Re: interesting NBA notes

["j.hironaka" <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

At 18:40 12/07/01 -0400, James A. Hill wrote:
> >Who out there is paying to see Paul Gaston and Rich >Pond make money and 
> increase "shareholder value". >The Celtics are a national institution. 
> They are like a >public trust.
>
>Without the owners there would be no pro sports. National Trust?  You 
>advocate wealthy ownership losing money to field a competitive team.

True, but I also advocate wealthy people buy yaughts, ferraris, vintage 
wines and trophy girlfriends.

We talk of "luxury tax" because that's precisely what owning a team is: a 
luxury. A vanity purchase.

Foremost, it is a luxury. You can bet your life the Patriots football team 
owner Bob Kraft is perfectly aware his tombstone no longer has to read 
"RIP: husband, father and paper products manufacturer". That's the degree 
of historical irrelevance upon death that 99% of millionaires and Fortune 
500 CEOs can look forward to once they are 6-feet under.

Trouble is you also own part of your city's passion and history....one of 
Boston's most treasured institutions in the case of the Celtics 
organization. Great for the ego, but there is more to it than that.

If you can't afford to maintain a yaught and its crew of Ralph Lauren 
models, then you shouldn't buy it. That's just common New England good 
sense. You'd be out of your league alongside all these millionaire 
neighbors in the yaught club.

So how the heck should we react if Paul Gaston, or anyone else, suggested 
with a straight face that he was entitled to make a profit off his yaught 
investment and the expensive jewelry he bought for his girlfriend?

You'd say he's got his priorities all wrong. (If you were his PR firm, 
you'd say "blame the players for the ticket prices!"). Easy target.

Gaston is going to make his big profit, and hopefully make Dad proud, the 
day he sells the team to an entity that can afford both the luxury AND the 
responsibility of ownership. He tried his best, but in the end he can't 
afford the luxury of ownership. He should take the 400 million or whatever, 
pay his taxes, and spend the rest all the way to the grave.

But until they sell, he and CEO Rich Pond can really just shut up with any 
sanctimonious BS about the poor, small market owner. In any other analogous 
free-market context, they would deserve the perfect ridicule of both their 
fellow wealthy peer owners and the common fans.

Joe