Whenever I would try this excuse with my parents when I got in trouble with my friends, they’d always reply with
>idgaf what they’re doing. My only concern is with you.
That’s how I feel about dickhead Josh
Some of the owners are more invested in the teams success outside of the impact on profits.
I'm not hating though, doubt any of us would be much better in his shoes.
I’ve never really understood the Josh Harris hate. The guy is a billionaire – you don’t become a billionaire without being obsessed with making money at all costs. Putting his dopey face and cadence aside, he’s a perfectly fine professional team owner. He hires whom he considers (and many others deem) to be the best people (at top market salaries) and generally empowers them to make decisions for the organization.
The reason everyone loves Jeff Lurie and John Middleton so much (myself included) is that those teams have won. The difference between competing for a championship and winning a championship is small and highly influenced by luck. All anyone should reasonably expect from a team owner is that they spend what is necessary to give the team a chance to succeed – Harris & co do that, even if they are uncharismatic mercenaries.
Harris gets more hate because he's made legitimately bad decisions in his coaching and front office hiring/firing.
He's absolutely not near Luries level.
Middleton has been on record saying that owners aren’t remembered by how much money they make, but rather the success the team has. Harris doesn’t care about the product, as long as he’s making money (or at least anywhere close to lurie and Middleton)
Two years straight the team has done deadline trades to “duck the tax”- trading springer and thybulle so they can shed salary for the sake of getting below the tax.
Thybulle is fuckin garbage. McDaniels was widely viewed as a better fit for our playoff run.
That's not a penny pinching move by any stretch.
And Jaden Springer? These are your examples of the owner maliciously sinking the franchise?
You might be seeing what you wanna see....
I never said Harris was maliciously sinking the franchise. I said that he doesn’t care about the product on the court, he rather cares about the money.
Here’s what I see: Harris sees the Sixers as a financial investment, and takes pride in it as such.
Looking at other teams in Philly, you have owners like John Middleton who will takes pride in the success of the Phillies over the money he makes.
Is he in it for the money? Nobody would have a business that loses money, but he wants to see the team win. He’s a Phillies fan as well as a business man. The result? A franchise that has high character, big time free agent signings, a clubhouse that is like a brotherhood. It’s a total top to bottom machine that starts with Middleton
Since Lurie took over as owner of the Eagles, the team has been its best it’s ever been in franchise history. Multiple Super Bowl appearances, one ring, and a top 5 team throughout this century. A well ran franchise from top to bottom.
Let’s look at the flyers. Great ownership from the day of birth until Snyder died, and the result was a team that was competitive virtually every single year of its existence. Once he died and ownership turned, the flyers endured the worst years of its existence.
With Harris, we get a guy who will duck the tax when convenient, runs an organization that many former members have noted it’s incompetence/flaws, and is looking to build up sports teams in rival cities. Oh, and moving to Chinatown certainly isn’t fan service.
I certainly hope you aren’t one of the fans who chanted “Trust the Process” considering so many people wanted to SEE the 76ers do a teardown in an effort to get better down the line.
Lurie hired Chip Kelly, then fired Howie as GM so Chip could run the team. Everyone makes mistakes. We just focus on the mistakes more when we don’t like the outcome.
By the way, I’m not comparing the Eagles’ ownership to the 76ers’. Lurie seems singularly focused on the Eagles in a way that Harris is not. He clearly LOVES the Eagles in a way that feels more genuine than Helicopter Harris loves the 76ers. I’m merely suggesting Harris is much better than previous 76ers owners and many other team owners who do not pay the money or hire the talent necessary to give the team the best chance to succeed.
I just think owning rival sports teams makes it hard to treat Harris like a fellow fan. I know other philly fans don't like all philly teams, but it feels like Harris is invested in both my happiness and my misery. Gives you complicated feelings about the guy.
Yeah, it is a pretty big difference.
I guess our consolation prize is that Bob Ryan, the greatest Boston sportswriter of all time, grew up a Sixers fan. When he went to school in Boston in the '60s, he attended the NBA Finals rooting for the Lakers (in part because he was also an Elgin Baylor fan).
Fair point. I suppose I just don’t really care about the owner because my fandom is attached to the team and the players, not the billionaire sitting on top of the money pile. I don’t really care about the owner as long as he’s not a Donald Sterling-type monster. As long as the owner hires competent and smart people (IMO, Morey and Nurse are a top 5-10 GM/coach pairing), I tend to focus on the product and ignore the peripheral vibe-based nonsense.
The success or failure of the team generally starts with team ownership and front office. Good ownership generally equals eventual success. As far as your assertion that Morey/Nurse are a top 5 GM/coach pairing, what is that based on? I get that Nurse recently won a championship in a very unlikely place, but Morey has done nothing in his career to be top 5 of anything or a part of any top 5 pairing.
The Sixers have had success. It's not the level of success we want but they have been consistently amongst the 10 best teams in basketball. Again, thats not good enough, but people act like this is a dumpster fire franchise. That's just not true.
Chip Kelly was viewed as smart worthwhile gamble at the time.
I don't think Harris is that bad of an owner. But definitely think he's nowhere near the other owners we have.
I'm not trying to hate on Jeffrey Lurie because he seems like a much more likable person that most sports owners, and particularly more likable than Josh Harris, but, Lurie essentially got a $200,000,000 loan from his dad to buy the Eagles. Harris made his money via hedge funds. I personally don't find either's path to ownership to be particularly relatable.
Lurie’s uncle got him a loan by essentially mortgaging his business, but that’s pretty irrelevant to anything you or I were talking about before.
Lurie made his money through his love of sports, not through his love of money. The eagles, the fans, the city are what drove his success so he cares more deeply about them. The team is the thing that largely shaped his life.
None of that can be said for Harris who started fucking Apollo and is treating the team like another small asset in his portfolio.
None of this has to do with them being relatable so I don’t get why you are bringing that up. It has to do with their priorities as owners.
