Robert Sarver

King Kendrick

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I posted this thread in the newbie forum, now that I've been promoted @jojojo asked me to post it in the mains.

So if this story http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/...-sarver-hand-5951147?_sm_au_=iVVFNDT46q4HfWZ2 is true, and he really wants to be Levante, I really hope they deny his application.

I don't know how many of you guys are American, but he is the American Mike Ashley and Oyston family combined, looking to suck up as much money out of the team while not giving a feck about the fan base. He destroyed one of the most iconic teams of this century because he wanted to save money, not resigning players key to their success, trading away their most productive players because they were on large contracts, and unwilling to splurge on free agents to try and get the team competitive again. Phoenix went from being a title contender every year to now having missed the postseason for 5 straight years because of his efforts to cut costs.

Heres just some of the stuff he did:
- Passing on signing Joe Johnson for $50 million when he was offering $45 million. Nash-Johnson-Marion-Stoudemire would've been the core to challenge for a title for at least six or seven years.

- Trading the 21st pick in the 2006 draft, which turned out to be Rajon Rondo, and Brian Grant's salary to Boston for the Cavs 2007 first round pick. They acquired the Rondo pick and cash from the Bulls for the Number 7 pick in the 2004 draft which turned out to be Luol Deng. All of these moves were to save money. They went from having a high pick in a loaded 2004 draft, to having Rondo, to trading Rondo to save money. Wonderful.

- Basically telling Bryan Colangelo (Winner of two NBA Executive of the Year awards in 2005 and 2007) to please leave to Canada, so he could replace him with someone cheaper.

All this talk of owners being more needing to pump money into the club, be wary of this man. I guarantee his claim of giving them a 30 million pound transfer kitty is all for show, and he won't care unless his team is in real danger of being relegated. If he is one of the most frugal owners in the NBA when his team was a contender, what makes you think hell loosen the purse strings now that he wants to purchase a team who would need major investment just to get to the UCL spots? I'm not saying any new owner should be prepared to spend 200 million pounds their first window, just that this guy has a reputation for being a cheap ass, and he won't change his spots now.
 
It seems strange that all of a sudden he's decided he is interested in football and his takeover of Levante looks inevitable. I wonder what is his intention. If he is thinking purely business then surely buying a football club is one of the worst investments you could make. I wonder if Mendes is involved.
 
Apparently Steve Nash is also involved. He's a big football fan.
 
prarek said:
It seems strange that all of a sudden he's decided he is interested in football and his takeover of Levante looks inevitable. I wonder what is his intention. If he is thinking purely business then surely buying a football club is one of the worst investments you could make. I wonder if Mendes is involved.
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When I first read the phrase "American investors" a couple of weeks back, I thought we were looking at one of those Mendes style third party ownership schemes arriving with a buy young ones cheap, sell them at a profit setups.

I hadn't realised who was behind the Levante offer.

To put this in context for people who don't know the financial background. In La Liga, it's the dream of most of the poorer clubs to pick up a sugar daddy. Preferably the sort who specialises in buying young promising players (with a 50:50 third party owner paying the cash) and selling them on later - meanwhile guaranteeing safety in Liga1 and the occasional good season. Levante's annual wage bill is 17m Euros (about £12m) and they don't really have a transfer budget so any major extra investment will make an instant hit.

The Fundacion (fan shareholder group) are doing the negotiations. They're looking for ways to stop him becoming the absolute majority shareholder (though he would be the biggest) and to protect the stadium/land etc. Hopefully they will look closely at exactly what he's proposing.

Incidentally the immediate proposal is supposed to be for a 8m Euros spend on cosmetic changes to the stadium and adding new shops/cafes etc around the ground, and 14m to spend on the squad. The total deal proposed is for about 56m.
 
I really can't see any ulterior motive in buying a small Spanish football club.

At present I see no downside for Levante.
 
jojojo said:
When I first read the phrase "American investors" a couple of weeks back, I thought we were looking at one of those Mendes style third party ownership schemes arriving with a buy young ones cheap, sell them at a profit setups.

I hadn't realised who was behind the Levante offer.

To put this in context for people who don't know the financial background. In La Liga, it's the dream of most of the poorer clubs to pick up a sugar daddy. Preferably the sort who specialises in buying young promising players (with a 50:50 third party owner paying the cash) and selling them on later - meanwhile guaranteeing safety in Liga1 and the occasional good season. Levante's annual wage bill is 17m Euros (about £12m) and they don't really have a transfer budget so any major extra investment will make an instant hit.

