Ozzie and Daniel Silna were co-owners of the American Basketball Association’s Spirits of St. Louis, through which they became the winners of the greatest sports deal of all time. A massively lucrative deal was cut to fold that team during the ABA and NBA merger.
Brothers Ozzie and Daniel Silna made a fortune as pioneers in the manufacture of polyester. In 1974, they wanted to own an NBA team. After an attempt to buy the Detroit Pistons fell short, the Silnas purchased the ABA’s Carolina Cougars franchise with the expectation of moving it into the NBA with the impending merger of the two leagues.
The Silna brothers moved the Cougars to St. Louis, Missouri, because it was then the largest city in the United States without a professional basketball team, and they thought this would make their team more likely to join the NBA. In 1974, the Cougars, roster and all, were overhauled and became the ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis.
The Spirits were not included in the ABA-NBA merger, with the St. Louis and Kentucky players being put into a special dispersal draft. Marvin Barnes went to the Detroit Pistons for $500,000, Moses Malone went to the Portland Trail Blazers for $300,000, Ron Boone went to the Kansas City Kings for $250,000, Randy Denton went to the New York Knicks for $50,000 and Mike Barr also went to Kansas City, for $15,000.
The folding of the Spirits dissolved a very talented basketball team, one that likely would have competed successfully in the NBA. Twelve players from the final two Spirits of St. Louis rosters (1974–76) played in the NBA during the 1976–77 season and beyond.
The National Basketball Association finally reached an agreement with Ozzie and Daniel in January of 2014. The deal they negotiated became known as “the greatest sports deal of all time.” With help from their lawyer, Donald Schupak, the Silnas had, since 1976, received a portion of the NBA’s television rights fees which added up to an estimated $300 million.
The New York Times reported in 2014 that the final payment to buy them out of the deal was around $500 million. The league’s media rights deals expired after the 2015-16 season, and it didn’t want any of that money going to the Silnas.
ABA officials agreed to pay the Silnas for any Spirits players drafted by NBA teams, an amount that came to roughly $2.2 million. On top of that, the Silnas would also get a 1/7th share of each of the four former ABA teams’ NBA “visual media” rights.
With an estimated $800 million haul from the deal, Daniel and Ozzie will always be part of basketball lore, for striking the deal that will go down as the best ever in sports business history. On April 26th, 2016, Ozzie died of cancer at the age of 83-years-old.
This article cites information and media from the New York Times, Sports History Weekly and the AP. For more sports, news and entertainment follow the Midwest Sports Network on Twitter @MWSNsports or like our page on Facebook.