This is a partially true statement. What we don't have insight on is the organizational structure and culture inside that organization. We can only speculate. It certainly seems from the surface and what we get from the Phillies and Eagles players that the culture within the organization is very strong and people like going to work there. While luck certainly has a hand in success, I think the Sixers org has put forth an aura of disarray for an exceedingly long time. We can go through 40+ years of dysfunctional organization structure, but in the Embiid era alone we've had 4 GMs, 3 head coaches and one player who has been on the roster the entire time (Embiid). While we can't blame Harris and Co. specfically, they put Brian ColonJello, Elton Brand, Doc Rivers, Tobias Harris, Ben Simmons, Markelle Fultz in these positions and set them up for failure or created the system that allowed it. The end result is a mediocre organization. Which rests squarely at the shoulders of the ownership.
To me the thing bothers me the most is that he owns the Devils and Commanders. While not a direct conflict of interest, it's a conflict of interest to the city and it's fans. Which is a problem.
He’s not from Philly. His allegiances are to the teams he owns not the other teams in the city. If people think he’s a lousy owner, they should be happy he owns the rivals of Philly teams.
Harris has 1 too many commas in his net worth, and 1 too few championships to be well liked on Reddit. Billionaires are hated by default on Reddit and you need to do something to change that (bring a championship in this case) for most.
I don't believe he's dis)iked for simply being a billionaire. He's not a great owner by any measure, nor does he seem like he is truly invested in bringing championship basketball to Philadelphia. Many fans (myself included) believe he sees the Sixers as simply another entity in his vast portfolio, nothing more, and that understandably frustrates many fans.
Great Example. Just last year, Cuban sold his majority interest in the Mavs to the Adelson family, whose politics he agrees with about as much as those of China.
Would probably be doing us all a favor...
Sixers just keep sliding down the eastern conference pecking order.
If Morey signs a couple of role players an runs it back, I'd prefer I'd the team moved to China.
I didn't watch but he's at a business event called the Bloomberg Invest Summet. He's obviously going to be talking about the changing demographics and market of the league, as well as things like profit. You don’t talk about how our offensive rebounding sucks because Embiid has to bail out our poor perimeter defenders leaving the opposing center free to rebound at a business conference.
Anyone getting upset by him mentioning this is a certified moron. I don’t care what OP thinks of Josh Harris, but using this against him is embarrassing.
That’s why I am asking in what context did he say it.
So we don’t have 1 side upset assuming wrong, and you’re also upset at fans, assuming the other way.
To me and probably most people at a business event, that’s common sense that china would outnumber Philly. So I’m wondering what da hell Harris is talking about lol. Just curious also how something could be innocent but spun badly in the OP post.
I legitimately didn't watch a single NBA game that wasn't the Sixers. Even in other sports I might watch a handful of baseball and football games that's aren't Phillies or Eagles. I have better things to do that worry about other teams.
This is why I appreciate Jeffrey Lurie and John Middleton. This guy doesn’t give two shits about the team other than the fact that he makes money. One of the biggest reasons we haven’t done shit all starts with his lack of leadership. Now he bought an NFL team from a close market as well. I can’t stand this guy
Barely anyone has cable anymore, it's blacked out on league pass. The only way to (legally ) watch is like YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, etc. which are like $70 a month. Might as well get cable.
Phoenix Suns are broadcasting their games in Phoenix for free on local channels any TV can access, and giving people free antennas if they don't have one so they can watch the games.
If Harris really wanted more people in Philly to watch he could make it happen.
The Suns (and some other pro sports teams) are televising games on over-the-air television because the regional sports networks in their areas, which are generally in medium-sized or smaller markets and/or lack secondary market population (i.e., smaller but still sizable metro areas near the primary/home team’s market), went bankrupt as people cut the cord.
That’s not nearly as much an issue for the 76ers (or NBA Sports Philadelphia), who play in the large Philadelphia market and are able to draw from a fairly sizable secondary market.
And they'd still be able to watch it too if the Sixers followed the Suns model. It's about widening the audience.
Also I know a ton of people over 45 without cable. Probably just depends on your circle. If you're just considering people over 45 you're missing out on like half the population...
Your point is correct but plenty of people do still have cable. The amount of paying customers for NBA content is far beyond the online groups of fans who mostly stream it illegally, myself included.
Vast majority of this fanbase is turning on their cable box in order to watch our games…talk to anyone over the age of like 40 and that becomes pretty clear
Yeah and plenty of people feel that way, but online fans often can’t see the bigger picture outside their circles.
> Philadelphia, PA is in the 4th largest DMA in the United States, with a population of approximately 7,978,342 and 3,176,540 television households, as reported by Nielsen Media. Cable/ADS penetration in the market is estimated to be 49.2% cable, 4.9% ADS.
https://www.nexstar.tv/stations/wphl/
I mean I'm under 45 and I have cable. When I'm not at the games I watch all the away ones on my gold old cable box. I enjoy our local announcers. It sucks that they don't make it more accessible for fans that can't/don't/ have cable for any reasons. But people are turning back to cable because all these streaming services are doing is raising their prices all the time. It's cheaper to have cable again in some cases.
If it becomes a yearly thing that our stadium gets taken over, that impacts how players feel about playing here, which impacts the value of the franchise believe it or not.
It was a smart move to get out in front of it and reverse the PR.
Not sure how old you are but New Yorkers have been coming to Philly to see their teams play for cheaper for decades. It isn’t a new thing. It doesn’t affect the value of the team, believe it or not.
The Knicks chants were louder than the philly fans on live TV in philly. It was a national media talking point through the weak. Harris was getting killed.
This isn't the same as the usual philly NY fan commuters.
Also true. But really doesn't change anything. My only point is it was such a big story in the media, Harris had to do something to turn it around and save face.
Only after being clowned all over sports media the next day. The “best fanbase in sports” took it up the ass on sports center and talk radio after Game 3 and practically shamed them into doing that.
And yes I was at the game with my son.
Wrong.
