But with this news of $11 million in back rent owed by The Warriors (whoever owns them) to The Coliseum Authority, here's our first of surely MANY exposed debts coming due in the wake of the perfectly-timed Cohan sale. According to reports, the "new" ownership has no intention of paying this debt but also no clear intention of trying to get Chris Cohan to pay it.
Robert Rowell/Cohan apparently convinced the Authority to not press the issue while the sale was worked out. They may have even extended the lease by 5 years as a means to appease the Authority for enough time to get the sale closed and the buck passed. Rowell, who negotiated all sales business for Cohan, has to be presumed to have handled the lease details as well. Or, even more likely, he simply gave the directive to a paper pusher in the team's legal or facilities department.
The lease extension allowed new language that heavily penalizes a future move to San Francisco before the lease term ends. There's no indication that a move out of market would result in any penalty besides the basic lease break amount. The lease now runs until 2017 with 10 years in possible extensions and a move to San Francisco would cost boatloads. The recent article on the past due rent says that the Coliseum Authority has sort of looked the other way on back rent SPECIFICALLY so the sale could go through. In exchange for not publicly mentioning the $11 million and making the sale process look even stranger than the Galatioto gloating and grandstanding already did, Rowell gave them guaranteed, contractually binding assurances that they'd have a tenant forever or a big fat payoff on in-market departure from an aging-by-the-day sports complex. VERY clever stuff.
Did I mention that Robert Rowell is still President of the Golden State Warriors?
Could that lease extension, if negotiated with full insider knowledge on the part of Lacob, actually have been a simple diversion from a likely move out of the aging Oakland hell hole our new co-emperor, Location Based Entertainment Fox News Guru Peter Guber, had never been inside of for a game before... wait, has he ever?!
Meanwhile, Lacob/Riley/Marc Grabow-Tom Abdenour are drafting injured (bad) players (Udoh) and signing guys with chronic back issues (Amundson). Oh and Jeremy Lin. No pandering going on here at all. Yao trade next?
And they will not pay rent because they probably were planning to pay some other debt or penalty already and this little surprise cost has them acting like, well, themselves.
Their current official public position: Eat it. How did you get this number?
(Funny story: Lowell Cohn ran a blog item about Joe Lacob being overwhelmed and asking Lowell how he got his number a few weeks back... since deleted? Any help on finding that entry appreciated).
Either Lacob & co. (who the fuck owns this team?!) are complete morons who just got jobbed over by Chris Cohan and Robert Rowell like the premium seating suckers they are or they knew and, as reports indicate, are now refusing to pay out of sheer, obstinate, cheapskate assholery. Sounds familiar in Warriorland.
I thought Cohan wouldn't sell because it made no sense before the Lockout of 2011 that seems more inevitable by the day. But even I underestimated the level of vampiric soul sucking douche baggery Cohan and Rowell were capable of. They have multiple TENS OF MILLIONS in debts besides the tax evasions coming due and they got out just in time to avoid paying any of them. Remember the brilliant Rowell business philosophy, Salary Protection? And they got insurance coverage on tons of guys last season while making a series of trades dating back to the Rowell-ordered Jason Richardson-for-$10 million in free cash (unused TPE in a failed playoff bid, Brandan Wright maybe about to be OK.... or not re-signed since he costs money) that has essentially successfully laundered over $10 million in fan money EVERY SEASON by bringing in the minimum exchanged salary allowable in various subsequent moves of Al Harrington, Jamal Crawford, Stephen Jackson, etc.
Those Rowell/Galatioto-delivered "financials" must have included the nearly $11 million in back rent the Warriors owe to the Coliseum Arena Authority along with the pretty spreadsheets showing Rowell's money making scheme prowess as head of an eternally Shite on-court product. Right?
At any rate, now JOE LACOB himself, not Chris Cohan, is refusing to pay the Coliseum Authority that past due rent. Can the Arena foreclose? Hope BofA doesn't have any involvement.
