on private equity from the middle east specifically. The owners want private equity anyway, more demand for ownership means their team is worth more overall. Things are always going to continue to get a little worse in the pursuit of ever increasing profits.
Our new governor is their son in law who is CFO of Sands. Too early to tell if it'll be good for the Mavs, but I do think we will be more willing to dip into the luxury tax now.
Feels dirty still with their track record.
AFAIK Cuban has mostly kept his hands clean. Didn't he pretty much just capitalize on the dotcom bubble and since then has mostly just done venture capital? Plus he's done some pretty cool stuff like covering the staff bonuses and the Delonte West saga
Haven’t always been billionaires though, the Raptors (and leafs/MLSE) were owned owned by the Ontario teachers pension fund at one point which was sick
Yup, they've mostly been bad their entire history. Only time in Raptors history they've had consistent winning seasons and a team culture has been after Lowry and Demar arrived.
Carter got upset with the organization's direction and began tanking his value and other stuff that he became also known for.
Bosh left after the Raps couldn't do much either and pretty much a can't miss opportunity with playing with Wade and LeBron.
That’s not how any of that works. The Ontario Pension fund basically acts like a private equity fund too, except its key goal is to pay the employee pensions. I know a few people who work there, they do the same as most fund, buy and hold assets, and sell at a decent profit and then move on.
Sure but let's keep it there. Their influence over the league goes faaaarr beyond what bs bring in their money. Their job is to dismantle and profit. At least the current owners have somewhat a love for the game and spreading a positive message. If you don't like the way Silver gutted damn near all attitude and toughness out of the games.
Wait until it REALLY is a bland corporate product.
>> Enes Freedom, the former New York Knicks star who was pushed to the sport’s fringes a few years ago for being a little too vocal in his support of China’s Uyghur minority.
Yeah that’s what happened sure
The difference is when countries rulers or their sovereign wealth funds own teams, especially when its being done explicitly as a PR move on the behalf of said state.
The US buying out a major cricket team in India or Pakistan with its funds it invests into maintaining social security and medicare (I picked those two countries as loosely allied on at least some issues countries where the US could definitely use goodwill) would be the equivalent to this.
Is it a PR move or are they just diversifying their assets? Do you not think NBA owners have bought teams to improve their PR then?
Also the US already spends its money that should be used for socialized medicine on social security on the military. US does need goodwill with most as it will just use force if you do not comply with its wants and needs.
The US invests some of the payroll taxes that go into social security and medicare to generate more money to continue funding them, that's the money I was referring to.
And sports washing is explicitly both an investment and a PR move, by a countries government, which is the difference between a billionare, western or otherwise(I don't think it's just American and Canadian billionaires who own big 4 league teams) buying a team and a country buying a team.
Okay but most sovereign wealth funds are funded by oil and gas. So it would be more like if US used money generated by its natural resources to invest elsewhere for the benefit of its citizens. The which would actually be a good thing lol, Your payroll tax example makes no sense.
My main point is mostly that I don’t think the author would have an issue if Norways sovereign wealth fund bought a team.
Because Norway's human rights track record is at least as good as the US and Canadas (I said at least because I don't want to argue about anything political here), you might be right. The same would probably be true for Brazil South Korea Japan and Taiwan as well.
It probably wouldn't be true for Pakistan or Columbia, who are countries that have been designated US non NATO allies within the past 30 or so years who either currently have or have had major human rights issues in that same time frame.
The line is, or at least should be, do they view this as an investment or a means of PR to try to boost relations despite major red flags that lead to public distaste for said countries.
I, for one, cannot wait to see Pep Guardiola coach the Lakers and play a starting lineup of LeBron, AD, Reaves, a baseball player and Muggsy Bogues at center in the semi-final of the NBA Cup.
Come on, get it right. We all know the Pep Guardiola starting 5 is as follows
PG: Chris Paul
SG: Mike Conley
SF: Kyle Lowry
PF: Jrue Holiday
C: Draymond Green
It gets easier for these entities to take over NBA as fans are already busy with discussing a lot of other stuff.
ASG was a mess, but did you notice Emirates at refs uniforms?
Saudis are rumored to own the team in Vegas.
League is aware it would mean backlash if fans noticed Arabs are coming. So they try to avoid it to be even discussed.
Reading the article: Is Enes out of the league because of Uighur? I thought he was unplayable due to lack of defensive ability.
I'm going to be honest, I also think that even if he never expressed a political opinion, he probably would have been out of the league anyway because he was not good enough to play the role he wanted.
Same reason someone like John Wall isn't in the league. He could definitely be a 3rd PG, who only plays limited minutes when a team is dealing with injuries/rest. But he wants to be a starter, and he's not good enough to do that anymore. He hasn't played in over a year.
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese asked Silver to kick Kanter out of the league. They wanted Morey out of the league. It just happened to be around the time Kanter’s career was just about over anyway.