The Fundacion (fan shareholder group) are doing the negotiations. They're looking for ways to stop him becoming the absolute majority shareholder (though he would be the biggest) and to protect the stadium/land etc. Hopefully they will look closely at exactly what he's proposing.

Incidentally the immediate proposal is supposed to be for a 8m Euros spend on cosmetic changes to the stadium and adding new shops/cafes etc around the ground, and 14m to spend on the squad. The total deal proposed is for about 56m.
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Im thinking this might not be such a bad deal after all. He doesn't seem to be promising them the world and the additional FFP imposed by LFP will ensure they don't spend beyond their means anyway. Levante have one of the smallest budgets in La Liga and their aims are modest. They are no Phoenix Suns. They'd be happy to survive relegation every season. They've been buying low and selling at profit anyway. Maybe they'll just do it on a slightly bigger scale.
 
Rangers knocked him back, then took on Dave King who has multitudes of convictions for fraud in South Africa.
 
Surprisingly good from Nash. Or maybe not. He's a top, top athlete. One of those guys that's probably great in every sport he tries.
 
@Snow Did you see the size of Nash's feet! No wonder he's good at keepie uppie! Showed some nice skills at about 1:35 mind. Not easy to run and do keepie uppie at the same time.

Re. Sarver. He sensed blood in the water with Rangers, so what's attracted him to Levante? Do they have a large fanbase? Don't think so. Are TV rights due to be renegotiated in Spain anytime soon? How many CL places in Spain right now? Is that due to change over the next year or two owing to changes in the Spanish coefficient? On the surface it seems like an odd investment by a guy with his rep.
 
Eboue said:
Sarver used to be super cheap with the Phoenix Suns and sell off draft picks. Now he's willing to pay the luxury tax. And Bryan Colangelo was a disaster in Toronto, fwiw.
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For a season, until the cap goes up to +-90 then +-100 and he won't have to pay it anymore. And yes, Bryan Colangelo was terrible in Toronto, but at the same time the decision to let him go was widely panned. Steve Kerr did a great job filling in but then inexplicably left, with the rumors being that Sarver was lowballing him on contract negotiations. So yea, I think he's just a cheap-ass who will try to cut spending in every way possible.
 
Harmony Row said:
@Snow Did you see the size of Nash's feet! No wonder he's good at keepie uppie! Showed some nice skills at about 1:35 mind. Not easy to run and do keepie uppie at the same time.

Re. Sarver. He sensed blood in the water with Rangers, so what's attracted him to Levante? Do they have a large fanbase? Don't think so. Are TV rights due to be renegotiated in Spain anytime soon? How many CL places in Spain right now? Is that due to change over the next year or two owing to changes in the Spanish coefficient? On the surface it seems like an odd investment by a guy with his rep.
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The new TV rights deal has already been approved. They're now trying to get the kind of collective deal price to mean that it matters. CL places are 4 as standard. Though this year it will be 5 because Sevilla won the Europa.

Levante is a surprise (though he has negotiated with other clubs including Getafe) - going for Valencia's second club seems odd. Elche (for example), Alicante's biggest club would have seemed a more obvious opportunity. I'm guessing it's some combination of fanbase, stadium, willingness of the shareholders to cooperate, low/managed debt, youth/scout structure and Liga history that he's gone for.

Why do it? The business model is presumably a buy young/cheap, sell high deal. The investment is relatively small - 20m wouldn't go very far in a PL club. In Spain it will give them Liga security and the chance of getting some Villareal style good seasons.
 
Harmony Row said:
@Snow Did you see the size of Nash's feet! No wonder he's good at keepie uppie! Showed some nice skills at about 1:35 mind. Not easy to run and do keepie uppie at the same time.

Re. Sarver. He sensed blood in the water with Rangers, so what's attracted him to Levante? Do they have a large fanbase? Don't think so. Are TV rights due to be renegotiated in Spain anytime soon? How many CL places in Spain right now? Is that due to change over the next year or two owing to changes in the Spanish coefficient? On the surface it seems like an odd investment by a guy with his rep.
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New central tv deal being negotiated but it's still not enough to make a rich businessman buy a spanish club to churn profits solely based off it imo. I have a thread on it here -

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/new-la-liga-tv-deal-expected-to-increase-by-almost-100.406135/

As @jojojo said most likely he just wants to buy low and sell for profit. I also read an article the other day that he was banking on the rising popularity of spanish football in the states. He probably wants to sell the club for a nice profit in future. Its a long term investment imo.
 
As a huge Suns fan I second everything the OP says. Worst owner in the NBA.
 
