re: Was the Babe Ruth trade the Swindle of the Century?

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93,642 views|Jan 7, 2014,10:59 am

The NBA Finally Puts An End To The Greatest Sports Deal Of All Time

Monte BurkeContributor

SportsMoney

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Daniel and Ozzie Silna

The New York Times is reporting that the National Basketball Association has finally reached an agreement with Ozzie and Daniel Silna, two brothers who owned the Spirits of St. Louis, a former American Basketball Association franchise through which they had negotiated what became known as “the greatest sports deal of all time.” With help from their lawyer, Donald Schupak, the Silnas had, since 1976, received a portion of the NBA’s television rights fees which added up to an estimated $300 million. The NBA has long wanted to somehow end the Silnas sweet deal. And it looks like, with an upfront payment of a cool $500 million or so, the NBA will finally get its wish.

The reason the NBA is acting on this now? The league’s media rights deals expire after the 2015-16 season, and it does not want any of that money–expected to be the NBA’s biggest payday yet–going the Silnas way.
I wrote about the Silnas amazing story back in May 2011. The short version: The Silna brothers were, at the time, the owners of the St. Louis Spirits of the ABA when the NBA decided to absorb the rival league. During the merger, the NBA agreed to take on four of the ABA teams–the New York (then New Jersey and now Brooklyn) Nets, San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers and Denver Nuggets.

That left three ABA teams out of the mix. When the Virginia Squires folded, the ABA and NBA had just two teams left to deal with: The Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits. The ABA offered the franchises $3 million each to fold. John Y. Brown, owner of the Colonels, took the deal. (Then the president and majority owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Brown would go on to become the governor of Kentucky.) The Silnas and Schupak turned that offer down.
Instead, they negotiated their own deal. ABA officials, wanting to tidy up the merger, agreed to the following: the Silnas would be paid for any Spirits players drafted by NBA teams, an amount that came to roughly $2.2 million. On top of that, the Silnas would also get a 1/7th share of each of the four former ABA teams’ NBA “visual media” rights (which amounted to 57% of one full share).

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Herschel Walker Trade?

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