Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures

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      The Nets Could Have Had It All With Dr. J

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      As great as today’s Nets look with their starry threesome, they could have dominated the N.B.A. much, much sooner — in the 1970s, behind Julius Erving.Kevin Loughery and Julius Erving share a city, Atlanta, a golf club and an emotional connection to a basketball allegory told inharmoniously in three distinct parts — what was, what might have been and what now has become.In other words: the history of the Nets, from Long Island to New Jersey to Brooklyn.Inevitably, wistfully, Loughery’s conversation with Erving centers on Part 2, the potentially grand Nassau Coliseum stage that was dismantled just before the curtain was to rise on the N.B.A. debut of Erving and the Nets.“I always talk to him about what we might have done,” Loughery, who coached the developing legend of Dr. J. to two A.B.A. titles and stayed on to guide the remains of the Nets after the financially troubled franchise sold the rights to Erving, the world’s most electrifying player, to the Philadelphia 76ers on the eve of the 1976-77 season.Loughery added in a telephone interview: “What haunts you is that when we had him in the A.B.A. he was the best he ever was. The last A.B.A. series against Denver, when we won that second title, that was the best series I’ve ever seen anyone play.”That’s quite a mouthful, coming from an 81-year-old basketball lifer who once shared a backcourt in Baltimore with Earl Monroe and who coached seven pro teams, including one in Chicago that unveiled a rookie named Jordan.There is also an evolving symmetry to this ancient history. Forty-five years after their infamous selling of the rights to the Doctor, the Nets finally have become what they were poised to be in 1976: the sport’s sexiest team, with an opportunity to be its best.Kevin Loughery, who coached Erving in the A.B.A., said Dr. J “was the best he ever was” before he even got to the N.B.A.Associated PressAlas, Brooklyn’s assemblage of a superstar-laden lineup has occurred during a time of fan-less arenas only now welcoming crowds still enfeebled by the menace of Covid-19. Selling out America with Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving for now remains the dream it was for Loughery and Erving.On the eve of that 1976-77 season, Erving was holding out for a contract upgrade and the league office was holding its breath after scheduling the Nets for a nationally televised opener against Golden State in Oakland. The arena sold out weeks in advance, but the sale of Erving’s rights to Philadelphia two days before the game by the owner Roy Boe — and after the Knicks absurdly let themselves be outbid for a homegrown player who would have altered their history — persuaded CBS to show a late-night movie instead.Erving was electrifying in the A.B.A., where he won two championships with the Nets.Associated PressHoping to make a splash, or at least save face, the Nets had acquired Nate Archibald, an explosive, New York-bred guard who was known as Tiny, one month earlier. Archibald had a bigger annual salary than Erving, which stiffened Erving’s resolve, despite his not wishing to leave Long Island, where he’d grown up.“It’s tough to play Abraham Lincoln and George Washington in the frontcourt,” Loughery memorably told reporters when the news reached California that Erving was gone. He and his players were gutted, even if they came to realize that Boe’s inability to pay millions both for league entry and to the Knicks for territorial rights limited his options to one.Still, Loughery has for decades wondered: what if? “I don’t know if we would have been a championship team, but we would have been very, very competitive,” he said.Rod Thorn, who returned to Loughery’s side that season as an assistant after a one-year absence to coach the Spirits of St. Louis, offered a more certain revisionist take.“History in New York basketball would have been changed,” he said. “We played and won exhibitions against N.B.A. teams. Every building was sold out for Doc. We also would have had a couple years’ window to add more pieces.”Instead, Archibald played 34 games for the Nets and blew out an Achilles’ tendon. The team moved to Piscataway, N.J., to play in a college gym. Loughery and Thorn shared long drives from their homes on Long Island, epitomizing the detour into a competitive ditch.The Nets and the 76ers had more peculiar chapters to co-author. Two years later, they played what may have been the weirdest game ever, when the N.B.A. upheld a Nets protest of technical fouls — the referee Richie Powers called three each on Loughery and Bernard King, one more than the limit for ejection.The game was replayed more than four months later from a point in the third quarter, but before then the teams made a four-player trade. In the final box score of the suspended game — won by the 76ers — three of the players appeared on both sides.Thorn later made what until further notice remains the most beneficial deal in the Nets’ N.B.A. history. As team president