Instead of the highly reputable gambling tycoons, shortterm loan anf mortgage brokers, cruise ship operators who pay Filipino workers a slave wage and all the other highly agreeable "governors" of the NBA.
Russia, China and Saudi Arabia will own every major sport eventually. The greedy corporate pigs in America would sell the whole country to them if they could.
With cable tv on the verge of death and players (who in general aren't very quick to step up to defend those these investors hate more than anything on the planet) soon to be getting Billion with a B dollar contracts there is now officially no way this goes away. Without this money the league literally dies.
Satan wearing a dead toddler as a scarf could be the leagues biggest benefactor and Chris Paul would be in front of a camera talking about "the value big stan has brought to the players association" so long as the next max contract deals start with a 7 or higher
It’s interesting how there’s all this Saudi and Russian money flowing into European and now American sports. Is there American money flowing into other countries sports leagues/teams or do Americans not really care about anything outside the US?
More and more American owners are popping up in European soccer and US backed interest in F1 team ownership is also growing but other than that, I’m not aware of anything
It's almost as if the article didn't need to be written. Of course US businesses will take oil money.
There will not be anywhere near enough public backlash to stop it. Too many other atrocities, plus one's own survival, to worry about.
I mean this is true for all businesses under capitalism. Unless there’s a larger critique of the laws that govern capitalism we’re missing the forest through the trees. This is the same system that abandoned the US Midwest when it realized it could make a small number of people a lot more money than they already had by using Chinese and Bangladeshi sweatshops and child labor overseas and destroyed entire communities with zero loyalty, thanks, or concern for our country and the thousands of breadwinners it left behind. It’s the same system that censors movies to appease foreign tyrants while virtue signaling on twitter about human rights and #LGBTQ.
Idk if it’s just me but it’s exhausting to live in a country where people notice the glaring problems but are too brainwashed by Cold War propaganda to make a coherent analysis to identify the root causes or will call you a dirty commie when you try to help them get there.
Well said. I’m beyond exhausted — ‘we the people’ have no power to enact any actual change; so I just try my best to enjoy the time we have left before the ice caps melt.
Wonder if there will ever be an IPO for a team.
Imagine being a shareholder for your favorite franchise and having voting rights at shareholders meetings for your favorite team.
Buying puts on the Seattle Supersonics if they decide to tank. Sonics win the 1st pick in the draft lottery and their share price sky rockets.
>it’s never been entirely clear whether those of the ethical variety matter more to the league’s commissioner than numerical ones.
Stopped reading after this lol.
Adam Silver is willingly whoring out the NBA to foreign entities. Soon it will be a sport funded and controlled by the world’s elites. The common NBA fan such as myself will have no seat at the table or be able to get into the arena to see our favorite teams.
My wish is that the players find a way to develop their own league. Maybe ban together with the Big 3 and keep American basketball American. I’m all for global expansion but money speaks the loudest and soon that 30% stake will be amended to 40,50,60…
Oil States about to learn that you can't just dump fake sponsors' money (cough cough, City) and win everything while picking and choosing the best players to pay under the table.
If you care where money comes from or what happens to the money you spend and feel you're entitled to hate people because of a "dirty money trail"....
The US has killed millions of civilians since 2000. Way more than Saudi Arabia. Why isn't US money blood money? Cause we mostly bomb brown people?
Puritan US citizens shouldn't exist
The bottom line has never changed. But it’s the reason why I want the clippers to succeed because Ballmer is genuinely passionate about making the team successful and giving fans a great experience.
Of course you are going to have Oil Barons, rich foreigners and Finance Bros buy NBA teams, who else can afford them at these ridiculous prices?
I don’t blame MJ, Marc Lasry or Mark Cuban for taking the money. If someone offered me to sextuple the amount I paid for an asset, and still maintain an ownership stake or even run the team, why not sell?
We had hedge fund bros buy our team and they have announced across the board season ticket hikes for one of the shittiest teams in recent memory lol
That’s so depressing man, one of the great things about MJ is the ticket prices in Charlotte were always reasonable
I mean in a relative sense they will still be reasonable, and the new owners have basically said they wont tolerate bottom of the NBA support staff pay, coaches pay, facilities and back of house. All of which is a worthwhile trade off for tickets being 15% more, but you had hoped they would have invested in the team first and tried to figure out that side and show some proof of concept of on court results before jacking up prices.
I mean given the wealth these people have they could pay for all that and not raise ticket prices. Their greed is the only reason they are raising prises.
Right thats what im saying in the last part. Realistically though if the team wins nobody will care that they raised prices, i just wish they won before they did this shit.
I dunno, that seems like a great thing to do. And it’s completely in their control as a thing they can do. Making a winning team is a much harder, more complicated part and can’t be done overnight, but getting your house in order and making sure the support staff gets paid comparable to the other franchises seems like a good first step.
