Power of Postive Thinking

In an effort to bring Dad back into the newly resurrected Lemming Apocalypse fold (thanks, Tim), I've got to post this awesome story from today's LA Times.
I don't know why, but reading this story brought a sustained smile to my face. I think it's because it's got a bit of everything: sport stars, lawyers, entrepreneurs, lawyers that fail time and again, and millions of dollars going in the right direction for a change.
Sure Ozzie Silna doesn't deserve the money more than the Pacer's Donnie Walsh does, but it's so cool that even though Ozzie's team didn't make it into the NBA, he got his dues...not because he correctly predicted the downfall of the clique that didn't want him to join, but because he had more confidence in NBA and its success than the NBA had in itself.

Ozzie was apparently a visionary, and because he was (and mostly because he had the awesome line "The right to receive such revenues shall continue for as long as the NBA or its successors continue in its existence" in his contract, he's $168M richer.

This is just an excerpt. You gotta read the whole thing. It's a great story.

Roughly once a month, the NBA cuts 31 checks to NBA teams as revenue from its multibillion-dollar national television contract.

There are only 30 NBA franchises, so who gets the extra check?

The money goes to brothers Ozzie and Dan Silna, co-owners of the long-forgotten ABA team, the Spirits of St. Louis.

Thirty years ago, Ozzie Silna, with attorney Donald Schupak, negotiated a deal that cleared the way for the ABA to merge with the NBA. It ranks as one of the best sports deals in modern times, one that has paid the Silnas about $168 million and continues to pay off.

"I would have loved to have an NBA team," said Ozzie Silna, 73, a Malibu resident and environmental activist. "But if I look at it retrospectively over what I would have gotten, versus what I've received now, then I'm a happy camper."

Part of the Silnas' deal called for them to receive one-seventh of the annual TV revenue from each of the four ABA teams entering the NBA. The deal turned out to be so lucrative that several NBA teams have tried to break it, without success...

In 1976 the ABA reached a merger deal with the NBA. The NBA agreed to take four of the six teams from the dismantling ABA. The Spirits and the Kentucky Colonels were not invited to join the league. However, the ABA owners needed to reach unanimous approval for the merger to take place.
John Y. Brown, owner of the Kentucky Colonels, quickly accepted a $3.3-million buyout as compensation. That deal was also offered to the Silnas.
But Ozzie Silna kept haggling for more, and he finally reached a deal in a swank Massachusetts hotel room. The Silnas would get $3 million, plus a share of the TV revenue from the four teams entering the NBA. "When we accepted the arrangement, the big thing was that the NBA had television" and the ABA didn't, said Silna. "But still, the TV revenue was minuscule compared with baseball and the NFL."
Initially, the contract netted the Silnas about $300,000 a year as the NBA struggled with spotty attendance and weak TV ratings until the '80s, when Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan catapulted the league to a higher profile.
As the NBA's popularity rose, so did the league's TV contract and the Silnas' cut. For the NBA's last contract, they averaged $15 million a year.
"The process never even entered our minds of how high it would get," Ozzie Silna said. "We just wanted a piece of the action."