Snow said:
Surprisingly good from Nash. Or maybe not. He's a top, top athlete. One of those guys that's probably great in every sport he tries.
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Felt bad for the freestyler in a way. Obviously doing some good tricks to entertain the crowd, who probably (or maybe they do) don't watch much soccer, or at least someone pulling tricks like that. Then Nash comes over and does some similar stuff. People probably thinking "well if Nash can just walk over and do what he's doing, it can't be that hard/that guy wasn't anything special" :lol:
 
Levante and Getafe are probably the teams with less fans in la liga .The number of people in the stadium is low, even for la liga standards. The number of fans in Valencia is very low compared to Atletico in Madrid and even Espanyol in Barcelona. Besides I´d say that once Valencia have a strong project, the atraction of Levante will be poorer. If he was looking for a project in a big city with a team in first division he could have opted for Espanyol, Betis or try to negotiate the sale of Málaga with Al Thani
 
Harmony Row said:
@Snow Did you see the size of Nash's feet! No wonder he's good at keepie uppie! Showed some nice skills at about 1:35 mind. Not easy to run and do keepie uppie at the same time.

Re. Sarver. He sensed blood in the water with Rangers, so what's attracted him to Levante? Do they have a large fanbase? Don't think so. Are TV rights due to be renegotiated in Spain anytime soon? How many CL places in Spain right now? Is that due to change over the next year or two owing to changes in the Spanish coefficient? On the surface it seems like an odd investment by a guy with his rep.
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I imagine Nash doing this kind of keepie uppie with a basketball every training session. He spends so much time with a ball and combine that with his passion for football then I say he's bound to be good at something like that. After all, he's a pro at the highest level and this stuff comes naturally to him. He'd probably we a good javelin thrower or swimmer if that was his passion.
 
Skizzo said:
Felt bad for the freestyler in a way. Obviously doing some good tricks to entertain the crowd, who probably (or maybe they do) don't watch much soccer, or at least someone pulling tricks like that. Then Nash comes over and does some similar stuff. People probably thinking "well if Nash can just walk over and do what he's doing, it can't be that hard/that guy wasn't anything special" :lol:
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Heh, year perhaps. I'm not very impressed by this kind of stuff because it's juggling and not football and I've got no interest in juggling. Was impressive what he did with two balls but the other stuff is something I've seen many do.
 
@prarek @jojojo Thanks for the information. Sometimes the most straightforward explanation suffices, i.e. buy low, sell high. Will be interesting to see how this enterprise unfolds for Sarver. Who is the Spanish league marketed towards? I once read that the large hispanic community in the US tend to watch Mexican club football. Hopefully that's an accurate recollection!
 
King Kendrick said:
I mean in LA we only really get real and Barca games, it's more BPL. The Spanish channels usually do Mexico and the South American leagues. It just depends on the day/event though. But I RARELY see La Liga games that don't feature RM/Barca or one of the other big clubs like Valencia.
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This is why a centralized deal is so important. Its not just about the money. The new deal will give more exposure to not just the smaller teams in international markets but also the Liga Adelante and the Copa Del Rey.
 
King Kendrick said:
Yea but what provider has that kind of exposure here or would even want to win win the rights?? Right now La Liga is on BeIn, which doesn't have that that wide of a following. NBCSN already has BPL, so they don't care. The only other one is Fox, and their coverage is beyond horrendous. And lastly is GolTV, which has the same problems as BeIn.
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I think it will most likely be on BeIn(in America) but so far not much is known about next season. I've followed La Liga from 3 different continents over the years and my god is it so poorly marketed and presented. They've got to work on that aspect, there has to be an emotional connection with the fans/audience with pre shows and stories which the Premier League is very good at. If they get that part right everything else will follow.
 
King Kendrick said:
Yeah you're totally right, but I don't think the quality of pregame shows even in America for the BPL is anything special when comparing it to Sky MNF. I mean it's better than whatever the hell Fox throws on (Lalas, Wynalda and Barton are absolute trash), but the demand is not there. I don't think it has anything to do with the pregame shows and storylines, but it's rather simple economics. Everyone I have spoken to/associated with has a different team they follow for the EPL ranging from Everton to AV to obviously the big 5 clubs, but I don't know a single person who likes a La Liga team outside of Barca and RM. There's no demand to watch Getafe/Valladolid, while plenty of people would watch Sunderland and Hull play, so why supply the masses with it.
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Surprised by that tbh. I've never really met anyone who had heard of teams like Hull and Sunderland back when i was at New Hampshire. Its mostly the top 4-5 teams. But you're right overall, the demand is not there so you have to create the demand. How can there be a demand for something that's not even on tele. If you look at the rise of UFC much of it was brought about by the TUF. It just exploded after the first season.
 
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