Cohan has by now washed his hands of everything as he awaits league approval of his $450 million heist. It should be noted that Joe Lacob has failed to acquire teams NUMEROUS times in the past. That includes his most recent joint venture failure with his fellow Los Angelino, Peter Guber: attempted purchase of The Hated LA Dodgers (see uncomfortable photo op shot with Frank McCourt, top left). Lacob of course grew up in Massachusetts and then moved to Orange County. He's a dyed-in-the-wool Boston and LA sports fan, which must have been very strange indeed in the Magic-Bird years. I'll bet he rooted for the Celtics with gusto. But the bottom line is, he rushed in on this purchase and overbid by a full $100 million over a Forbes, league wide, and Larry Ellison set valuation of around $350 million. And Lacob did this thanks to the NBA's own credit advance system which puts the league on the hook for a whopping $100 million of the final "purchase" price until he pays it off.... if he ever can. He seems to be far less than liquid relative to that Larry Ellison guy, who got so liquid by not jumping in like a moron who wants a shiny new toy like Cohan when he first bought in and then sued for team control way back when and now totally replicated by his all-too-appropriate successor, Joe Lacob & co.
The credit line that enabled a shady overbid that Ellison ultimately came over the top of but for the previously arranged Rowell-Galatioto-Lacob Fuck You Larry PR party (really, did they prepare ANYTHING besides that ugly post-"sale" mess?) of course suggests value inflation and collusion of the highest degree. Ellison won't give two shits about the bad owners' whining about hard caps and player-agent screw jobs because he, yaknow, correctly assesses value and sticks to his guns instead of overpaying to make his little wee-wee feel better. He's the ultimate threat to idiots like Ted Leonsis or Joe Lacob and authoritarian freakshows like David Stern, who asks that you please act less black if you play in the NBA, apparently. Or something as equivalently and appallingly yet sneakily, insidiously racist as that. Just enjoy your Chardonnay, you honkey fairweather bandwagon drone.
But I digress.
Ellison would not have been a single-industry owner: NBA team and nothing else. With the ominous caveat of Hollywood player and Fox News Entertainment Analyst Peter Guber, the Joe Lacob & co. ownership collective is looking increasingly like a guy who did well over the years, earned the respect of professional funny money heads, and is now cashing in his stockpile for his "retirement" venture as long as he can find enough lackey multi-millionaires to fund the insider acquisition for him. Cohan's game was cable (Sonic Communications) before he sold out and moved into full time Warriors fan torture. Lacob's net worth is clearly not much (if at all) in excess of the $450 million "sale" tag and his LIQUID worth can't come close. Hence the 20 party co-ownership game he's still trying to run. He supposedly has resorted to offering VERY small percentage stakes in efforts to get the money secured for league approval in the next week or so here. (Seriously- who in the goddam hell owns this fucking team?)
Sounds like he's really losing his shit. I'm sure he'll still get approved and all because David Stern and co. are bullheaded pricks about to kill our league for at least a year under lockout and any fuck ups with Lacob will have disastrous ripple effects around the brimming-with-cash-and-increased-ticket-sale-revenue league trying to steal the fans' and players' money from them. Their old man honkey pride is severely wounded by the awesome pro athletes and their global appeal. No one wants to look at a picture of Peter Guber in Moldova or China or wherever, no matter how much hair die, botox, and scientology he applies to his mission of Hype. Fucking creep. But folks can stare at a dreamy nude shot of Amar'e Stoudemire all day, anywhere, any time. That's what being an international icon is all about: looking great naked. Just ask Pamela Anderson. Everybody loves that plastic weirdo in Poland.
This all of course suggests that Larry Ellison has a huge cock that Lacob, Stern, and the namby pamby bait-cutting and lockouting shitty owners are very jealous of. That's logic. You're welcome.
Technical foul for being correct.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
No open toed shoes please.
The Golden State Warriors have a new owner and a new look, but the organization continues to play the same old game of not paying its bills to its public landlord.Your Golden State Warriors: Still Fucking With Oakland and Fans.
The team, purchased earlier this year for a record $450 million, refuses to pay the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority more than $10.7 million it owes in rent and other fees under its lease agreement.
"In a community where 10 percent of the police force has been laid off, for them to be in arrears $10.7 million is outrageous," said Jon Streeter, an attorney with Keker and Van Nest, a San Francisco law firm hired by the authority.
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_16287739?source=rss&nclick_check=1
A recent NY Times article on owners buying high and selling quickly once they realize they're in WAY over their heads:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/sports/17teams.html
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Can they move to San Jose or Santa Clara with no penalty?
ReplyDeleteHow dare you.
ReplyDelete