The Hardships of Being An Owner or Even a Minority Owner for a pro team

[TheStandard]

Since the age of 18 I always had one thing that I owned and cherished and that is being part owner of a professional basketball team The Ponce Lions of the BSN in Puerto Rico. It was given to me as a birthday gift. At that time my share was of 500 dollars just a mere .5% now my share is 12% with over a 200k profit this year alone. Very good from not getting nothing at all in 2006 due to an ABA'ish majority owner that hid monies in so many places that even the Catholic Church was involved. Sad isn't it?

My day involves of my regular job, taking care of my home in Huntington Beach, California an apartment in New York and a team in Puerto Rico. Phone calls day and night, night and day. Players calling me to talk and not to talk about money to talk about the games and simple things in life. The Majority Owners calling me to talk to agents and to let me know how things are going. The accountant who is my godfather lets me know what are the individual profits. And I always say to him i want 35-40 percent for me and the rest goes back to the team.

And everyday I sit down and think of how messed up minor league basketball is in general due to one league.

And I see the D-League as league of only developing players, they are not really around to put people in seats and soon enough that league will be like the 2nd division in Europe you play the day before or hours before the A team plays. At least you get paid.

I have so many things to say, but I rather get questions from you. I want to know what you think of what an owner should be or what he or she should be doing.

[Strong Island Sound]

Kudos to you on being an owner. I give you a lot of credit. Working with the Sound closely, I see what the owners of these teams go through on a daily basis. It's definitely not easy by any stretch.

I suppose that one question that many people have is: as an owner that is doing everything that he can to better his team and/or league, how do you feel about your peers that don't do anything constructive or positive to make improvements, and that includes not even updating a team website? Thanks.

[TheStandard]

Joe,

To answer that question. Well it makes me pretty upset. For example here in Puerto Rico; Los Cangrejeros De Santurce (Santurce Crabbers) are also known as the New York Yankees of Basketball in the country. Their owner is now a billionaire who owns his own sports network, and manages the most popular latin rock group in history, called Mana along with artists such as Ricky Martin and many others in the Latin American World. He also is in conjunction with major boxing events throughout the world, he's also part of the group that brings NHL, MLB and NBA teams to Puerto Rico, he even brough the Arena Cup to the island last year. And he will not put up a website neither for himself nor his team. But he pushes the hell out of his team via print, tv and radio. Billboards through out the San Juan-Metropolitan area. He always makes a profit and now he does see the light that with the creation of the FIBA Americas league he needs to and is paramount to him to have a website for this team who won 4 titles in a row which is virtually impossible now in days in any professional sport.

There are owners that complain that they are not making money and not getting people to see their games. They don't advertise, they don't put up a website where the majority of fans or curious spectators would like to inquire about the team of its players more importantly. They complain but hey you have to put in work to get money to work back into that pocket.

See, I'm glad that the BSN has a website that updates the games on a REAL TIME BASIS. I'm glad that theres reports for every game and information for every team and its updated many times throughout a 24 hour day span. If the league also does what is needed to be done to keep up a site that has info and stats and news for every team; the owners that complain should be happy for the amount of people they get which is generally about 700(when its against poor quality or mid level teams) or from 3000 to a packed house(league average arena capacity is about 6,500) from the premier teams in the league.

As I see in the rest of the US. D-League, CBA, PBL, IBL, WBA. In order to make money you have to pump out money. You have to put up a website(not many people are now forking over 25 cents to a dollar to read the paper when they now read it for free online) you have to still push the print media, the radio and tv media. Your website has to be always updated not like the Brooklyn Kings of the USBL or like many of the ABA teams that barely have or do not have up to date information. League websites are to be about the teams not about marketing schemes and some new market. It has to be about the teams themselves, to show up to date stats and results and recaps. People do not care about an owner if he or she is not going to talk the talk and walk the walk.

The only way leagues and teams improve is by marketing the team and that is talking about the team,showing off the team, making people come to you. You have to go to them and you have to do it from every angle possible.

Any other questions, I am always around.