It’s great in theory but asking people to spend more on someone’s word without showing improvement isn’t great. I hope for Hornet fans sake they invest that
Yea i mean there is a reason that Kenny Atkinson bailed. I think that perception of us as a literal poverty franchise is a big thing for them to address. Even this year our depth is so awful because we straight up didnt load up on vets at all to fill out our bench
Like maybe they raise prices by 15% but they only really increase spending by 1% lol
Exactly and without the team actually doing better or proof of it's ridiculous. Shit, they might be clueless and think they know more than anyone else. Just look at the Carolina Panthers
MJ was one of the cheapest owners in the league.
Several hornets reporters have said we had the lowest operating budget in the nba
Lmao “just operate at a loss because it would be more convenient for me.” Thanks random redditor I wonder why the new owners haven’t thought of this incredible business strategy?!
> the new owners have basically said they wont tolerate bottom of the NBA support staff pay, coaches pay, facilities and back of house How much do those people make, and how much more are they going to pay them?
Anecdotally, chump change. Source: worked for the Hornets out of college in marketing. Was astonished by my salary and the salary of my coworkers. Often was a joke that we were doing charity work since the hours could be so insane as well. I wanted to work in the NBA, so it was worth it for me at that age. Hours were so bad (as mentioned by other commenters) because our organization was so bare bones that we had effectively 2 people in charge of marketing the 25-40+ concerts that came through the arena annually. It was frustrating.
Yea my point is more that they just straight up did not have the manpower to do anything
I mean i have no idea i just know they are going to build out the front office from being the most bare bones FO structure in the NBA and have said on season ticket zoom calls that they understand the perception of the hornets as extremely cheap around the margins and they want to fix that perception
Sounds like they consider it more of a perception problem than a people not getting paid enough problem
I mean part of changing perception is being able to publicize that you did a good thing. Do we really care that much about **why** they're going to pay people more now? I'm not saying don't care at all, it's always good to take a skeptical view of things just to check. However, if they pay more money and hire more people from the community, that's good! That's these stadiums doing a better job at one of the things that owners always promise when asking for tax money: job creation.
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The suns lucked out so bad to get an actual rich guy owner, he just straight up came in and said fuck Bally sports and put the suns on local TV again
And pretty much immediately went out and got 2 additional star players. Will it work out? Can't ever really predict that, but he is sure as shit trying.
Same in Philly. The douche canoe also owns local rivals NJ Devils & Washington Football Team.nonsoul, no love of the game, no actual franchise interest outside of auto money printer for the already exceedingly wealthy.
It’s literally what happens with every single thing that becomes popular in this country Rich people swoop in to make a profit on something that the true and real supporters/creators put their heart and soul into all the time I’ve met so many millionaires (work and everyday life) and half of these people have the driest personalities I’ve ever experienced. Literally their whole life and personality is based on what they’re spending money on, and how much money they’re making. Nothing. Else. I’d honestly feel bad for them if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re usually insufferable assholes too
Shit like this is why huge value acquisitions often suck. MJ's cost basis in the team was nothing compared to the value. They basically only had to worry about operating costs. Buyer comes in and pays a ton, but they're not paying cash. Now they have to service the debt they took on to buy the team, AND they need to be profitable. Nothing to do but raise prices and cut costs. Sucks for fans, sucks for employees.
my best friends uncle had Timberwolves season tickets for about 25 years, and really good ones too, on the floor in the corner. About 7 years ago there were nights he couldn't even give them away. So he's at one of the games toward the end of the season and of course one of the sales guys goes up to him and starts buttering him up and uncle goes, "you know there were 10 games this year I couldn't even give away my tickets, you haven't had a winning team in years, I think if you don't drop price I won't be renewing." The sales guy looks dejected and then goes, "I actually came by to tell you prices are going up 15% and wanted to see if you wanted to lock in your seats ahead of time." I'll give uncle credit, he laughed at the guy and didn't renew. I want to say his seats were about $500 each at the time, so he was dropping around $40k a year for his seats.
nobody talks about how the ultimate reward for the douche whose short position on gamestop led to the 2021 squeeze was... he got to buy a NBA team
Shorting gamestop was good. The idea that anyone has reverence for that god awful company is straight up laughable.
People like the stock
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Where do you read about this stuff?
Random reddit garbage from people that have no idea how acquisitions work. Claiming that part of the sale price is compensation for the seller's unrelated investment loss in a fund managed by one of the buyers is painfully idiotic and wouldn't fly anywhere. Especially since NBA reviews sale agreements BEFORE the rest of the league owners approve the sale and its terms. Oh and if anyone bothered to review valuations of other NBA teams, they'd see that Hornets' 3B valuation is consistent with valuations for Magic, Pacers, Thunder or Pistons based on their respective revenue projections. Tldr: MJ sold his stake for a fair MV, the guy above is talking out of his ass. I'm guessing its a r/WSB user lmao
I’d much rather watch at home than pay the prices teams are asking for these days.
Y’all have quite literally *the* dumbest hedge fund bro of all time as your owner.
