On Bobby Bonilla Day, Let's Look Back On The Actual Biggest Fleecing In Sports History: The Silna Brothers
Everyone loves to lose their minds about the Mets having to pay Bobby Bonilla a million dollars every July 1. Darren Rovell creams his sheets and goes on a tweet bonanza like it’s the only contract to ever be set up to pay a player long after he retires. Hell, I’m pretty sure the Red Sox are still paying Manny. I get that it’s easy and enjoyable to make fun of the Mets, and I’m not here to put a stop to that by any means. But the danger that comes with talking about this fleecing every year is that it’s warping the minds of our youth, leading them to believe that this is the greatest heist in sports history. It’s a good one, I’m sure the Bonilla residence throws a mighty fine cookout when that check hits their mailbox. But it’s not even in the same stratosphere as the actual greatest fleecing in sports history. That honor belongs to Spirit of St. Louis owners Ozzie and Daniel Silna.
According to the New York Times:
The Spirits were excluded from the 1976 merger of the two leagues (ABA & NBA). So the Silnas watched unhappily as the New York (now Brooklyn) Nets, the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs were absorbed into the NBA. But the Silnas negotiated an astonishing benefit that was critical to the merger: an agreement to be paid one-seventh of the national television revenue that each of the four teams was to receive, as long as the league continued to exist. That amounted to being paid in perpetuity, and so far, the deal has provided the Silnas with about $300 million.
That $300 mil alone from the Nets, Nuggets, Pacers and Spurs would’ve been enough to call this the greatest swindle of all time. But that’s quite literally not even the half of it. Before the most recent NBA tv deal kicked in, the NBA decided they had enough of the Silna brothers and put up $500 million to buy out the Silna brothers from this deal. $800 million just to give the ABA permission to fold and be absorbed by the NBA in 1976.
For comparison purposes, the Spirit of St. Louis were not the only team that had to acquiesce this merger. The Kentucky Colonels also had to accept a buy out as they were not to be included in the merger. The ABA offered Colonels owner John Y. Brown $3.3 million to fold and he took the deal. $3.3 mil is a good day’s work if you can get it, unless of course it’s directly juxtaposed to EIGHT HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS for the same deal.
Each Silna brother received 45% of this deal, while their lawyer – Donald Schupak – raked in the remaining 10%. Donald Schupak made more money on this deal just by including the phrase “in perpetuity” than Bobby Bonilla will receive from the Mets when that saga is all said and done.
The Mets paying $29.8 mil for a season that was never played isn’t great, there’s no arguing that. The NBA doling out $800 mil for a team that never stepped foot on a court is substantially worse. When we talk all time fleecings, there’s the Silna Brothers and then a massive gap, and don’t you forget it.