in 2001, he acquired Jason Kidd, who inspired successive runs to the finals. Thorn left New Jersey in 2010, joining the 76ers’ front office, essentially trading places with Billy King.Jason Kidd turned the Nets into an Eastern Conference powerhouse in the early 2000s.Ray Stubblebine/ReutersBilly King took over as Nets general manager in July 2010.Bill Kostroun/Associated PressThat put King at the Nets’ helm as they finished out their New Jersey run in April 2012 by hosting, of course, the 76ers.Now Thorn watches from afar as Sean Marks, who succeeded King with the Nets, plays personnel chess, building on his big three by reeling in the former All-Stars Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge with the ease of signing escapees of the G League.Skeptics worry about Durant’s health, Irving’s reliability and their sensitivity to criticism. Loughery has reservations about the perimeter defense of Harden and Irving. But Thorn has come to believe that the Nets will be fine as long as they remain in Harden’s soft hands.“I’ve changed my opinion of him,” he said. “He dominated the ball so much in Houston, but he’s been a fantastic playmaker for them.”As fate would have it, the Nets are challenging for Eastern Conference supremacy with the 76ers, along with Milwaukee. On Wednesday, they go to Philadelphia to confront a formidable group coached by a man nicknamed Doc (Rivers). On the Nets’ plus side, their owner, Joseph Tsai, is rich beyond belief. Lincoln and Washington didn’t make the cut. More

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      Daniel Snyder to Buy Out Other Owners of Washington NFL Team

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      The league is expected to approve a measure that will allow Daniel Snyder to buy total control of the team.Seeking to move past a year of tumult over the team’s former name and a sexual harassment investigation of its front office, the owner of the Washington Football Team is close to a deal with fellow league owners that will give him greater control over the organization while he pays a fine for executives’ misconduct.The arrangement effectively resolves two pressing issues: a protracted boardroom fight over ownership that spilled out into the open and an investigation by the N.F.L. into allegations that women who worked for the team were sexually harassed by staff members, a number of whom have already been dismissed.The league owners next week are expected to approve a special waiver that would allow the owner, Daniel Snyder, to take on an additional $450 million in debt in order to buy out minority partners he has been battling, according to a copy of the resolution reviewed by The New York Times. The N.F.L.’s finance committee last week unanimously recommended that the full cohort of owners waive the limit of debt a buyer can take on to buy into a team. Snyder will have to repay the money by March 2028.Support for Snyder’s purchase comes as the N.F.L.’s investigation into sexual harassment claims made against former Washington Football Team executives concludes. In the coming days, Commissioner Roger Goodell may address the findings collected by Beth Wilkinson, a Washington-based lawyer whom Snyder hired last summer to investigate after several Washington Post articles reported widespread sexual harassment of women who worked for the team over a 15-year span. The N.F.L. took over her investigation from Snyder.Snyder’s pending purchase of his partners’ shares and the end of Wilkinson’s investigation into the team’s internal culture come after a chaotic year for the franchise. The team decided to drop its nickname and logo last July after years of criticism from some Native American activists who considered it a racist slur and threats from major corporations that they would end sponsorships if the name stayed. The Washington Football Team is still reviewing possible new names and logos.Since then, Washington sought to rectify its 3-13 record from the 2019 season by firing numerous front office executives and hiring a new coach, Ron Rivera, at the beginning of 2020. In August, Rivera learned he had cancer and began treatments for it, but he coached the full season, leading the team back to the playoffs for the first time in five years.To try to revive the club’s tattered image, Snyder has hired several new executives, including Jason Wright, the N.F.L.’s first Black team president. A coed dance team will perform on game days, replacing the cheerleading program, which had been overseen by one of the since-fired executives who had been accused of sexual harassment.Snyder will pay $875 million for the 40.5 percent of the team owned by Dwight Schar, Robert Rothman and Frederick Smith, ensuring his total control of the franchise he bought a majority stake of in 1999.When the purchase is completed, which is expected shortly, Snyder and his family will hold 100 percent of the club and end a very public fight with Rothman, Schar and Smith, who bought into the team in 2003. Last spring, the three men banded together to try to sell their stakes after Snyder declined to pay them annual dividends as a way to conserve the team’s cash