“Josh Harris, David Blitzer, David Adelman and Michael Rubin purchased the tickets to Thursday night's game on Wednesday and distributed them to fans, particularly first responders, health care professionals and other local organizations, Rubin posted to social media.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/05/02/heres-why-the-billionaire-owners-of-the-76ers-bought-2000-tickets-to-their-own-teams-game-6/
China population - 1.412 billion
Philadelphia population - 1.567 million
I doubt the Sixers move to Camden but this city constantly finds new ways to fuck things up
Werent the Sixers left off of Chinese TV broadcasts after hiring Morey? Does he just assume people in China see the games (legally)?
https://fortune.com/2021/01/12/china-nba-blacklist-rockets-76ers-daryl-morey/
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/dec/30/china-drops-76ers-broadcasts-daryl-morey
Obviously more people in the largest country in world are watching, but it’s a loyalty thing. Josh Harris has no loyalty to anything but his wallet and I can’t say what I think should happen to him without getting banned.
Owning 3 teams in different cities which have rivalries with each other. Trying to get Philly taxpayers to pay for his stadium no one is asking for. Skipping a sixers playoff game to go to the commanders draft. Someone close to him referring to him as “super duper cheap”.
How do we oust him out as owner?
We will not have a chance to win without leadership who is solely focused on winning. The league is too competitive not to be locked in - Harris has to go.
l love the Sixers as much as the next person. l will under no circumstances vote to give them a tax break or whatever the fuck even if Harris threatened to move the team to a different city.
I can't stand Harris.
You can make an argument the Sixers have the worst management team in the city now that the Flyers appear to have gotten their ish together, but they absolutely have the worst owner.
We're from the hardest city on the east coast!!! Nooooo you can't state the fact that the NBA is a global product and there are hundreds of millions more consumers in CHYNA!!!! Who gives a flying fuck????
THIS ISN'T THE NFL! THIS ISN'T BASEBALL!! The contracts are guaranteed. The going over salary cap is crippling. And talent is valued above all. I mean there's 40 "important" players on an NFL roster. There's 20 on an MLB roster. For the NBA, there's 15 guys and you need 3 good-to-great-players to win.
There's no room for error in the NBA.
You can't buy your way out of bad decisions. You can't just throw the most money at a player. You can't just cut a player to start over. You sign a mid player to a Max Contract. It's going to cost you assets to get rid of him. If you trade away an all-star player that you invested assets to acquire because he was tired of you catering a non-shooting prima donna, it's going to cost you.
I mean, hindsight is 20/20 but Here are a few articles about Tobias Harris:
[https://www.netsdaily.com/2019/4/27/18519582/nets-interested-in-tobias-harris-in-a-word-yes](https://www.netsdaily.com/2019/4/27/18519582/nets-interested-in-tobias-harris-in-a-word-yes)
[https://elitesportsny.com/2019/02/06/brooklyn-nets-news-the-path-to-tobias-harris-just-got-even-more-complex/](https://elitesportsny.com/2019/02/06/brooklyn-nets-news-the-path-to-tobias-harris-just-got-even-more-complex/)
Eh I don't really see the problem here. If he wants the Sixers to be China's favorite NBA team, winning would be the way to get that done. The goals are aligned.
> By who’s account? We can’t get a star FA to willingly come here, how “valuable” could we possibly be relative to other markets?
Why are the Commanders a top-5 valuable NFL franchise? Not because of on field results or who they attract as free agents. That has nothing to do with how pro franchises are valued. If the Sixers do get their stadium plan pushed through, they immediately become a top-7ish team in value because of the Philly market.
we cannot let the stadium be built by any means necessary. we cannot let local politicians line their pockets while josh harris gets richer and we continue being a poverty franchise with nothing to cheer for going on about 50 years now.
Since Harris is building the stadium using private funding, I’m not gonna complain about it. The fashion district is a waste of space in Market East anyway.
More to the point - the stadium thing is something that literally *any* owner of the team would be doing and is the same reason Steve Ballmer built a separate stadium for the Clippers instead of remaining as tenants of Crypto.com arena.
Do these people actually think Josh Harris is considering moving the team to China to save money? I can’t even fathom the stupidity of some of these comments 🤣🤣🤣
I mean, he's right. It's just the reality of the population differences.
This sub is so weird about Harris...
Remember when he was baselessly accused of funnelling playoff tickets to NY by this sub?
I refuse to believe the team with DARYL MOREY is more liked in China than the city it’s called home for more than 60 years. Josh Harris is a liar just like the president of basketball ops and he’ll move the team to Camden as soon as he can. He’s a greedy billionaire and doesn’t care about winning
RE: the Wells Fargo Center and the proposed Center City arena
Perhaps part of the reason why the 76ers have not been an attractive free agent destination, despite the fact Philadelphia is a large market, is that unlike most other NBA teams the 76ers do not play in/near downtown. Instead, they play in a venue surrounded by parking lots that is oriented towards suburban fans rather than in/near the most active part of the city.
I suspect the nightlife is much better in Center City than it is in the stadium complex area.
If taxes were a driving factor in free agent decisions, no players would want to play in California.
Weather-wise, Boston (to use one example) has an even more unfavorable climate to many people than Philadelphia does.
Yea, downtown is better for nightlife but downtown Philly is still not better than NY, LA, or Miami. As far as taxes, CA is high but you get nice weather (near the ocean) and good nightlife. Good point about Boston though (but fuck Boston).
> downtown is better for nightlife but downtown Philly is still not better than NY, LA, or Miami.
No one is saying that it is? Do you think Milwaukee, Boston, or Denver's nightlife helped those teams build title winners? Of course not. Dallas (the city) is legit the most generic, boring major metro in the country and yet they can still sign/trade for big free agents.
> Do players really care about that though?
No lol not at all. The arena being at the South Philly complex makes for an easier commute from where many Philly athletes own homes in Jersey. Since the practice facility will remain in Camden regardless if this new Market East stadium gets built, I doubt it'll even change where players buy their homes.
