So when ESPN reported Tuesday that Comcast-Spectacor was selling off the Sixers, it was hardly a shock. The company had flirted with the idea of selling the basketball team five years ago. It has always been viewed (not always fairly) as the unloved stepchild in this cold-blooded marriage.
Getting a new billionaire owner isn't necessarily a magic solution to a sports franchise's problems. Ask fans of the NFL team in Washington about that. We don't know whether Joshua Harris is the next Daniel Snyder or James Dolan or whether he'd be another Mark Cuban or Arthur Blank. We don't even know whether any of those examples would be the right sort to restore the Sixers to first-class citizenship.
Harris went to the Wharton School, then returned to his native New York to get rich purchasing what financial types like to call "distressed properties." There are plenty of jokes about the Sixers in there. One worry is that he'd see the team as merely another business to strip and flip, although there are NBA rules against downsizing the roster. Another worry is that the team would be just a toy, a vanity project for the 46-year-old Harris until he gets bored with it.
The best case, of course, is that he's a competitive guy with a mean streak who will do whatever it takes to win a title. It looks as if we'll find out.
What we do know for sure is that the current model - a media company controlling franchises because of the programming hours they provide - has not worked. At least not here. We give you, as illustration, Larry Brown.
