In a move surprising no one at the HQ, and long-anticipated really, one of the most ill-fitted groups to ever decide they wanted to play big-boy games is throwing in the towel.
Atlanta Spirit, LLC, the owners of the Atlanta Hawks, Thrashers, and Philips Arena have decided that they've had all they can stands and they can't stands no more.
The New York Post is reporting that everything associated with Spirit has a "For Sale" sign attached...
Questions of their ability to maintain long-term viability as owners dated all the way back to their beginnings as the group of nine owners in three cities picked up property from Time-Warner to the tune of US$250M.
From there, the profound lack of capital for investing in their franchises was extremely evident and the lawsuit of eight of the Spirit group against Boston-based Steve Belkin in 2004 seemed both sad and fitting.
In Josh Kosman's article, Spirit/Hawks posted an operating loss of US$20M before servicing debt. The Thrashers are being sold separately and lost about US$30 million in the last 12 months.
The owners have hired the Raine Group, a New York investment bank, to sell the teams. The interesting angle in all of this is that if the Hawks were to be sold and the idea of entertaining a move was to be floated, a rider would kick in, according to Kosman, that would accelerate the payments on Philips Arena- the only aspect of the Spirit's portfolio that made any money last year- US$10M.
The HQ also knows that putting everything up for sale gets the Belkin lawsuit closer to getting paid off- in both sending Belkin on his way and retiring six years worth of legal fees.
The Spirit were like the Emperor: they had no real desire to invest equally in their franchises, but they couldn't be convinced of that during their run with the big boys. They couldn't and/or wouldn't compete, and they finally have done the only thing the should have done in the first place- not get involved...
Both teams deserve good homes with owners in markets willing to invest in their futures- whether that's in Atlanta for all is anyone's guess...
But the HQ's money is on Chipman/Thomson/True North for part of the toy chest, anyway...
1230 UPDATE: WSB-TV's Zach Klein, on his Twitter account, relays the following from the Spirit's Michael Gearon...
Hawks owner Michael Gearon just emailed me "I have no interest in selling"
But the HQ will point out that "not having an interest" and "needing to" are two different things...
1245 UPDATE: The Spirit has issued one of those official-statement type things...
Bruce Levenson and Michael Gearon, two of the principal partners of Atlanta Spirit LLC, the parent company that owns the Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers and Philips Arena operating rights, have released the following statement regarding the rumored sale of the teams and arena:
“As has been shared publicly for more than a year, we are interested in finding minority investors and have engaged a firm to assist us in that effort. We have no plans to move either team, and remain committed to the Hawks, the Thrashers, Philips Arena and the city of Atlanta.”
Once again... "not having plans" and "having to" are two different things...
More when we know more...all of this sounds like one of those dreaded "votes of confidence" doesn't it...???