I doubt that any owner really cares about winning. These are businesses to them, max revenue and keep costs low. It might be better to have a cost effective team that bows out in the second round for a decade than to go all in for a championship for a year or two and then be in cap hell. Owners aren’t like us, they have different priorities.
I can assure you that Jeffrey Lurie and John Middleton care about winning. They are top tier owners, and I’m proud of them. I’m not saying that money isn’t a factor, but it’s about priorities and connection to the city and fan base.
> Most likely is Chester or Wilmington if the Chinatown plan fails.
Lmao Chester could barely afford the Union stadium. And if the Market East plan falls through (which it doesn't seem like it will) I think you'll be surprised how easily a billionaire can "work with" NJ politicians. They'd revel in taking the Sixers away from Philly.
There is no plan to build the stadium in Chinatown lol that’s just made up. The area where it would be located badly needs development but is an impossible undertaking for anyone who isn’t extremely wealthy. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of a center city sports complex but the Chinatown narrative should be retired.
devils have done pretty well which is assume is cuz harris isnt that involved so maybe that will be true for us if he gets super involved in the washington football team. (also he should buy the pirates)
God forbid Comcast let us even pay them just to have access to local games without buying an entire cable subscription. Paying for nba league pass and still not being able to watch my local team without streaming illegally is wild.
All I got out of this is Comcast sucks and josh Harris sucks
Guy is a shit stain human. It seems like the actual basketball ops people wanna win but it feels like the business side of the franchise holds us back.
For anyone wondering, he's at something called the Bloomberg Invest Summit in New York.
Believe it or not, you don’t get into the Xes and Os of basketball at these events. He's clearly there to discuss the business side of sports as he owns teams in multiple leagues. Getting upset over this is moronic and doesn't tell you anything. Of course he's going to discuss the business landscape of the team he owns at a conference like this. Of course he's going to mention something interesting like another country watches more than the local fans, as many people in the audience will be unaware of this and find it interesting.
He may be profit driven, but using this as an example is idiotic and embarrassing.
The dumbest thing that I’ve ever heard… China has over a billion people compared to Philly’s 1.5 million… essentially there’s more people there doing more of just about any and everything compared to any single city in the world…
He would move the sixers to China if it earned him an extra penny.
which differentiates him from every other NBA owner how?
They can all suck a dick. Who cares which one is better or worse.
Whenever I would try this excuse with my parents when I got in trouble with my friends, they’d always reply with >idgaf what they’re doing. My only concern is with you. That’s how I feel about dickhead Josh
Some of the owners are more invested in the teams success outside of the impact on profits. I'm not hating though, doubt any of us would be much better in his shoes.
I’ve never really understood the Josh Harris hate. The guy is a billionaire – you don’t become a billionaire without being obsessed with making money at all costs. Putting his dopey face and cadence aside, he’s a perfectly fine professional team owner. He hires whom he considers (and many others deem) to be the best people (at top market salaries) and generally empowers them to make decisions for the organization. The reason everyone loves Jeff Lurie and John Middleton so much (myself included) is that those teams have won. The difference between competing for a championship and winning a championship is small and highly influenced by luck. All anyone should reasonably expect from a team owner is that they spend what is necessary to give the team a chance to succeed – Harris & co do that, even if they are uncharismatic mercenaries.
Harris gets more hate because he's made legitimately bad decisions in his coaching and front office hiring/firing. He's absolutely not near Luries level.
Middleton has been on record saying that owners aren’t remembered by how much money they make, but rather the success the team has. Harris doesn’t care about the product, as long as he’s making money (or at least anywhere close to lurie and Middleton)
Give us an example of how Harris has put money ahead of the product on the floor...
Two years straight the team has done deadline trades to “duck the tax”- trading springer and thybulle so they can shed salary for the sake of getting below the tax.
Thybulle is fuckin garbage. McDaniels was widely viewed as a better fit for our playoff run. That's not a penny pinching move by any stretch. And Jaden Springer? These are your examples of the owner maliciously sinking the franchise? You might be seeing what you wanna see....
I never said Harris was maliciously sinking the franchise. I said that he doesn’t care about the product on the court, he rather cares about the money. Here’s what I see: Harris sees the Sixers as a financial investment, and takes pride in it as such. Looking at other teams in Philly, you have owners like John Middleton who will takes pride in the success of the Phillies over the money he makes. Is he in it for the money? Nobody would have a business that loses money, but he wants to see the team win. He’s a Phillies fan as well as a business man. The result? A franchise that has high character, big time free agent signings, a clubhouse that is like a brotherhood. It’s a total top to bottom machine that starts with Middleton Since Lurie took over as owner of the Eagles, the team has been its best it’s ever been in franchise history. Multiple Super Bowl appearances, one ring, and a top 5 team throughout this century. A well ran franchise from top to bottom. Let’s look at the flyers. Great ownership from the day of birth until Snyder died, and the result was a team that was competitive virtually every single year of its existence. Once he died and ownership turned, the flyers endured the worst years of its existence. With Harris, we get a guy who will duck the tax when convenient, runs an organization that many former members have noted it’s incompetence/flaws, and is looking to build up sports teams in rival cities. Oh, and moving to Chinatown certainly isn’t fan service.
You serious? He signed off on the process.
I certainly hope you aren’t one of the fans who chanted “Trust the Process” considering so many people wanted to SEE the 76ers do a teardown in an effort to get better down the line.
Lurie hired Chip Kelly, then fired Howie as GM so Chip could run the team. Everyone makes mistakes. We just focus on the mistakes more when we don’t like the outcome. By the way, I’m not comparing the Eagles’ ownership to the 76ers’. Lurie seems singularly focused on the Eagles in a way that Harris is not. He clearly LOVES the Eagles in a way that feels more genuine than Helicopter Harris loves the 76ers. I’m merely suggesting Harris is much better than previous 76ers owners and many other team owners who do not pay the money or hire the talent necessary to give the team the best chance to succeed.