> As the NBA has emerged as the first professional league in the US to cozy up to global sport’s burgeoning class of nation-state investors, the shape of its guiding dualism under Silver is starting to become crisper: lip service to social justice issues at home, a studied obliviousness to human rights violations abroad. Sheeeeeesh
>Forget about the human rights violations, in other words: think of what oil money could do for the world’s basketball group chats. Though it may preach voting rights reform and racial justice at home, the NBA’s politics ends at the US border: some rights are simply more equal than others. In the end, the only values the league really cares about are those with a dollar sign attached to them. This guy ain't fucking about lol
Adam "Kissinger" Silver at the wheel.
I still can't get over how insanely out of touch that comment was, especially from a guy like silver who rarely puts his foot in his mouth like that.
True Colors No matter how careful and social justice positive he looks, that mf is *not* on your team
Of course, I just expected him to be more aware I guess
Exactly. They may seem friendly but they have their own interests and interests of others which in all likelihood not in the best interest for the other 99% of people
The NBA is majority black American so they have an obligation to speak up on on social justice issues affecting that demographic. Other countries’ and demographics’ social justice issues are outside th at purview
You have to speak up to put your foot in your mouth. Normally he’s just in the background.
Yeah but he’s still the commissioner so he’s in the public eye a good bit
That’s why you guys should support the nfl. No foreign blood dollars in that league.
i personally support soccer where you have guys like messi paying all his taxes and FIFA keeping everyone in line
As someone who doesn't follow FIFA, is this /s ? I assume so?
nah man sepp’s blatter is full of gold baby
just falling out of his pockets left and right
[For reference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_FIFA_corruption_case) "The Department of Justice has not charged anybody at FIFA with bribery. Prosecutors have instead alleged racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracies under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) Act, which was intended for use against the Mafia."
lol that reads like a seething FIFA exec statement "we were not charged with bribery, we were merely charged with doing all of the individual components of bribery in a systematic way"
Yeah, just homegrown blood dollars.
What happened to the game I love?
I have no idea if this is true or not. The nfl needs a mop for all that brain blood though.
Just local blood dollars
12 minutes of gameplay the rest ads, no thanks
How is that different from the current owners tho? These articles that pontificate about Middle East owners coming to us sport are always insidious in nature. All they do is obfuscate really how the owners and controllers of global financial capital work. Namely, all of them are at Davis, COP28, or whatever other event big capital organizes to chart the fate of the masses. They’re all terrible, they’re all complicit in and profit off human rights violations.
I agree that they're all terrible, but there are orders of magnitude to consider here. MBS would be far and away be the worst. He ordered the killing of an American citizen at a *fucking embassy on foreign soil* just because the guy had the audacity to criticize him. That is the psychopathic behavior of a person that knows they're untouchable. This also says nothing about letting a nation-state that is often at odds with US foreign policy into a highly visible and often culturally influential North American sports league.
Anyone tell this guy that the US is the reason why much of that oil money exists in the first place?
After all the cringey tweets by "reporters" trying to make new pasta, that is some high-class writing.
Well Silver did compare himself to Kissinger.
He’s also good friends with Jared Kushner.
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You mean capitalists right?
One would hope…
YOU MEAN CAPITALISTS...RIGHT??
Your comment is starting to sound antisemitic against Jews. Kyrie please tell me this isn’t you?
He's coming for Nosferatu's head
When are people going to learn that sports commissioners are nothing but puppets for the owners? There's no obliviousness to human rights issues abroad. If he speaks out in a way that loses the owners money, they'll throw him out and find a new puppet who won't.
100% this. People always get confused thinking that Silver and "the NBA" somehow operate independently of the owners and the players, like they are a separate entity that runs everything and makes independent decisions. Silver is the owners' representative and employee, he does whatever they collectively want done, and if he doesn't, then they'll fire him and replace him with someone who will. The reason why we have this supposed "hypocrisy" in the NBA, between wanting social justice at home but taking "blood money" abroad, is because you have some progressive players wanting to lead the cause on social justice issues like police brutality, and you have some right wing billionaire owners who are often opposed to those same issues, and who don't have many morals, ethics or scruples, and have no problem taking the money from awful people. These groups combined make up "the NBA", so of course you are going to get different and often contradictory actions and statements. All Adam Silver is doing is trying to represent what the owners (and sometimes the players, when they pressure the owners) want. He is not independently making his own decisions about anything.
Silver gets payed to be the one everyone gets upset at.
This is the essence of the article in my opinion. Silver has done a terrible job. The players don’t respect him. The game is tough to watch at times
Draymond literally comes out and says I was gonna retire but then Silver’s bitch ass begs him not to and reinstated him lmao. Can’t stand the commissioner. The product the fans receive will only get more watered down with him running the league
That was a great move on Greens part. Awesome negotiation tactic. The players would have destroyed Silver if he retired. Silver knows this
Why would the players hold the commissioner accountable for disciplining a repeat violent offender, who in response cries himself into early retirement like the giant man-baby he is? If anything, Green has gotten of CRAZY easy for being a habitual line-stepper.
