Playing the Stock Market: "Going Public and Professional Team Sports
1999; Volume: 24; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0360-795X
Autores Tópico(s)Gambling Behavior and Treatments
ResumoIf big-time sports is about big-time money, I'd feel better knowing we're doing it in a Wall Street window.1 I. INTRODUCTION With professional sports, people are attracted games rather than businesses that produce show.2 Nevertheless, owners of professional sports teams receive considerable attention. The press has characterized them as Gilded Age robber barons who move teams on a whim and blackmail taxpayers into building them sports palaces.3 When Fox Entertainment Group purchased baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers in 1998, fact that this marked exit of the last grand family of (the O'Malleys) helped to ensure that sale was widely discussed.4 When baseball's Cleveland Indians decided in 1998 to go (i.e., offer shares of team to investors on open market), media covered move because it merged the traditional American pastime of baseball with country's growing pastime of playing market.5 Although Cleveland Indians moved to market, public ownership is not common in professional team sports. In American sports, four leagues qualify as namely: National Football League (NFL); Major League Baseball (MLB); National Basketball Association (NBA); and National Hockey League (NHL).6 At present, only three sports franchises-the Indians, Boston Celtics of NBA, and Vancouver Canucks of NHL-clearly qualify as stock teams, in sense that they constitute primary source of revenue and profits for a business firm with publicly traded stock.7 Sports team financing, then, remains in its infancy.8 This pattern likely explains why public ownership of franchises has received little attention in growing legal literature dealing with sports.9 The link between market and North American major professional leagues merits closer examination. Though sports team financing remains in its infancy, individuals who run major league teams have widely discussed possibility of going public. For example, MLB owners voted in 1997 to abolish an existing guideline discouraging public ownership and authorized teams to register with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to sell equity.10 Numerous individual teams have also contemplated selling to public.11 The president of NBA's Sacramento Kings acknowledged in 1997 that franchise had given serious thought to carrying out an initial public offering of shares (IPO).12 Canadian teams that have canvassed public ownership option include MLB's Montreal Expos, NHL's Calgary Flames, Ottawa Senators and Edmonton Oilers, which announced a formal IPO plan in 1997 and then abandoned idea. 13 In 1998, owner of hockey's Dallas Stars and baseball's Texas Rangers said that he intended to package teams and a proposed regional sports network as a public company.14 Owners of a number of other baseball teams, such as Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies have also acknowledged that they have contemplated a public offering of shares.15 Such contemplation by various teams has prompted suggestions that an opening of IPO floodgates could be imminent and that [g]oing public is one of latest trends in sports business.16 Indeed, an expert on sports and entertainment marketing predicted in late 1998 that eight to ten professional sports franchises would carry out successful public share offerings within following thirty-six months.17 If teams in North American major professional leagues begin to play market with greater frequency, this would be consistent with trends elsewhere in world of sports. Several companies with close links to auto racing (e.g., owners of race tracks) have gone public in past few years.18 In 1997, United States Basketball League, an East Coast-based professional league, became nation's only publicly traded sports league. …
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