Famed ABA owner Ozzie Silna dies at 83

When the ABA merged with the NBA after the 1975-76 season, the Silnas agreed to dissolve their team in exchange for a small percentage of the NBA’s future broadcast revenue.

They negotiated to receive one-seventh of a share of the annual television revenues for as long as the NBA was around for the four of six remaining ABA teams that were absorbed: the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New Jersey Nets and San Antonio Spurs.

” Ozzie Silna, who died Tuesday at the age of 83, negotiated an infamous deal 40 years ago this summer that cumulatively netted him and his brother about $750 million in television-rights revenues from the NBA without even owning a team in the league.

This includes $500 million the brothers received in 2014 as part of a deal the NBA and the four teams reached to minimize future financial exposure ahead of the nine-year, $24 billion TV deal announced later that year by investing in the Spirits’ entity in exchange for an accelerated up-front payment.

The agreement resulted in the Silnas dropping a lawsuit they filed in federal district court against the league and the teams in hopes of collecting on new revenue streams, like NBA League Pass and foreign TV deals, which obviously were not envisioned in the original agreement.

While he didn’t believe he pulled off the greatest deal in the history of American sports, Ozzie Silna did concede in 2006 to knowing that back in the ’70s, the NBA’s TV deal was vastly undervalued.