ABA-NBA Revenue Sharing
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Gary Vaynerchuk shares a story about how a St. Louis ABA team negotiated a clever deal during the NBA-ABA merger.
"There was this ABA team from St. Louis when they merged the leagues. The St. Louis team was out, but they wouldn't sign the deal. They needed them to sign off to make the merger happen. The team fought and fought because they really loved basketball.
At the end they said, 'Okay, if that's the case, you have to treat us financially as the 26th NBA franchise and in perpetuity we get the economic split.' So even though they were out of the league, they still got the economic benefits.
Two brothers owned the team and they made hundreds of millions of dollars over the seventies, eighties, and nineties. I think the grandkids eventually got bought out by the NBA before the last big deal."
Gary Vaynerchuk
Serial entrepreneur and chairman of VaynerX. Built a $100M company, VaynerMedia, from a daily wine show on YouTube. Early investor in tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Uber.
Renowned for marketing expertise and business strategy in the digital age. Hosts top-rated podcast "The GaryVee Audio Experience" and founded VeeCon, a contemporary super-conference.
Part-owner of sports teams and aspires to buy the New York Jets.