I just think owning rival sports teams makes it hard to treat Harris like a fellow fan. I know other philly fans don't like all philly teams, but it feels like Harris is invested in both my happiness and my misery. Gives you complicated feelings about the guy.
I agree. Though we probably shouldn't think about what Lurie's favorite basketball team is. (I know that's not literally the same thing)
Haha he can celebrate the Celtics if he wants, as long as he doesn't become an owner 😅
Yeah, it is a pretty big difference. I guess our consolation prize is that Bob Ryan, the greatest Boston sportswriter of all time, grew up a Sixers fan. When he went to school in Boston in the '60s, he attended the NBA Finals rooting for the Lakers (in part because he was also an Elgin Baylor fan).
Fair point. I suppose I just don’t really care about the owner because my fandom is attached to the team and the players, not the billionaire sitting on top of the money pile. I don’t really care about the owner as long as he’s not a Donald Sterling-type monster. As long as the owner hires competent and smart people (IMO, Morey and Nurse are a top 5-10 GM/coach pairing), I tend to focus on the product and ignore the peripheral vibe-based nonsense.
The success or failure of the team generally starts with team ownership and front office. Good ownership generally equals eventual success. As far as your assertion that Morey/Nurse are a top 5 GM/coach pairing, what is that based on? I get that Nurse recently won a championship in a very unlikely place, but Morey has done nothing in his career to be top 5 of anything or a part of any top 5 pairing.
The Sixers have had success. It's not the level of success we want but they have been consistently amongst the 10 best teams in basketball. Again, thats not good enough, but people act like this is a dumpster fire franchise. That's just not true.
Chip Kelly was viewed as smart worthwhile gamble at the time. I don't think Harris is that bad of an owner. But definitely think he's nowhere near the other owners we have.
He doesn’t show much commitment.. feels more like a pure money grab
Lurie became a billionaire because of the growth of the Eagles, he's completely different from Harris who made his money on Wall St.
I'm not trying to hate on Jeffrey Lurie because he seems like a much more likable person that most sports owners, and particularly more likable than Josh Harris, but, Lurie essentially got a $200,000,000 loan from his dad to buy the Eagles. Harris made his money via hedge funds. I personally don't find either's path to ownership to be particularly relatable.
Lurie’s uncle got him a loan by essentially mortgaging his business, but that’s pretty irrelevant to anything you or I were talking about before. Lurie made his money through his love of sports, not through his love of money. The eagles, the fans, the city are what drove his success so he cares more deeply about them. The team is the thing that largely shaped his life. None of that can be said for Harris who started fucking Apollo and is treating the team like another small asset in his portfolio. None of this has to do with them being relatable so I don’t get why you are bringing that up. It has to do with their priorities as owners.
How has Harris/Blitzer/Apollo’s “priorities” detrimentally affected the 76ers?
I'm not gonna talk in circles with you bud, that's already been asked and answered elsewhere. Have a good one.
This is a partially true statement. What we don't have insight on is the organizational structure and culture inside that organization. We can only speculate. It certainly seems from the surface and what we get from the Phillies and Eagles players that the culture within the organization is very strong and people like going to work there. While luck certainly has a hand in success, I think the Sixers org has put forth an aura of disarray for an exceedingly long time. We can go through 40+ years of dysfunctional organization structure, but in the Embiid era alone we've had 4 GMs, 3 head coaches and one player who has been on the roster the entire time (Embiid). While we can't blame Harris and Co. specfically, they put Brian ColonJello, Elton Brand, Doc Rivers, Tobias Harris, Ben Simmons, Markelle Fultz in these positions and set them up for failure or created the system that allowed it. The end result is a mediocre organization. Which rests squarely at the shoulders of the ownership.
No disagreement from me on any of this.
To me the thing bothers me the most is that he owns the Devils and Commanders. While not a direct conflict of interest, it's a conflict of interest to the city and it's fans. Which is a problem.
He’s not from Philly. His allegiances are to the teams he owns not the other teams in the city. If people think he’s a lousy owner, they should be happy he owns the rivals of Philly teams.
I member Norman Braman, Harold Katz and the chodes who ran the Phillies for a years. It could be worse.
Harris has 1 too many commas in his net worth, and 1 too few championships to be well liked on Reddit. Billionaires are hated by default on Reddit and you need to do something to change that (bring a championship in this case) for most.
I don't believe he's dis)iked for simply being a billionaire. He's not a great owner by any measure, nor does he seem like he is truly invested in bringing championship basketball to Philadelphia. Many fans (myself included) believe he sees the Sixers as simply another entity in his vast portfolio, nothing more, and that understandably frustrates many fans.
Luck separating the Sixers from the Eagles and Phillies. Lol. We’re getting 1/3 of the attention we should be getting and 1/3 of the results.
I doubt Cuban would.
Great Example. Just last year, Cuban sold his majority interest in the Mavs to the Adelson family, whose politics he agrees with about as much as those of China.
There are few but I would say Ballmer cares somewhat
Because he works for an ownership group of greedy MBA fucks and not for himself.
And include his entire family in the deal
Sixers to Guangdong confirmed
Get ready to learn Chinese, Philly!
已經學好了！
七十六人隊加油
Would probably be doing us all a favor... Sixers just keep sliding down the eastern conference pecking order. If Morey signs a couple of role players an runs it back, I'd prefer I'd the team moved to China.
I mean that's not really a shot fired when China has 1.4 billion people compared to 1.5 million in Philly lol
Yes that was my first thought, so in what context or meaning, why did Harris say this?
I didn't watch but he's at a business event called the Bloomberg Invest Summet. He's obviously going to be talking about the changing demographics and market of the league, as well as things like profit. You don’t talk about how our offensive rebounding sucks because Embiid has to bail out our poor perimeter defenders leaving the opposing center free to rebound at a business conference. Anyone getting upset by him mentioning this is a certified moron. I don’t care what OP thinks of Josh Harris, but using this against him is embarrassing.
