Daniel Silna

Daniel Silna (born August 26, 1944) is an American businessman best known for his success in the textile industry and as co-owner of the American Basketball Association team known as the Spirits of St. Louis and the incredibly lucrative deal cut to fold that team during the ABA-NBA merger.
Brothers Daniel and Ozzie Silna made a fortune as pioneers in the manufacture of polyester. In 1974 they wanted to own an NBA team. After an attempt to purchase the Detroit Pistons fell short, the Silnas purchased the ABA's Carolina Cougars franchise with the expectation of moving it into the NBA with the impending merger of the two leagues.
The Silna brothers moved the Cougars to St. Louis, Missouri because it was then the largest city in the United States without a professional basketball team and they thought this would make their team more likely to join the NBA. In 1974 the Cougars, roster and all, were overhauled and became the ABA's Spirits of St. Louis from 1974 through 1976.
The 1975-76 season had not turned out so well in terms of either attendance or wins on the court. In May 1976, due to attendance problems in St. Louis, the Spirits announced that they were going to move to Salt Lake City, Utah to play as the Utah Rockies when a lease agreement for the Salt Palace was arranged. But the Stars folded before the merger could occur and instead, the Spirits bought the rights to some of the Stars' best players, including future Hall of Famer Moses Malone. The Spirits were not included in the merger, but the Silna brothers nonetheless managed to turn the merger, for them, into one of the greatest deals in the history of professional sports: ) In June, 1976 the remaining ABA owners agreed, in return for the Spirits folding, to pay the St. Louis owners $2.2 million in cash up front in addition to a 1/7 share of the four remaining teams' television revenues in perpetuity. As the NBA's popularity exploded in the 1980s and 1990s, the league's television rights were sold to CBS and then NBC, and additional deals were struck with the TNT and TBS cable networks; league television revenue soared into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Over the past 25 years, the Silnas have collected approximately $100 million from the NBA, despite the fact that the Spirits never played an NBA game. The Silnas continue to receive checks from the NBA on a yearly basis, representing a 4/7 share of the television money that would normally go to any NBA franchise. Thanks to their deal during the ABA-NBA merger the Silnas made millions through the 1980s and at least $4.4 million per year through the 1990s. With New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson purchasing the New Orleans Hornets from the NBA in 2012 and planning to rename the team, there had been talk that the NBA might negotiate a deal to end the TV deals for the Silna brothers in exchange for rights to the Spirits name. However, this did not happen, as the team ultimately took the name of Pelicans. The deal cut by the Silna brothers and the incredible amount of revenue it has produced over the years has itself become legend.

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