Question: How did Colangalo become rich?

[arthurracoon]

Question: How did Colangalo become rich?

You need money to start a franchise. What else does he do?

 

[JCSunsfan]

Colangelo didn't start the Suns franchise, and he didn't come to town rich.

JC came to town as a young (28 years old) gm of a brand new NBA frachise in a league that did not nearly have the popularity that it gained in the 1980's.

JC quickly became popular with many rich people in town. When the franchise hit its lowpoint during the drug scandal of the mid-80's the original owners of the Suns wanted to bail. Jerry, the ultimate opportunist, went to all his rich friends and put an ownership group together--with himself as the managing general partner, and bought the team. He probably invested very little cash of his own. His management ability is what bought him his ownership portion.

He pulled of a coup when he was able to maneuver through the minefield of local politics to get AWA built and himself as the long term lessee (in control) of the building.

He made his wealth in basketball. He then followed a similar pattern (putting an ownership group together) to bring baseball to town. He then got the BOB project done. Even more amazing han AWA.

JC's saavy in running a professional sports franchise is how he made his fortune. Arguably, there is none better.

 

[Charles V]

If you are really interested, go pick up this book,

How You Play the Game: Lessons for Life from the Billion-Dollar Business of Sports

Very good book, JCSunsfan summed it up, but there is alot more to his story. For starters, he (along with Dick Klein) was an integral part of Chicago getting a NBA franchise. In fact he was one of the people who developed the Bulls logo as well as had input on the Bulls name ("The Bulls").

Anyway, he has been in the business as a GM and later an owner for a long time. I assume that as the NBA became more successful, Jerry did as well.

 

[Dback Jon]

Jerry has also made moola in real estate. He was a big investor in (blanking out on name - Steve Young lives there, pimped for it - in Mesa/Power Road........).

 

[arthurracoon]

thanks

i guess you do not have to be rich to take over a team - you have to be a good buisness man

 

[Wally]

Originally posted by JCSunsfan
Colangelo didn't start the Suns franchise, and he didn't come to town rich.

JC came to town as a young (28 years old) gm of a brand new NBA frachise in a league that did not nearly have the popularity that it gained in the 1980's.

JC quickly became popular with many rich people in town. When the franchise hit its lowpoint during the drug scandal of the mid-80's the original owners of the Suns wanted to bail. Jerry, the ultimate opportunist, went to all his rich friends and put an ownership group together--with himself as the managing general partner, and bought the team. He probably invested very little cash of his own. His management ability is what bought him his ownership portion.

He pulled of a coup when he was able to maneuver through the minefield of local politics to get AWA built and himself as the long term lessee (in control) of the building.

He made his wealth in basketball. He then followed a similar pattern (putting an ownership group together) to bring baseball to town. He then got the BOB project done. Even more amazing han AWA.

JC's saavy in running a professional sports franchise is how he made his fortune. Arguably, there is none better.

The way I understand it, JC never really put much, if any, money into the original buy out to save the franchise from moving (to CA, I think). In fact, the deal was almost lost when one of the rich friends ran into finincial problems and JC's group was about $7 Mil short. JC convinced the others to kick in the rest and saved the franshise for Phoenix.

JC's saavy in dealing with people is where he really made his money.

In short, I guess I just said about the same thing and added the part where he almost lost it

 

[Brian in Mesa]

Originally posted by Dback Jon
Jerry has also made moola in real estate. He was a big investor in (blanking out on name - Steve Young lives there, pimped for it - in Mesa/Power Road........).

He also owns a ton of land out in and past Buckeye, where major developments are in the works.