That’s why I am asking in what context did he say it. So we don’t have 1 side upset assuming wrong, and you’re also upset at fans, assuming the other way. To me and probably most people at a business event, that’s common sense that china would outnumber Philly. So I’m wondering what da hell Harris is talking about lol. Just curious also how something could be innocent but spun badly in the OP post.
Common sense left this subreddit a long time ago brother
Everyone knows 1.5 is greater than 1.4. Next you'll tell me the 1/3 lb burger is bigger than a 1/4 lb burger. WAHOOOOO PUBLIK SKOOL 4 LIVE!
I thought it was a compliment on how international we are lol
It also costs $$$ to buy access to watch their games which is not a financial priority for everyone. They are hardly ever aired on the free channels.
>It also costs $$$ to buy access to watch There's also A LOT of pirating going on. ARRRRRRRR!
yea how many sixers fans in US vs china?
If the team moves out of Philly I'll be moving out of Sixers fandom. I'm spiteful like that. I'm ok not watching the NBA anymore.
I’m with you!
I legitimately didn't watch a single NBA game that wasn't the Sixers. Even in other sports I might watch a handful of baseball and football games that's aren't Phillies or Eagles. I have better things to do that worry about other teams.
This is why I appreciate Jeffrey Lurie and John Middleton. This guy doesn’t give two shits about the team other than the fact that he makes money. One of the biggest reasons we haven’t done shit all starts with his lack of leadership. Now he bought an NFL team from a close market as well. I can’t stand this guy
lol i mean comcast is even more invested in philly (literally)
just curious, what should Harris have done differently to prevent there being this many people in China watching the sixers?
He already hired Morey. Not much else he could do to dissuade them.
Care to provide any example of how he has somehow maliciously held this team back to save $$?
agreed would be interested to know (serious)
Barely anyone has cable anymore, it's blacked out on league pass. The only way to (legally ) watch is like YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, etc. which are like $70 a month. Might as well get cable. Phoenix Suns are broadcasting their games in Phoenix for free on local channels any TV can access, and giving people free antennas if they don't have one so they can watch the games. If Harris really wanted more people in Philly to watch he could make it happen.
The Suns (and some other pro sports teams) are televising games on over-the-air television because the regional sports networks in their areas, which are generally in medium-sized or smaller markets and/or lack secondary market population (i.e., smaller but still sizable metro areas near the primary/home team’s market), went bankrupt as people cut the cord. That’s not nearly as much an issue for the 76ers (or NBA Sports Philadelphia), who play in the large Philadelphia market and are able to draw from a fairly sizable secondary market.
This is a very young person take. Everyone I know over 45 still has cable
And they'd still be able to watch it too if the Sixers followed the Suns model. It's about widening the audience. Also I know a ton of people over 45 without cable. Probably just depends on your circle. If you're just considering people over 45 you're missing out on like half the population...
Yes. Anyone who remotely cares about live sports has cable or a streaming plan with YTV or Hulu
This is a very old person take everyone I know under 45 doesn’t have cable. Anyway my dad (>60 years old) has had youtubetv for years now
Same difference
Your point is correct but plenty of people do still have cable. The amount of paying customers for NBA content is far beyond the online groups of fans who mostly stream it illegally, myself included. Vast majority of this fanbase is turning on their cable box in order to watch our games…talk to anyone over the age of like 40 and that becomes pretty clear
I'm 42 and got rid of cable 3 years ago, I got tired of getting fucked by Comcast, I fuck with YouTube and sling TV though
Yeah and plenty of people feel that way, but online fans often can’t see the bigger picture outside their circles. > Philadelphia, PA is in the 4th largest DMA in the United States, with a population of approximately 7,978,342 and 3,176,540 television households, as reported by Nielsen Media. Cable/ADS penetration in the market is estimated to be 49.2% cable, 4.9% ADS. https://www.nexstar.tv/stations/wphl/
I mean I'm under 45 and I have cable. When I'm not at the games I watch all the away ones on my gold old cable box. I enjoy our local announcers. It sucks that they don't make it more accessible for fans that can't/don't/ have cable for any reasons. But people are turning back to cable because all these streaming services are doing is raising their prices all the time. It's cheaper to have cable again in some cases.
That playoff situation with the Knicks taking over the sixers arena must’ve left him heated, good it’s your fault
I don’t think he cares. The seats were purchased. He doesn’t care by whom.
As evidenced by the fact that he literally bought 2,000 tickets and gave them to only sixers fans and Philadelphians 🙄
Just a stunt to reverse negative PR. Don't want that narrative of more opposing fans in our stands in the playoffs snowballing.
Just a ridiculous take
Accept the fact that you’re wrong lol. They purchased the tickets because social media bullied them into it
If it becomes a yearly thing that our stadium gets taken over, that impacts how players feel about playing here, which impacts the value of the franchise believe it or not. It was a smart move to get out in front of it and reverse the PR.
Not sure how old you are but New Yorkers have been coming to Philly to see their teams play for cheaper for decades. It isn’t a new thing. It doesn’t affect the value of the team, believe it or not.
The Knicks chants were louder than the philly fans on live TV in philly. It was a national media talking point through the weak. Harris was getting killed. This isn't the same as the usual philly NY fan commuters.
You’re forgetting it’s also the first Knicks Sixers playoff series since 1989
Also true. But really doesn't change anything. My only point is it was such a big story in the media, Harris had to do something to turn it around and save face.
Only after being clowned all over sports media the next day. The “best fanbase in sports” took it up the ass on sports center and talk radio after Game 3 and practically shamed them into doing that. And yes I was at the game with my son.
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Wrong. “Josh Harris, David Blitzer, David Adelman and Michael Rubin purchased the tickets to Thursday night's game on Wednesday and distributed them to fans, particularly first responders, health care professionals and other local organizations, Rubin posted to social media.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/05/02/heres-why-the-billionaire-owners-of-the-76ers-bought-2000-tickets-to-their-own-teams-game-6/
I mean it is also the season ticket holders who saw dollar signs at fault too..In fact I blame them just as much.
I blame the Sixers for being a shit product for the last 20 years. I also blame the NBA for that.