with the 2020 N.F.L. season still in doubt because of the coronavirus pandemic.In August, the private disagreement over distributed dividends turned into corporate warfare that spilled into public view. Snyder all but accused Schar of orchestrating a smear campaign against him by contending in court documents that Schar facilitated the spread of negative information about him to the media with the hope that bad press would ultimately force Snyder to sell his majority stake. In that situation, the trio’s shares would have garnered a higher price if the team was sold as a whole.The three minority owners — Schar, a real estate developer; Rothman, an asset manager; and Smith, the chairman of FedEx — turned against Snyder, accusing him in federal court of bad-faith dealing and malfeasance.Even as Wilkinson was brought in last July to conduct an investigation into team executives’ conduct toward female employees, the N.F.L. had hired in late June former Attorney General Loretta Lynch to untangle the squabble among the Washington Football Team’s owners.The Washington Post reported that two women had accused Snyder, 56, in separate episodes of harassment dating to 2004 — which he denied — and that he reached a financial settlement in 2009 with a female former executive who had accused him of sexual misconduct during a trip on a private jet.Now, with the investigation into his and other team employees’ conduct wrapping up and the conclusion of his boardroom battle in sight, Snyder can focus on another major task: deciding how to rebrand the football team whose future is entirely under his control. 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      Atlanta Dream, WNBA Team Co-owned by Kelly Loeffler, Is Sold

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAtlanta Dream Are Sold After Players’ Revolt Against Kelly LoefflerRenee Montgomery, a former Dream guard, is part of a group buying the W.N.B.A. team from Loeffler, the former Georgia senator who upset players by attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.Over the summer, the Atlanta Dream’s players criticized former Senator Kelly Loeffler, who co-owned the team, over comments she made about the Black Lives Matter movement.Credit…Octavio Jones for The New York TimesSopan Deb and Feb. 26, 2021Updated 5:50 p.m. ETThe Atlanta Dream, the W.N.B.A. team whose players revolted against a co-owner, Kelly Loeffler, and campaigned against her in a Georgia Senate race she lost, are being sold to an ownership group led by two real estate executives and a former star player for the team.Larry Gottesdiener, the chairman of the real estate equity firm Northland; Suzanne Abair, the firm’s chief operating officer; and the former W.N.B.A. star Renee Montgomery are the leading figures in the new ownership group.The team had long been on the market, but talks to sell ramped up in recent months. The Dream had been in the spotlight over the past year after its players, most of whom are Black, publicly denounced Loeffler, a Republican, for attacking the Black Lives Matter movement. The players’ union called for Loeffler’s ouster, and players across the league campaigned for the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who was running for her Senate seat.Their efforts — including wearing “Vote Warnock” shirts before games — were seen as helping Warnock become the leading Democrat in the multicandidate race. When Warnock beat Loeffler in a runoff election last month, he became the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South, and his victory helped Democrats secure control of the Senate.Gottesdiener, who will be the majority owner of the Dream, hailed the players’ activism.“I think the Dream has always been an Atlanta asset, but they really solidified their place in the city, in the community and in history last year,” Gottesdiener told reporters on a conference call Friday afternoon. “That’s why I said this team, in this city, in this time. The women of the Dream showed incredible character last year. They were brave in speaking out for what they believed in and we want to solidify that connection.”The clash between Loeffler and her team’s players came after she criticized the W.N.B.A. for dedicating last year’s season to social justice. Despite the blowback, Loeffler repeatedly said that she would not sell her stake in the team. She attributed the criticism of her to “cancel culture,” though her efforts to sell the franchise were essentially an open secret.Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said over the summer that the league would not force Loeffler to sell her stake, but also said that her comments did not align with the league’s progressive values.On Friday, Engelbert said that the sale marked “a new beginning for the Atlanta Dream organization.” She also said that in her conversations with Gottesdiener and Abair, they discussed “what this league represents, the importance of having an ownership group who carries the values of the W and what we stand for.”