This is to give himself a rich toy, Tang Huan smiled, but there seems to be some flickering ingredients in it.

There are four major professional sports leagues in North America, in order: the National Football League (NFL), founded in 1920, which began to cooperate in 1903, the Major League Baseball (MLB), which was officially founded in 1920, the NBA, which was founded in 1946, and the National Hockey League, which was founded in 1917.

For a long time in the original time and space, in terms of overall profits, the NFL, MLB and NBA were the three most profitable sports leagues in the world.

While the National Hockey League's popularity in the southern United States is limited, the NFL still generates more market revenue than most other professional sports, only slightly behind the English Premier League and the fifth-most lucrative league in the world.

The benefits of the four major leagues are more than 100 times that of other professional sports combined, and at the same time, the four major leagues have also brought a great impact on the culture, and the stars who usually become famous in the four major leagues will become a hot topic of conversation and even become some markers.

In his previous life, Yao Ming, who was famous in the NBA, gained fame and fortune on the mainland, which can illustrate this influence.

Its role is sometimes moisturizing things silently, just like the abbot of the temple who opens his mouth and closes his mouth to inherit the culture uses an iPhone, bowing from the upper class, as for the bottom of the public, it is the Apple Watch AppleWatch as soon as it comes out of the rivers and lakes, and the head is worshipped.

Tang Huan is not interested in the NHL, that thing is too cold. MLB also doesn't know much.

As for the NFL. He'd heard of the Super Bowl. After all, it was involved in a big scandal, that is, at the 38th Super Bowl in 2004. Jackson's bare-chested right chest in front of hundreds of millions of spectators during the halftime performance of the Super Bowl game caused a lot of controversy in the United States, and finally Jackson had to apologize, and Viacom, the parent company of CBS that broadcast the game at the time, also paid a huge fine for it.

It's the NBA, and Tang Huan is relatively familiar. "Magician" Erwin? Johnson and "Big Bird" Larry? Bird has been playing for the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics since 1979. Since then, black and white have jointly created the glory of the NBA in the 80s, with the Los Angeles Lakers reaching the Finals 9 times and winning the championship 5 times, and the Boston Celtics reaching the Finals 5 times and winning the championship 3 times.

And this monopoly pattern has now quietly begun to take shape and cannot be shaken.

Billionaire JerryBuss aka Jerry? Buss, in 1979, spent $67.5 million from another billionaire, Jack KentCooke, to buy the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL, the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA and other teams. It's like a big fight.

In fact, it is also true, Bruce Lee's apprentice. "Sky Hook" Karim? Abdul-Jabbar, who has been with the Lakers since 1975, has just teamed up with Johnson, who is still a rookie, to win this year's NBA championship.

In the next ten years from now, the Lakers will enter the Finals nine times, and now Wilson lobbied to buy a team to make toys, isn't that just waiting to be trampled on by others.

He once mentioned to Hawkins that if EA had the power to buy an NBA team, but it was not limited to a local team from the beginning, after all, his and the company's influence could not be limited to San Francisco and California.

The indoor venue of the Oakland-Alameda County Arena, which is the home of the Golden State Warriors, was once named Oracle Arena, the stadium of San Jose built in the 1990s, and has also experienced the naming era of Compaq, HP and SAP. Even Sybase has invested in an NHL ice hockey team, the San Jose Sharks, and SAP has titled the Open Tennis Tournament.

Tang Huan, who quickly calculated the gains and losses, rubbed his eyebrows, "Mr. Mayor, since the stadium is poorly maintained due to financial problems, then I'll let EA talk to you about naming rights." In fact, this idea of raising funds seems to be quite good, and the management department can completely conduct a public bidding operation, so why bother with your hard lobbying. ”

"Due to a combination of various reasons, this idea can only stay at the level of discussion, otherwise it would not have been until the gymnasium has been in use for almost 15 years, and the disadvantages have become more and more obvious before it begins to be remedied." Wilson shook his head with a wry smile and asked tentatively, "Don, you look like you like sports very much, and you really don't plan to buy a team." ”

"Mr. Mayor is so enthusiastic, there must be something to consider, you might as well say it directly." Tang Huan was patient and looked at the other party.