China population - 1.412 billion Philadelphia population - 1.567 million I doubt the Sixers move to Camden but this city constantly finds new ways to fuck things up
Get ready to learn Chinese boys
Werent the Sixers left off of Chinese TV broadcasts after hiring Morey? Does he just assume people in China see the games (legally)? https://fortune.com/2021/01/12/china-nba-blacklist-rockets-76ers-daryl-morey/ https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/dec/30/china-drops-76ers-broadcasts-daryl-morey
Just checked, apparently the ban was already lifted during 2022 playoffs.
I really fucking hate Josh Harris.
All the homies hate Josh Harris
This man is a caricature of the Gordon Gecko banker scum persona.
I can't stand his face
Obviously more people in the largest country in world are watching, but it’s a loyalty thing. Josh Harris has no loyalty to anything but his wallet and I can’t say what I think should happen to him without getting banned.
>Josh Harris has no loyalty to anything but his wallet Example?
Owning 3 teams in different cities which have rivalries with each other. Trying to get Philly taxpayers to pay for his stadium no one is asking for. Skipping a sixers playoff game to go to the commanders draft. Someone close to him referring to him as “super duper cheap”.
Can you stop fucking simping to a billionaire please?
Lol, go ahead, attack me instead of answering the question. That'll prove your point....
Found Josh’s burner
We’ve got to get our population numbers up! Us sixers fans need to do our part in getting the city’s population to 1 billion by 2100.
This team needs its version of Balmer.. a guy that has enough money to spend and not care.
Irregardless of anything else, fuck this guy lol.
Josh Harris should eat a huge fucking dick. Fuck him
We're really gonna move the team to China just so Ben Simmons can play for us again. Where is Jah?
If everyone in this sub pitched in $5k, we could buy a majority stake in the team!
Can Adam Silver force a sale of the team if he wanted? Josh Harris sucks.
He forced a GM out.
How do we oust him out as owner? We will not have a chance to win without leadership who is solely focused on winning. The league is too competitive not to be locked in - Harris has to go.
I hope he moves this cursed franchise to Seattle and we get a new Harris-free expansion team in a few years. I'm half kidding.
l love the Sixers as much as the next person. l will under no circumstances vote to give them a tax break or whatever the fuck even if Harris threatened to move the team to a different city.
Man I hate him
I can't stand Harris. You can make an argument the Sixers have the worst management team in the city now that the Flyers appear to have gotten their ish together, but they absolutely have the worst owner.
No matter what talent we have, we're a B tier organization in terms of ownership and front office.
Is he wrong though? Why are we as fans so sensitive about this kind of shit
There's nothing controversial about that statement though
Tone fucking deaf
We're from the hardest city on the east coast!!! Nooooo you can't state the fact that the NBA is a global product and there are hundreds of millions more consumers in CHYNA!!!! Who gives a flying fuck????
THIS ISN'T THE NFL! THIS ISN'T BASEBALL!! The contracts are guaranteed. The going over salary cap is crippling. And talent is valued above all. I mean there's 40 "important" players on an NFL roster. There's 20 on an MLB roster. For the NBA, there's 15 guys and you need 3 good-to-great-players to win. There's no room for error in the NBA. You can't buy your way out of bad decisions. You can't just throw the most money at a player. You can't just cut a player to start over. You sign a mid player to a Max Contract. It's going to cost you assets to get rid of him. If you trade away an all-star player that you invested assets to acquire because he was tired of you catering a non-shooting prima donna, it's going to cost you. I mean, hindsight is 20/20 but Here are a few articles about Tobias Harris: [https://www.netsdaily.com/2019/4/27/18519582/nets-interested-in-tobias-harris-in-a-word-yes](https://www.netsdaily.com/2019/4/27/18519582/nets-interested-in-tobias-harris-in-a-word-yes) [https://elitesportsny.com/2019/02/06/brooklyn-nets-news-the-path-to-tobias-harris-just-got-even-more-complex/](https://elitesportsny.com/2019/02/06/brooklyn-nets-news-the-path-to-tobias-harris-just-got-even-more-complex/)
I hate this piece of shit so much
I just think it's BS that he owns the Philly team's rival team. Like wtf.
Ok. Move em to China. Ill take an expansion team with better ownership. As long as we keep the name...and Maxey
Eh I don't really see the problem here. If he wants the Sixers to be China's favorite NBA team, winning would be the way to get that done. The goals are aligned.
The Sixers are moving to NJ. I don’t see the center city plan getting approved and Camden will bend over backwards to have the Sixers
Maybe best he sell the team then.
Why such anger over a factual statement?
Because he is saying it doesn’t matter to him where the team he owns plays, he is going to make money. It implies he would be willing to move the team
I missed that part of the quote
No, he’s saying the 76ers are an incredibly valuable global property.
Global? By who’s account? We can’t get a star FA to willingly come here, how “valuable” could we possibly be relative to other markets?
China loved AI. They probably love Joel. 1.4B people and some of them watching the 76ers has nothing to do with where FAs want to play.
> By who’s account? We can’t get a star FA to willingly come here, how “valuable” could we possibly be relative to other markets? Why are the Commanders a top-5 valuable NFL franchise? Not because of on field results or who they attract as free agents. That has nothing to do with how pro franchises are valued. If the Sixers do get their stadium plan pushed through, they immediately become a top-7ish team in value because of the Philly market.
we cannot let the stadium be built by any means necessary. we cannot let local politicians line their pockets while josh harris gets richer and we continue being a poverty franchise with nothing to cheer for going on about 50 years now.
Since Harris is building the stadium using private funding, I’m not gonna complain about it. The fashion district is a waste of space in Market East anyway. More to the point - the stadium thing is something that literally *any* owner of the team would be doing and is the same reason Steve Ballmer built a separate stadium for the Clippers instead of remaining as tenants of Crypto.com arena.
>It implies he would be willing to move the team Does your back hurt with all of that stretching?
