Let's just say there was probably some champagne passed around in the Silna family yesterday. That's because the Silna brothers, Ozzie and Dan, learned that they'll be paid some $ 136 million over the next eight years. The checks will be coming from the Denver Nuggets, the San Antonio Spurs, the New Jersey Nets and the Indiana Pacers.
If you haven't heard the story, it's a classic and is probably the best business deal of all-time.
In 1976, the NBA allowed four ABA teams to pay a $3.2 million expansion fee to be let into the NBA. Two teams, the Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits of St. Louis, were denied entry. Since the NBA required that the ABA to settle everything up, the ABA owners were forced to negotiate with Colonels owner John Y. Brown Jr. and the Spirits of St. Louis owners--Ozzie and Dan Silna. Brown took a lump sum of $3.3 million. The Silnas took $2.2 million and 1/7 th of the television revenue of the four teams going in: the Nuggets, the Spurs, the Nets and the Pacers, in perpetuity.
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