This is a great way to spend about 45 min of your time during basketball's off season. This story is about the old ABA, and one of it's most spirited teams of all time, the St Louis Spirits. The team had notable characters like Marvin Barnes, and the league had some of the best athletes in professional basketball, such as Moses Malone and Dr. J.
But that's not the whole story.
CUSA fans need to pay particular attention to the last 10 minutes of this video. That's when the show covers "the greatest deal in the history of sports, and maybe even in the history of business", as one interviewee said. Ironically, the "deal" involved television negotiations. (Judy MacLeod, please takes notes!)
The two brothers that owned the St Louis Spirits --Ozzie and Daniel Silna-- managed to cut the deal of a lifetime when the NBA decided to merge only 4 ABA teams in to the NBA, not including their Spirits. In return for walking away from the table and disbanding their ABA franchise, the brothers received 1/7th of the future TV revenues of the 4 ABA teams being merged into the NBA --the Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers and the New York Nets-- in perpetuity. Yes, it's that "in perpetuity" clause that has now screwed the NBA out of about a half billion dollars --and counting-- since the deal of the century was cut. Enjoy:
