Into the lurch of a sports dead zone steps your town, your team, your Philadelphia 76ers.
They’ve been sold.
Ed Snider and Comcast have divested themselves of the ugly stepchild that always seemed to play second fiddle to his true love, those guys clad in orange and black, the Flyers.
Now the team falls into the hands of an investor group headed by New York billionaire Joshua Harris.
It’s not like he’s a total stranger to Philly. He’s a graduate of Penn’s prestigious Wharton School of Business.
First things first. The team is not moving. It will continue to play its games at the Wells Fargo Center, or whatever name it’s going by this week. The games will continue to be broadcast on Comcast SportsNet, so the cable giant is not completely divorcing itself from the team.
It’s believed the group is paying something in the neighborhood of $280 million for the team.
Nice neighborhood.
What all this means to the product that appears on the court remains to be seen.
Right now Rod Thorn remains the team’s director of basketball operations, with Ed Stefanski as his GM and Doug Collins as the head coach.
But it should be noted that one of the investors in the deal is Jason Levien, a former front office exec with the Sacramento Kings.
Here’s a tip for the new owners: Keep Collins. Get rid of Andre Iguodala. Then place a call to an old Delco guy, Pat Croce, to see if he would be interested in returning to the team.
Coupled with Allen Iverson, Croce single-handedly changed the image of the team in the early ‘90s, watching it advance to the NBA finals.
He was forced out in a power struggle with Snider.
Bringing back Croce’s upbeat personality would do wonders for a franchise that has been an after-thought in a sports-crazed town ever since he left.
They’ve been sold.
Ed Snider and Comcast have divested themselves of the ugly stepchild that always seemed to play second fiddle to his true love, those guys clad in orange and black, the Flyers.
Now the team falls into the hands of an investor group headed by New York billionaire Joshua Harris.
It’s not like he’s a total stranger to Philly. He’s a graduate of Penn’s prestigious Wharton School of Business.
First things first. The team is not moving. It will continue to play its games at the Wells Fargo Center, or whatever name it’s going by this week. The games will continue to be broadcast on Comcast SportsNet, so the cable giant is not completely divorcing itself from the team.
It’s believed the group is paying something in the neighborhood of $280 million for the team.
Nice neighborhood.
What all this means to the product that appears on the court remains to be seen.
Right now Rod Thorn remains the team’s director of basketball operations, with Ed Stefanski as his GM and Doug Collins as the head coach.
But it should be noted that one of the investors in the deal is Jason Levien, a former front office exec with the Sacramento Kings.
Here’s a tip for the new owners: Keep Collins. Get rid of Andre Iguodala. Then place a call to an old Delco guy, Pat Croce, to see if he would be interested in returning to the team.
Coupled with Allen Iverson, Croce single-handedly changed the image of the team in the early ‘90s, watching it advance to the NBA finals.
He was forced out in a power struggle with Snider.
Bringing back Croce’s upbeat personality would do wonders for a franchise that has been an after-thought in a sports-crazed town ever since he left.
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