Joshua Harris name first came up in conversation as a potential new owner for the Sixers in May. Since then, while waiting for the sale to go through, Harris and his 14 investment partners managed to remain below the radar -- including the fun tidbit that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are among those who have made a personal investment in the team.
Tuesday morning was the first we saw and heard from the new regime (minus a few, including the famous couple). We knew Harris had built his billion-dollar fortune in a private equity company. He sees buying the Sixers as a comparable business move to his past successes.
I wouldn't call the Sixers distressed, Harris said when asked why he had interest in a franchise that has lost a significant amount of money the last couple of years. This is a situation where we feel taking the Sixers and making it a stand alone business -- 100 percent of our time focused on that asset, not a broader package of assets -- when we've done that in the past, we find that the singular focus breathes new life into a lot of situations.
In other words, the new ownership group is not worried about having to run an arena in addition to their team because they dont own the building: they are tenants of the Wells Fargo Center . The television rights do not concern the new regime, either: Comcast SportsNet has a long term deal to broadcast games. And instead of being the second team under one ownership umbrella, the Sixers, for the first time since 1995, are all alone.
The focus for this group is simple: make the team and the game experience better. That combination they hope will make a person want to come back to the arena ... often (see story).
We want to be world class and cutting edge in everything we do, Harris said. We want it to reflect well on us and be part of the community. It starts with how we conduct ourselves and it will reflect on us.
Sixers CEO Adam Aron seconded Harris thoughts.
NBA
Three times in my career before, I was involved in significant turnarounds of financially distressed companies. The common bond on why they turned around, the management focused 100 percent on two things: their customers, in this case our fans, and they focused on making their product excellent," Aron said.
As a rule of thumb, Harris believes when one is new to ownership, no matter the business, being successful starts with great management. When it comes to the basketball end of things, the new ownership will look to team president and general manager Rod Thorn to make sound decisions, with of course head coach Doug Collins' input.
Behind the scenes there will be lots of debate about what we do with players, but at the end of the day Rod is the captain of that ship, Harris said. We'll speak through one voice, which will be Rod and Doug's voice. There are certain owners who run their teams ... but that's not how we will approach this.
Thorn took over general manager duties prior to Tuesdays pressconference when the team announced that former general manager EdStefanski was leaving the organization (see blog post). Ironically, six of the newowners graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and one of theirfirst orders of business was parting ways with a Penn graduate in Stefanski.
I have been doing this a long time and I have been associated with a lot of different ownership groups over time and all of the synergy and how they work together has been different with every group, Thorn said. This one I am sure will be no different. We will see what transpires on the day to day workings of it.
I have gotten to know Josh and I think he is an incredibly humble guy. I think he would be the first one to tell you that he is not a basketball guy, Collins said. He wont be involved in those kind of decisions. He has asked Rod and myself to be the basketball people.
Harris was straight forward in saying how they came to decision to part ways with Stefanski, who joined the Sixers in December of 2007.
We were lucky enough to have two fantastic people doing one job, Ed (Stefanski) and Rod (Thorn), Harris explained. We are going to stay with Rod and have no current plan to replace Ed.
Noteworthy
Harris and company decided to hold their press conference at the Palestra because of their personal connection to the campus and because the buildings storied history.
It is with great pride and excitement that I stand here in the Palestra. Harris said. That brings back memories from my days at Penn. The '82-83 season, that is when I moved here for college and the Sixers won the championship. That left lasting impression on me.
E-mail Dei Lynam at dlynam@comcastsportsnet.com