“I was pleased with what I heard from them,” Engelbert said.The group declined to release terms of the sale or the ownership breakdown, other than Gottesdiener’s majority stake.Terri Jackson, the executive director of the players’ union, also released a statement lauding the sale. “May it send a strong reminder that the players of the W are bigger than basketball, and that together they stand for equity, justice, diversity, inclusion, fairness and respect,” she said.Gottesdiener, who had previously been linked to trying to bring an N.H.L. team to Hartford, Conn., more than a decade ago, cited the team’s activism as a draw for him to invest. He said that he first looked at purchasing a W.N.B.A. team in 2002. He has also frequently written checks to Democratic politicians.“The players of the Dream refused to just shut up and dribble,” he said. “They found their collective voice and the world listened. We are inspired by these brave women.”Mary Brock, who had owned a majority of the team since 2011, stayed silent about Loeffler’s Black Lives Matter comments and the backlash from players over the summer. In January, LeBron James, the N.B.A. star, suggested that he might put together an ownership group for the team. Other athletes, like the former N.B.A. star Baron Davis and Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts, had also been linked to sale talks.For Montgomery, a former Dream star who opted out of the 2019-20 season to focus on social justice efforts and recently announced her retirement, this is a homecoming. She said she still felt as if she had the ability to take the court in the W.N.B.A., but had opted instead to become the first former W.N.B.A. player to take an ownership stake in a W.N.B.A. team.“Larry and Suzanne have just been incredible already making it known how they feel,” Montgomery said. “He’s already mentioned women empowerment, social justice. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, that’s my life!’”Loeffler wrote a letter to the W.N.B.A. commissioner last year saying, “I adamantly oppose the Black Lives Matter political movement, which has advocated for the defunding of police.”Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesMontgomery, who is also a studio analyst for Atlanta Hawks games on behalf of Fox Sports, described her role as one of a community ambassador and as someone who would be involved in the marketing of the Dream, both in promoting the team in Atlanta and in luring prospective free agents.“It’s hard to turn down coming to the Dream,” Montgomery said. “That’s my goal.”Loeffler’s relationship with the team she owned was not always so contentious. A high school basketball player, she would sit courtside at games and invite players to her home. She may have had different politics than many of the players — though she had donated to Democrats in the past — but the team still did things like celebrate L.G.B.T.Q. Pride nights and honor Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic candidate for governor.“I thought the Dream was so cool,” one of the team’s former players, Layshia Clarendon, told ESPN. “That’s the first team I played for that was that liberal.”But the relationship changed in 2019, when Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler to the Senate seat vacated by Johnny Isakson, who retired. She called herself the most conservative member of the Senate and sought to tie herself to former President Donald J. Trump, adopting and mimicking much of his incendiary language.In response, the Dream’s players refused to say her name and helped raise money for Warnock, who was polling only in the high single digits when Dream players began campaigning for him.Loeffler, who lost to Warnock by two percentage points in the runoff, said this week that she was considering running for the seat again in 2022, when Isakson’s original term expires.While the sale price of the Dream was not disclosed, financial advisers in the sports industry say that W.N.B.A. teams typically sell for single-digit or low double-digit millions, a far cry from the $1.66 billion that the Utah Jazz of the N.B.A. were valued at in a recent sale. Most W.N.B.A. teams also lose money, a shortfall that must be covered annually by their owners.In addition, because of the pandemic, the W.N.B.A., like many other sports leagues, lost a significant chunk of revenue as a result of shortened seasons and not having fans at games.“I think if you’re buying a sports team this year, it can be a little bit of a challenge, but you really have to look through the pandemic and beyond the pandemic,” Gottesdiener said. “Our business philosophy is long term. We’re thinking out decades and generations instead of this year. We know that this is going to be a tough year financially.”But there is some reason to believe the W.N.B.A.’s fortunes are trending upward. The Dream are the third W.N.B.A. team to be sold in the last two years, joining the New York Liberty and the Las Vegas Aces, bringing the hope that more committed and deep-pocketed investors will push the league forward.Television ratings for the W.N.B.A. finals in 2020 were up 15 percent, while ratings for the regular season were down just 16 percent, in a year when most other leagues saw much bigger drops.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More