Joe found this ad in the papers, and he clipped
it for you.
Diatribe #4 - September 8, 2003
For Sale
By Owner
Major sports franchise looking for a spacious
new home, either rebuilt or brand new construction.
It could be the giant foam box called the Continental, resculpted and
renamed Xanadu (sounds like something that Olivia Newton-John should be
starring in to me).
It could be somewhere off McCarter Highway in Newark.
It could be somewhere on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, on the site of the
LIRR terminal.
It could even be out in a place that used to be called home, Long Island,
right next to the New York Islanders.
Any other takers, or locations, please step forward.
Must haves: tons of luxury suites, access to a major transportation hub,
easy ability to sell walk-up tickets. Would be willing to split some concession
monies, but absolutely will want the new owners to pick up insane amounts
of expenses related to construction and/or infrastructure.
Negotiables: amount of monies being offered by state and local officials
(New York only). Desire to potentially share ownership with others. Egos
run amok and an ambition to get in over your head preferred.
May be forced to also purchase championship hockey team.
Phone G. Steinbrenner for any additional information.
When you're a Netsfan, a true Netsfan, you learn to take the good with the (mostly) bad. You peek outside of the dark cave called mediocrity once and awhile just to make sure the sky isn't falling down on your head. Even in the best of times, there is always something coming around the corner, waiting to strike you just when you've got your guard down.
The past two years have been the best of times for Netsfans - Kidd for Marbury, Thorn rebuilds, two consecutive Conference championships and two trips to the NBA Finals (hey, I didn't say it was perfect). We even lived through the pain of Jason's free agency tour of 2002 - 2003 with no harm done (of course, had he signed with San Antonio, it would have been as crushing as the proverbial cartoon anvil dropped from the sky).
The newly reminted Nets franchise - one where good things happen instead of bad, right?
Well, July was strong proof - perhaps the strongest yet - that the Nets franchise had truly turned the corner past respectibility and into desirability. Jason Kidd, re-signed, Alonzo Mourning followed him along, and Lucious Harris most likely accepted less money to stay on for another two years. Remember when free agents couldn't wait for 12:01AM on the day following the expiration of their contracts?
Yes, the Nets were now the proud model of stability - with an ownership group that was expected to be the future of sports ownership. YankeeNets had strong teams - the Yankees, Nets and Devils - and a television channel on which to show them. Revenue streams aplenty.
Except for the fact that two of the three teams can't break even, or draw nearly enough spectators considering their (near) championship caliber play.
A new arena, the thinking went, would be just the thing to fix those low attendance figures. Hell, one of the owners bought the team specifically to rebuild downtown Newark by putting an arena there (and getting everyone else to follow). Money was sought, deals were brokered, and it even looked like an announcement would come that an agreeement was reached between YankeeNets and the city and state.
It never did.
With Newark pledging to put up $210 million of the approx. $350 million needed to build and replace infrastructure, YankeeNets balked at putting up the rest without severe subsidies from the state (and anyone else, I'm sure).
We're losing enough money, only the arena can fix it, but we're not willing to risk our financial futures, the billionaire boys club said.
No longer willing to lose money (combined, the Nets and Devils supposedly lost approx. $25 million this year. This coming from one team that one a championship and one team that was runner-up), and with one last "screw you guys" balloon payment to former owner John McMullen looming (can you imagine having someone write you a check, payable to you, to the tune of $50 million?), the YankeeNets partnership fractured into sharp pieces.
Sell the teams, as quickly as possible (you can imagine G. Steinbrenner, already in frenzied meltdown over his beloved Yankees choking their way to the finish, spitting out that sentence, can't you?). To anyone willing to put up the cash. Doesn't matter where they're from or where they'd move the team. Just sell the damned thing.
Right now, rumor has it, the two best offers for the Nets are from Brooklyn and Long Island. That the best hope for the franchise staying in New Jersey is a senator who really doesn't want to own the team, or have anything to do with them, is not a good sign for those of us wanted the team to stay put, is it?
One of the last remaining professional sports franchises called "New Jersey" and playing in New Jersey could be on the way out. With potential ownership that could be right up their with the famed "Secaucus Seven" (and as it turned out, the YankeeNets partnership was headed in the same direction until they decided to hand over the operation to Lou Lamoriello and Thorn).
So, if July was the peak, then August was right back into the ruts.
The timing of the sale, so close to Kidd's $100 million re-signing, was bad. Add in Kenyon Martin's unhappiness over Thorn's refusal to offer a max. contract extension, and the lingering foul aroma eminating from the Kidd-Byron Scott affair, and I'm left wondering this:
Is it true that you can take the franchise out of despair, but you can't take the despair out of the franchise?
Where this all leads, who knows? The good news for Netsfans is we've got Kidd, and Mourning, and Martin and Jefferson and Kittles and the rest. OK, Byron Scott is still hanging around, and I'm still not certain who's going to make an outside shot or what to do with four centers, but still, all in all, this is the best team we could possibly hope for.
Maybe they'll play some day in Brooklyn or Long Island (without me, I'm afraid). Maybe they'll play in Newark (convince me, that's all I'm saying). Or maybe they'll stay home at Xanadu (come on, really folks, we need a better name then this), where I can take the 12 minute drive from my house and enjoy the Nets (not from one of those spacious, luxurious and mighty expensive luxury boxes, that's for sure).
Maybe the days of Chicken Joe and his calls that "the franchise is falling" are over, and as Jason Kidd himself says, it doesn' t matter where the team plays.
All I'm asking, really, is this: let us not go back to the laughingstock franchise we were. Give us ownership that doesn't want neon basketballs or Disco Nights.
And if the team has to move, let it be someplace in New Jersey.
For a small finder's fee, I'll even help the new owners look for a new home.
- Joe
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