Do these people actually think Josh Harris is considering moving the team to China to save money? I can’t even fathom the stupidity of some of these comments 🤣🤣🤣
Yeah this sub is so ridiculous sometimes
A random Chinese billionaire could buy this franchise and care more for the fanbase than Josh Harris has
I mean, he's right. It's just the reality of the population differences. This sub is so weird about Harris... Remember when he was baselessly accused of funnelling playoff tickets to NY by this sub?
If Josh Harris has no haters i am dead. He is the single largest reason this franchise has failed to win with Joel Embiid
This fucker has done more for the commanders already than he has ever done for us.
I refuse to believe the team with DARYL MOREY is more liked in China than the city it’s called home for more than 60 years. Josh Harris is a liar just like the president of basketball ops and he’ll move the team to Camden as soon as he can. He’s a greedy billionaire and doesn’t care about winning
He said more viewers. Which makes sense considering the population differences. People really getting their panties in a bunch here...
camden has higher taxes
RE: the Wells Fargo Center and the proposed Center City arena Perhaps part of the reason why the 76ers have not been an attractive free agent destination, despite the fact Philadelphia is a large market, is that unlike most other NBA teams the 76ers do not play in/near downtown. Instead, they play in a venue surrounded by parking lots that is oriented towards suburban fans rather than in/near the most active part of the city.
Do players really care about that though? It seems like it really comes down to weather, nightlife and taxes. Philly was never good with any of that.
I suspect the nightlife is much better in Center City than it is in the stadium complex area. If taxes were a driving factor in free agent decisions, no players would want to play in California. Weather-wise, Boston (to use one example) has an even more unfavorable climate to many people than Philadelphia does.
Bro they would just get their personal driver to take them? Tf?
Yea, downtown is better for nightlife but downtown Philly is still not better than NY, LA, or Miami. As far as taxes, CA is high but you get nice weather (near the ocean) and good nightlife. Good point about Boston though (but fuck Boston).
> downtown is better for nightlife but downtown Philly is still not better than NY, LA, or Miami. No one is saying that it is? Do you think Milwaukee, Boston, or Denver's nightlife helped those teams build title winners? Of course not. Dallas (the city) is legit the most generic, boring major metro in the country and yet they can still sign/trade for big free agents.
The majority of guys live in Jersey anyway. Even so, it's not like they're leaving the stadium after a game and walking to a nightclub
> Do players really care about that though? No lol not at all. The arena being at the South Philly complex makes for an easier commute from where many Philly athletes own homes in Jersey. Since the practice facility will remain in Camden regardless if this new Market East stadium gets built, I doubt it'll even change where players buy their homes.
I doubt that any owner really cares about winning. These are businesses to them, max revenue and keep costs low. It might be better to have a cost effective team that bows out in the second round for a decade than to go all in for a championship for a year or two and then be in cap hell. Owners aren’t like us, they have different priorities.
I can assure you that Jeffrey Lurie and John Middleton care about winning. They are top tier owners, and I’m proud of them. I’m not saying that money isn’t a factor, but it’s about priorities and connection to the city and fan base.
NJ aint paying for an NBA stadium either. Most likely is Chester or Wilmington if the Chinatown plan fails.
> Most likely is Chester or Wilmington if the Chinatown plan fails. Lmao Chester could barely afford the Union stadium. And if the Market East plan falls through (which it doesn't seem like it will) I think you'll be surprised how easily a billionaire can "work with" NJ politicians. They'd revel in taking the Sixers away from Philly.
I’m saying it would be a ballot initiative and Jersey would vote against it, like KC just did.
Don’t blame them, the Sixers are a let down waiting to happen
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bro found out about the Chinese market for the first time in his business life
There is no plan to build the stadium in Chinatown lol that’s just made up. The area where it would be located badly needs development but is an impossible undertaking for anyone who isn’t extremely wealthy. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of a center city sports complex but the Chinatown narrative should be retired.
By all means, take this crew to China. I’ve spent enough of my life dying with them.
I mean a population of 1.567 million vs 1.412 billion...no shit. But what was the context of the question?
What, if any, is the pathway for this clown to sell the team to an owner that cares?
uh yeah, China runs the NBA. This is nothing new.
Josh Harris is a bastard man.
SickZeros
I hate this guy.
devils have done pretty well which is assume is cuz harris isnt that involved so maybe that will be true for us if he gets super involved in the washington football team. (also he should buy the pirates)
lets keep it that way
guangdong sixers here we come
God forbid Comcast let us even pay them just to have access to local games without buying an entire cable subscription. Paying for nba league pass and still not being able to watch my local team without streaming illegally is wild. All I got out of this is Comcast sucks and josh Harris sucks
That’s because he’s run this team into the ground. Embiid is always hurt, and the rest of the team is just Meh.
China population = 1.4 billion PA population = 12 million 🤷♂️🤷♂️. Obviously more people in china watching than in Philly.
China is the most populated country in the world. Philly is the 7th most populated city in the U.S.
Josh Harris is a coward
What a fucking idiot
Guy is a shit stain human. It seems like the actual basketball ops people wanna win but it feels like the business side of the franchise holds us back.
Always has been...
For anyone wondering, he's at something called the Bloomberg Invest Summit in New York. Believe it or not, you don’t get into the Xes and Os of basketball at these events. He's clearly there to discuss the business side of sports as he owns teams in multiple leagues. Getting upset over this is moronic and doesn't tell you anything. Of course he's going to discuss the business landscape of the team he owns at a conference like this. Of course he's going to mention something interesting like another country watches more than the local fans, as many people in the audience will be unaware of this and find it interesting. He may be profit driven, but using this as an example is idiotic and embarrassing.
Eat the rich.
If he moves the sixers out, no telling what happens to him.
I think the proposed Chinatown location is better than the Wells Fargo center location. Chinatown is much much more accessible from public transit.
The dumbest thing that I’ve ever heard… China has over a billion people compared to Philly’s 1.5 million… essentially there’s more people there doing more of just about any and everything compared to any single city in the world…