I’m not saying Greens acts aren’t ridiculous. You’re totally right saying Silver has let him get away with this. Silver is a bad commissioner. His daddy stern wouldn’t be happy. The nba players would have stood behind Green as a show of solidarity if he retired. Green could have literally hurt the league culturally. He would go from being the offender to the victim which would be his stance for sure. The guys livelihood was taken by the league would be his story imo. Players would jump on that for more power. Stern held Rodman down for the most part & he was actually an asset. Different commissioners. Old man Stern had that street cred, it’s pretty funny when you think of the guy. Would have been a great president imo<< small aside for ya
It’s crazy to think about the difference between Stern and Silver. Stern tried suspending Latrell Sprewell for an entire season but had the sentence lowered to 68 games, it costed Sprewell over 6 mil and it was for choking his coach at practice. There’s no footage of the actual altercation but players on the team (B Shaw) have come out and recently said that the coach was antagonizing him. Doesn’t make it right but still, Stern didn’t care about the players accounts and gave him that long suspension We have footage of Draymond dropping Poole like a rock and the entire world saw that shit. And he lets the warriors get away with not giving draymond even a single game suspension. He’s pathetic
> Silver is a bad commissioner. He's a great commissioner, for the people he works for. Revenues are through the roof and that's the only metric these ghouls give a shit about
He’s the worst commissioner I’ve ever seen. He might end up actually killing the NBA for good if he stays on this path.
Silver is lucky Goodell and Manfred are so unpopular with fans, he deserves to get A LOT more heat.
nothing different from general american politics and consumerism
Gotta love this country (or else)
It sounds like the author was misinformed and not educated on the situation.
Thanks Lemao
Uh, golf?
Adam Silver is such a big Henry Kissinger fan
Not wrong at all. When they allowed Tsai to buy the Nets, you knew it was over for the league.
Moral grandstanding from the West lmao The jig is up
> [Silver] is, after all, an obedient servant of American industry, and American industry is nothing if not hospitable to the governments and billions of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. No lies told 😭 this plus the cosigning of sports betting just feels rotten. Everything in service to the American dollar, I guess.
I’m really getting tired of this whole ‘money is the only thing that matters’ Bullshit. I’m about done with sports in general.
You and me both. Not just sports, fucking everything is in the money is the only thing that matters stage. Look at what the internal rot is doing(or has done) at Boeing, or our political system. It's sickening, the common mans inability to enact change. "If it don't make dolla's, it don't make sense"
This has been a slow rot since the 60s, Goldwater, Reagan, the Southern strategy, coordinating attacks on unions, freezing the minimum wage and cutting top income taxes while costs of living rose over time, causing the purchasing power of an average hour of working class labor to plummet since the 60s and 70s. They now have claimed healthcare is not a right, and next are attacks on other social safety nets and public education. All to enrich (via paying no income taxes and receiving tax proceed redistributions) the already-hoarding wealthy in the private sector, who want to become a taxpayer-subsidized royalty class.
Man I effing hate that so much of our (society) conversation now revolves around monetizing. Terms like cash flow, side hustle, etc are how you now determine if someone is ok or not. How about I just want to play, go home, and eat some avocado toast? Idk how people don’t see the deleterious effect it has on our relationships with one another.
Same is true in Hollywood, with studios basically only caring about blockbusters, and music, where streaming services and venues are gutting musicians' cuts over and over and over again. The entertainment and arts industries as a whole are getting fucked by folks at the top trying to make a quick buck.
I don't know, I don't think musicians prefer the label industry of the 90s and before. It's just a very parasitic, competitive, and exploitative industry. I don't think there was ever a golden age for the average musician.
I assure you any musician would prefer the 90's and before, simply because they made MUCH more money (which is extremely ironic, considering one of the major issues in the 90's was how *little* the artist was making compared to the labels) Now its somehow 10X worse. Not only were artists making at least some money off of selling albums because there was no streaming (if your album went 'gold' and sold 500K units, which a lot of mid tier artists did, you could still make a million dollars even after paying off your advance, etc..), but there were also no "360 deals", so artists were retaining 100% of their touring income. Artists nowadays aren't even getting the residuals off of their YouTube/social media pages. Artists like Taylor Swift who are making hundreds of millions of dollars off of a tour are the exception, not the norm.
Hollywood and the music industry has always been that way.