"Well, that's what happened." Wilson coughed lightly, "Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders is determined to move the team to Los Angeles, you should know that this move will definitely have a certain degree of negative impact on the already sluggish economic situation, and the Oakland Raiders were in Oakland at the beginning of their establishment, and the official has made great efforts, how can they leave now and abandon the local fans." ”

Wilson was visibly annoyed by this, and spoke in a dissatisfied tone about the cause and effect.

There are two major leagues under the NFL: NFC and AFC, before the merger of the two in 1970, the names of the NFL and AFL were respectively, that is, the NFL actually annexed the AFL, and then established NFC and AFC respectively.

In 1961, the owners of the Minnesota Vikings accepted an invitation from the NFL to join the NFL, leaving the AFL with a team spot.

At the time, Oakland was barely equipped to build a professional football team, not even stadiums for games, with the nearest stadiums in Berkeley and San Francisco. At the same time, the San Francisco Bay Area already has a team that has established itself in the NFL, the San Francisco 49ers.

But. The owner of the Los Angeles Electric Optics threatened. Without a second team on the West Coast, he would have dropped out of the league, so the AFL owner had no choice but to choose Oakland.

As a result, Auckland picked up a bargain and officially became the eighth member of the AFL in 1960 and got a draft pick.

As Wilson said, with the membership, the leaders of the city of Oakland at that time began to actively seek out some business people. to help invest in building a new team.

Finally, led by real estate developer Y. Charles Soda, a joint-stock agency, Oakland Raiders, was established, in addition to several limited partners such as Ed McGah, F. Wayne Valley, etc.

Because Oakland did not have its own stadium, the team chose "Kezar Stadium" in San Francisco as its home stadium, but the first season was not a good one, with less than 10,000 spectators and a loss of $500,000.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Soda gave up his partnership status. The picky one ran away. It's about to break up. Valley stepped forward and took out a $400,000 loan. and bought the remaining shares, becoming the largest shareholder.

Valley threatens Oakland to move the Oakland Raiders elsewhere if no more stadium is built.

After the 1962 season, Valley hired assistant coach and manager of the San Diego Electrics, AlDavis, who was only 33 years old at the time, becoming the youngest person in professional football history to do both positions, and the Oakland Raiders' results began to improve.

In 1966, AlDavis paid $18,000 to buy a 10% stake in the team, becoming the third largest shareholder and owner of the operation.

As a result, in 1972, after a few weeks away from Valley's Munich Olympics, Davis changed his partnership contract to give him full control of the team's operations. McGah became a supporter of Davis and signed the contract, teaming up to kick Valley out of management.

Under Davis' control, the Oakland Raiders won their first Super Bowl in 1977.

Naturally, Davis wanted his wallet to swell with the results, and he asked Oakland to expand the stadium, especially the luxury boxes, but that didn't happen, so he began to plan to move to Los Angeles, where the market was more promising.

Davis did this, obviously aroused the dissatisfaction of the Auckland officials, you moved the team, we worked hard to build, what to do with the stadium that has only been used for more than ten years, you are an outsider who occupies the pigeon's nest, for your own interests, you have not considered it from the perspective of Auckland at all.

"At the moment, Davis is the largest shareholder of the team, holding about 25% of the shares, and with your strength, there is no problem at all to win this team." Wilson stared at Tang Huan with burning eyes, "Other shareholders, I can help get in touch." ”

I'm rubbing, it's just a team, and it's so intriguing, Tang Huan cocked Erlang's legs and was silent.

Realistically speaking, relying on the mature business operation mechanism of the United States, the teams of the four major professional leagues are indeed very valuable for investment, and brushing up social prestige is just a natural giveaway.

"Don, your involvement, Auckland fans will only like to hear it, no one will gossip." Wilson continued to lobby, "Once you're in the team, Oakland will do everything they can to make it as easy as possible. ”

Seeing that Tang Huan still hesitated and didn't speak, Wilson simply showed his details, "Tang, my term of office is coming to an end, and I still want to fight for re-election, if this matter is done well, it will undoubtedly get a greater support rate." ”

"Well, Mr. Mayor, I can try." Having said that, Tang Huan couldn't help but express his position, "I've been really busy lately, and I'm going to go to Europe for a trip." In this way, let my business partner, Mikhail, the director of Shennong Fund and EA? Kogan is here to do this. ”

Hearing this response, old Wilson, who was dry-mouthed, let out a sigh of relief, and took a few sips of his cup regardless of his image. (To be continued......)