Opening Day Of March Madness …

Let me begin today with some notes taken during yesterday’s orgy of college basketball on four different networks.  These are personal observations and questions and nothing more than that.

• Louisville loves to run up and down the court but hates to play defense.
• This SIU-Edwardsville/Houston game is in the books with 12:00 to play in the first half.  Not worth watching any more of this.  Cougars’ defense is smothering.
• Does the Alabama St. team even practice boxing out for rebounds?
• McNeese St. almost squandered a 20-point lead in the final 8 minutes because they don’t seem to know how to play from ahead.
• People who go to Yale and who are associated with Yale are presumed to be intelligent.  So, why did Yale try to run and gun against Texas A&M’s better athletes?
• Arkansas/Kansas might be the best game of the day.  [Aside: After the last game ended, this was indeed the best game of the day.]
• Drake showed how to play against a team that is bigger and more athletic – – and win the game.
• Gonzaga has a 20-point lead on Georgia and knows how to play from ahead.  Zags will win going away.  [Aside:  Final score is Gonzaga 89  Georgia 68.]
• St. John’s plays exactly the way Rick Pitino’s old Louisville teams used to play.  Not much of a surprise there.

And here are some notes on some ads shown during the games:

• Geico brought back the little pig who cried wee-wee-wee all the way home.  That is not another “giant step for humanity”.
• AT&T sidelined “Lily” to give us “Blake and Joe”.  Give me “Lily”.
• Capital One ads with Charles Barkley and Samuel L. Jackson are back with the additions of “Capital One Guy” and Jennifer Garner.  Best ads of the day.

Moving on …  Yesterday, there were reports that the Boston Celtics were sold for $6.1B.  I have read that report in a half-dozen places and I still have to go back and look at that number to be sure I have not produced a typographical error.  That price is higher than the one that the Washington Commanders commanded about a year ago – – and the Commanders are an NFL franchise not an NBA franchise.  I am stunned.  The previous high-water mark for an NBA franchise was the Brooklyn Nets for $3.3B back in 2018.

Moreover, the sale price does not include the TD Garden – – nee the Boston Garden – – because that facility is owned by the Boston Bruins.  So, technically, this $6.1B acquisition is a renter and not a landlord.  Wow.

The sellers here made a tidy profit on the deal.  The Grousbeck family bought the Celtics in 2002 for what is today chump change; they paid $360M for the team.  The sale yesterday did not quite bring back a twenty-fold increase – – but it was close.  If standard capital gains taxes apply here – – and I will not be surprised to learn that they do not – – then the tax on the gain here would amount to $1.148B.  Twenty years ago, that tax amount would have purchased a franchise in either the NFL, MLB or the NBA.  Time marches on.

This transaction will have a ripple effect.  Naturally, it sets a negotiating starting point for any other NBA franchise that goes up for sale in the near future. But it also has a more immediate beneficial effect for current NBA owners.  The league is going to expand one of these days – – probably adding 2 new teams.  Up until yesterday, the league could only point to the sale of the Nets as a way to evaluate what a current franchise might be worth; now they have the precedent of a $6.1B arms-length transaction to use as the asking price for an expansion franchise.

I am not going to pretend to be an economic guru or anything of the sort, but is it possible that sports franchises are in a state related to an “economic bubble” however one defines that state?  Just asking…

Finally, let me close with this statement from comedian Steve Martin:

“I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………