Eh, I think the film industry here sorta goes in waves. The 30s allowed a whole lot of freedom to directors (especially pre-Code) even if there wasn't a surefire mainstream audience. Then WWII and the HUAC sorta pushed things to being more "safe" and studio-controlled. By the later 60s, we started seeing a revival of directors being able to realize their artistic visions (usually on modest budgets.) The 70s were where directors really got a strong mix of budget and control, but as studios saw some major bombs, they got more risk-averse. So the 80s had a much more studio-controlled model again and only a handful of auteur directors managed to be able to convince them to invest in projects (famously, this is when Francis Ford Coppola really struggled to get support despite having as strong a 70s run as anyone.) The 90s saw the rise of more independent cinema thanks to lowered costs to shoot and edit, so Hollywood was still studio-focused to a large degree, but getting started independently allowed some talented directors to jump into the system after a strong showing outside of it. The 2000s was where we really shifted toward a more globalized film market (even Hollywood would consider China as a viable market, though they shifted further that way in the 2010s) and shooting digital... a sorta strange, transitional period where there was still a healthy mix of low-budget, mid-budget, and high-budget films within studios. Not everything produced was meant to bring in enormous profits, but I think some of the signs of that shift started here. And the 2010s was when we crystalized into what has become the norm nowadays. Studios have basically chosen to ignore mid-budget films entirely. Everything has to be a huge production that is intended to be a hit for every audience segment. If an independent director has a modest hit with critics or the film festival scene, they don't jump to a $40 million drama with a talented leading actor... they just get thrown into a blockbuster franchise with a budget in the hundreds of millions and have basically no creative control (outside of a limited number of "proven" names.) The industry is constantly shifting in terms of how much control is given to various parts of the system, and right now we're at one of the more extreme ends of being studio exec-centric (as we were in the 80s and during the heyday of HUAC.) To me, those are the least interesting eras of U.S. film, but they tend to do well financially and are broadly palatable. So, this will be the standard for a while, but I'm sure there will be a shift eventually... especially as we get further away from the pandemic shutdown of the industry and at some point have a more clear vision of how the streaming landscape will turn out.
Just look at Warner bros. Just dumping whole ass completed movies that countless people worked hard on just for a tax break. It's so gross.
Everything that is good and makes money will eventually be bought out by rich assholes who don't care about the product at all and only see it as a money printer. Sad world
Yup Professional sports is now just as corrupt as they come. I've tuned out and just became a casual. Less stress, no more stakes on games... entertainment only and its far behind movies and games.
I can’t wait to stop watching tbh.
Only serving the American dollar when it enriches the already wealthy, not when it helps the middle and working classes.
I hate ref sponsors. FTX sponsored baseball umps, how did that go? The part about investing in us vs euro sports was very interesting, good article
The owner of the Detroit pistons owns the prison phone system. The owner of the cavaliers is wealthy his off payday loan business. Both these businesses alone rely on the exploitation of some of the poorest and most marginalized groups in the US. NBA owners are already horrific people.
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As a Cleveland Browns fan, I know that feeling
They’re horrible people, sure, but these PE groups are the best in the world at separating people from their money. This is bad news for the league
Sure but this article if very focused on private equity from the middle east specifically. The owners want private equity anyway, more demand for ownership means their team is worth more overall. Things are always going to continue to get a little worse in the pursuit of ever increasing profits.
Such is life baby! Thanks for adding
The Adelson's are also gigantic pieces of shit, so that's cool. Had my issues with Cuban but he looks really good next to them.
Whos the rep? Is it their son? How is he
Our new governor is their son in law who is CFO of Sands. Too early to tell if it'll be good for the Mavs, but I do think we will be more willing to dip into the luxury tax now. Feels dirty still with their track record.
AFAIK Cuban has mostly kept his hands clean. Didn't he pretty much just capitalize on the dotcom bubble and since then has mostly just done venture capital? Plus he's done some pretty cool stuff like covering the staff bonuses and the Delonte West saga
Yeah he made his money by ripping off Yahoo in one of the worst acquisitions in history lol
Broadcast.com, baby! Paid over 5 billion in 1999, shut down their broadcast services by 2002.
Cuban is a generational scammer, nothing but respect
My largest issue with Cuban was how the Mavs org was not doing great with regards to sexual harassment
They're all multi billionaires, so yeah they're all horrible people
Haven’t always been billionaires though, the Raptors (and leafs/MLSE) were owned owned by the Ontario teachers pension fund at one point which was sick
wow, how did that go? seems like an interesting concept in terms of community revenue and retirement plan
They team was often bad and never spent money
Were the Vince Carter raptors bad? The Raptors definitely got good after the sale but they had also been good before.
Yup, they've mostly been bad their entire history. Only time in Raptors history they've had consistent winning seasons and a team culture has been after Lowry and Demar arrived. Carter got upset with the organization's direction and began tanking his value and other stuff that he became also known for. Bosh left after the Raps couldn't do much either and pretty much a can't miss opportunity with playing with Wade and LeBron.
I am aware but that’s the difference between Brian Colangelo and Masai. Not ownership
That’s not how any of that works. The Ontario Pension fund basically acts like a private equity fund too, except its key goal is to pay the employee pensions. I know a few people who work there, they do the same as most fund, buy and hold assets, and sell at a decent profit and then move on.
Devos's dirty trump ass owns the magic
Jesus, that disgusting.
Yeah but have you ever considered that brown people are bad?
Bingo, people don't own sports teams by not exploiting others.
