Sports
A Giant error
A Giant misspelling resulted in outfielder Eugenio Velez wearing a weird jersey Wednesday. A pair of letters were transposed in “Francisco.”
So when Velez made his season debut in the seventh inning during a double switch, his uniform read “San Francicso.” No one seemed to notice until well after the Giants’ 10-4 win over the Astros.
The TV deal the NBA wishes it had not made
The Silnas of the ABA’s St. Louis Spirits still cash in on the contract that began with the merger in 1976.
Roughly once a month, the NBA cuts 31 checks to NBA teams as revenue from its multibillion-dollar national television contract.
There are only 30 NBA franchises, so who gets the extra check?
The money goes to brothers Ozzie and Dan Silna, co-owners of the long-forgotten ABA team, the Spirits of St. Louis.
Thirty years ago, Ozzie Silna, with attorney Donald Schupak, negotiated a deal that cleared the way for the ABA to merge with the NBA. It ranks as one of the best sports deals in modern times, one that has paid the Silnas about $168 million and continues to pay off.
“I would have loved to have an NBA team,” said Ozzie Silna, 73, a Malibu resident and environmental activist. “But if I look at it retrospectively over what I would have gotten, versus what I’ve received now, then I’m a happy camper.”
Part of the Silnas’ deal called for them to receive one-seventh of the annual TV revenue from each of the four ABA teams entering the NBA. The deal turned out to be so lucrative that several NBA teams have tried to break it, without success.