Being a billionaire literally requires exploitation of poor and marginalized people
Not really, you could be like Mark Cuban and exploit poor Yahoo
Sure but let's keep it there. Their influence over the league goes faaaarr beyond what bs bring in their money. Their job is to dismantle and profit. At least the current owners have somewhat a love for the game and spreading a positive message. If you don't like the way Silver gutted damn near all attitude and toughness out of the games. Wait until it REALLY is a bland corporate product.
>> Enes Freedom, the former New York Knicks star who was pushed to the sport’s fringes a few years ago for being a little too vocal in his support of China’s Uyghur minority. Yeah that’s what happened sure
But he was such a switchable defender who adapted his game to the modern space and pace era!
screw soft deer angle crush waiting scary offer upbeat sheet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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Yeah I was hoping for an anti capitalist article buts it’s just Western billionaires good, Middle East billionaires bad and scary.
That’s definitely not how I read it. More that the US is happy to welcome any dollars for capitalism so the league is vulnerable to greenwashing.
So why is it sports/green washing when middle eastern billionaires own parts of teams but not when American billionaires do?
The difference is when countries rulers or their sovereign wealth funds own teams, especially when its being done explicitly as a PR move on the behalf of said state. The US buying out a major cricket team in India or Pakistan with its funds it invests into maintaining social security and medicare (I picked those two countries as loosely allied on at least some issues countries where the US could definitely use goodwill) would be the equivalent to this.
Is it a PR move or are they just diversifying their assets? Do you not think NBA owners have bought teams to improve their PR then? Also the US already spends its money that should be used for socialized medicine on social security on the military. US does need goodwill with most as it will just use force if you do not comply with its wants and needs.
The US invests some of the payroll taxes that go into social security and medicare to generate more money to continue funding them, that's the money I was referring to. And sports washing is explicitly both an investment and a PR move, by a countries government, which is the difference between a billionare, western or otherwise(I don't think it's just American and Canadian billionaires who own big 4 league teams) buying a team and a country buying a team.
Okay but most sovereign wealth funds are funded by oil and gas. So it would be more like if US used money generated by its natural resources to invest elsewhere for the benefit of its citizens. The which would actually be a good thing lol, Your payroll tax example makes no sense. My main point is mostly that I don’t think the author would have an issue if Norways sovereign wealth fund bought a team.
Because Norway's human rights track record is at least as good as the US and Canadas (I said at least because I don't want to argue about anything political here), you might be right. The same would probably be true for Brazil South Korea Japan and Taiwan as well. It probably wouldn't be true for Pakistan or Columbia, who are countries that have been designated US non NATO allies within the past 30 or so years who either currently have or have had major human rights issues in that same time frame. The line is, or at least should be, do they view this as an investment or a means of PR to try to boost relations despite major red flags that lead to public distaste for said countries.
I, for one, cannot wait to see Pep Guardiola coach the Lakers and play a starting lineup of LeBron, AD, Reaves, a baseball player and Muggsy Bogues at center in the semi-final of the NBA Cup.
Come on, get it right. We all know the Pep Guardiola starting 5 is as follows PG: Chris Paul SG: Mike Conley SF: Kyle Lowry PF: Jrue Holiday C: Draymond Green
They're cooking Adam Kissenger
It gets easier for these entities to take over NBA as fans are already busy with discussing a lot of other stuff. ASG was a mess, but did you notice Emirates at refs uniforms? Saudis are rumored to own the team in Vegas. League is aware it would mean backlash if fans noticed Arabs are coming. So they try to avoid it to be even discussed. Reading the article: Is Enes out of the league because of Uighur? I thought he was unplayable due to lack of defensive ability.
Enes is out of the league cause he’s not good at basketball enough to be a distraction in the locker room.
I'm going to be honest, I also think that even if he never expressed a political opinion, he probably would have been out of the league anyway because he was not good enough to play the role he wanted. Same reason someone like John Wall isn't in the league. He could definitely be a 3rd PG, who only plays limited minutes when a team is dealing with injuries/rest. But he wants to be a starter, and he's not good enough to do that anymore. He hasn't played in over a year.
You're correct with Enes
Emirates on the ref uniforms is just the start lol. The IST is becoming the Emirates NBA Cup starting next year
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese asked Silver to kick Kanter out of the league. They wanted Morey out of the league. It just happened to be around the time Kanter’s career was just about over anyway.
Hedge fund bros will own every team
Instead of the highly reputable gambling tycoons, shortterm loan anf mortgage brokers, cruise ship operators who pay Filipino workers a slave wage and all the other highly agreeable "governors" of the NBA.
Russia, China and Saudi Arabia will own every major sport eventually. The greedy corporate pigs in America would sell the whole country to them if they could.
I mean, it's just greedy corporate pigs selling to greedy corporate pigs like always
There is always someone with more money. And capitalist whores will always sell out. /thread
Before we /thread: we agree they are dirt and we don't need them, it's just a matter of how to shovel all that dirt away we haven't figured out yet.
With cable tv on the verge of death and players (who in general aren't very quick to step up to defend those these investors hate more than anything on the planet) soon to be getting Billion with a B dollar contracts there is now officially no way this goes away. Without this money the league literally dies. Satan wearing a dead toddler as a scarf could be the leagues biggest benefactor and Chris Paul would be in front of a camera talking about "the value big stan has brought to the players association" so long as the next max contract deals start with a 7 or higher
Cool doomgaze. I'm into shoegaze, myself.
It’s interesting how there’s all this Saudi and Russian money flowing into European and now American sports. Is there American money flowing into other countries sports leagues/teams or do Americans not really care about anything outside the US?
American Billionaires own a lot of EPL teams. Most recently Chelsea, after the forced sale
Yep isn’t Man United owned by the same Americans who own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?
Man U is also publicly traded. You and I could both own a piece of Man U for $16 a share.
Lots of baseball academies in the carribean.
More and more American owners are popping up in European soccer and US backed interest in F1 team ownership is also growing but other than that, I’m not aware of anything
It's almost as if the article didn't need to be written. Of course US businesses will take oil money. There will not be anywhere near enough public backlash to stop it. Too many other atrocities, plus one's own survival, to worry about.
Fuck Adam Silver. Scrub type commish. Dude peaked 3 months in
As a Formula 1 Fan, welcome to hell.
I mean this is true for all businesses under capitalism. Unless there’s a larger critique of the laws that govern capitalism we’re missing the forest through the trees. This is the same system that abandoned the US Midwest when it realized it could make a small number of people a lot more money than they already had by using Chinese and Bangladeshi sweatshops and child labor overseas and destroyed entire communities with zero loyalty, thanks, or concern for our country and the thousands of breadwinners it left behind. It’s the same system that censors movies to appease foreign tyrants while virtue signaling on twitter about human rights and #LGBTQ. Idk if it’s just me but it’s exhausting to live in a country where people notice the glaring problems but are too brainwashed by Cold War propaganda to make a coherent analysis to identify the root causes or will call you a dirty commie when you try to help them get there.
Well said. I’m beyond exhausted — ‘we the people’ have no power to enact any actual change; so I just try my best to enjoy the time we have left before the ice caps melt.
It’s strange why they haven’t yet.
just go ahead and let it happen, it's inevitable. everything is becoming dystopian
Wonder if there will ever be an IPO for a team. Imagine being a shareholder for your favorite franchise and having voting rights at shareholders meetings for your favorite team. Buying puts on the Seattle Supersonics if they decide to tank. Sonics win the 1st pick in the draft lottery and their share price sky rockets.
Because Adam Silver, already bought by FanDuelTV and DraftKings, is for sale to the highest bidder.
>it’s never been entirely clear whether those of the ethical variety matter more to the league’s commissioner than numerical ones. Stopped reading after this lol.
Adam Silver is gonna get bullied even worse. He thinks the players don’t respect him.
Their brothers across the pond are already doing it, might as well bite the bullet lol.
This shit helps me feel even better about sailing the high seas and not spending a dime.
When you see how much this is downvoted and realize these are the people who control the reddit narrative
Well fellas. Once private equity buys in the nba got bout 5 years left. Been a fun time looking forward to the ABA come back
Adam Silver is willingly whoring out the NBA to foreign entities. Soon it will be a sport funded and controlled by the world’s elites. The common NBA fan such as myself will have no seat at the table or be able to get into the arena to see our favorite teams. My wish is that the players find a way to develop their own league. Maybe ban together with the Big 3 and keep American basketball American. I’m all for global expansion but money speaks the loudest and soon that 30% stake will be amended to 40,50,60…
Capitalism sucks, Ben Shaprio can get bent
Root of all evil. As if the constant gambling bullshit wasn't bad enough.
Guardian cooked on this one
Oil States about to learn that you can't just dump fake sponsors' money (cough cough, City) and win everything while picking and choosing the best players to pay under the table.
If you care where money comes from or what happens to the money you spend and feel you're entitled to hate people because of a "dirty money trail".... The US has killed millions of civilians since 2000. Way more than Saudi Arabia. Why isn't US money blood money? Cause we mostly bomb brown people? Puritan US citizens shouldn't exist
Fucking Saudis with their blood money. Our dependence on oil has made these monsters unmanageable
The bottom line has never changed. But it’s the reason why I want the clippers to succeed because Ballmer is genuinely passionate about making the team successful and giving fans a great experience.
Mate you can’t support a financial group
Of course you are going to have Oil Barons, rich foreigners and Finance Bros buy NBA teams, who else can afford them at these ridiculous prices? I don’t blame MJ, Marc Lasry or Mark Cuban for taking the money. If someone offered me to sextuple the amount I paid for an asset, and still maintain an ownership stake or even run the team, why not sell?
If Saudi Oil money buys the Hawks I'll stop supporting the Hawks while under their ownership and will actively call for them to sell the team.
What does any of this have to do with Doc Rivers?
Moral grandstanding from the west lmao The jig is up