Basketball, the quintessential American sport.
Among all of the basketball leagues in the world, the NBA stands as the ultimate pinnacle.
It is a $6 billion industry and today we'll be looking at one of the few teams that have
played in the NBA since it's very beginning, the Golden State Warriors.
Basketball in mid 1940s was a vastly different sight than what we know today.
For starters, there wasn't an NBA: Instead, there was the American Basketball
League in the East, founded 1925, and the National Basketball League in the Midwest,
founded 1937.
Teams back then did play at a very high level, but they did so in small arenas, and sometimes
even in ballrooms and high school gymnasiums.
What brought the basketball business to the next level was actually the American Hockey
League, or rather its president, Ukrainian immigrant Maurice Podoloff.
He got the idea of offering his league's ice hockey arenas, which sat empty on most
nights, to basketball teams.
Neither of the big basketball leagues took him up on his offer though, and so in true
American fashion he decided to make his own league.
Thus, in 1946, the Basketball Association of America was born alongside the 11 teams
that would participate in it.
One of those teams was the Philadelphia Warriors, created by Peter Tyrrell, the owner of the
local hockey team.
Now, building a team out of scratch is a pretty daunting task, which is why Peter hired Eddie
Gottlieb, a 30-year basketball veteran who was also a Ukrainian immigrant.
The team he assembled and coached would go on to win the championship in the BAA's
first season.
The star player in these first few years was Joe Fulks, a first-time rookie who went on
to break the single game scoring record four different times in his career.
He came to be known as one of the first high-scoring forwards, averaging 24 points per game at
a time when most teams struggled to get 70.
In 1949 our friend Maurice Podoloff negotiated the purchase of the National Basketball League.
The newly-formed entity was called the National Basketball Association, and it included 17
teams in total, including the Philadelphia Warriors.
The team's first change in ownership happened in 1952, when Eddie flat out bought the whole
team for $25,000.
The Warriors did not move beyond the Eastern Conference playoffs until 1956, when they
won the NBA title over the Fort Wayne Pistons.
In 1959 the Warriors signed Wilt Chamberlain, a basketball prodigy who became Rookie of
the Year and MVP during his first season.
To this day he remains the only player in NBA history to average at least 30 points
and 20 rebounds per game in one season, a feat he accomplished seven times.
By far his greatest accomplishment, however, came on March 2nd, 1962, when the Warriors
played the Knicks in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
During that game Chamberlain set a once-unthinkable record by scoring 100 points in a single game.
Now, you have to remember that back then the NBA was still not a major sports league.
Chamberlain's 100-point game was not televised and there are no video recordings of it.
In fact, there wasn't a single member of the press in the audience, which was only
at around half capacity anyway.
Nevertheless, Chamberlain's performance skyrocketed the NBA's popularity and also
paved the way to full integration at a time when NBA teams were still reluctant to sign
black players.
After the 1962 season Eddie Gottlieb sold the Warriors for $850,000 to a group of investors
led by Diners Club, a charge card company.
One of the major figures in that group was this guy, Franklin Mieuli, a radio and television
producer from San Francisco.
Upon his recommendation, the new owners decided to make a radical change: they moved the team
to San Francisco.
Now back in the early 60s basketball wasn't really that big in California, and although
the San Francisco Warriors performed very well in their first season, attendance was
abysmal.
They dropped from an average of over five and a half thousand attendees to barely 3
thousand.
Diners Club and the other investors weren't happy and wanted a way out, even if it meant
folding the team, but luckily Franklin Mieuli stepped in and bought them out, eventually
becoming sole owner.
From 1962 until 1977, the Warriors reached the playoffs 10 times, advancing to 3 NBA
finals.
San Francisco, however, never really felt like their home, and in fact they played most
of their home games in the Oakland Coliseum Arena.
In 1971 Mieuli officially moved the team to Oakland and rebranded them as the Golden State
Warriors.
In what was considered the biggest upset in NBA history at the time, the Warriors defeated
the heavily favored Washington Bullets in a four-game sweep in 1975.
Starting in 1978, however, the Warriors suffered a nine-season drought in which they didn't
make the playoffs.
Mieuli finally decided to sell the team in 1986, and he got $18 million for it from two
businessmen.
Under the new owners, the Warriors made the playoffs several times, largely thanks to
'Run TMC', the iconic combo of Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin.
In 1994 the businessmen decided to cash in on their investment, selling the team for
$119 million to entrepreneur Chris Cohan.
He helped arrange an expensive renovation of the Oakland Coliseum Arena in 1997 and
in 2006 he signed a naming agreement with Oracle to rename the venue the Oracle Arena.
This agreement brought in some much needed cash, since the Warriors were one of the few
teams that didn't own their own venue.
Nevertheless, Cohan's ownership marked the beginning of one of the worst losing streaks
in NBA history.
The Warriors didn't appear in playoffs for 12 seasons in a row, and they only managed
to do so once in a brief miracle run in 2007.
Suffice to say, Cohan wasn't very popular among the fans, and in 2010 he finally offered
to sell the team.
The likely buyer was Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle and a lifetime Warriors fan.
Once the bidding started, however, Larry got outbid by these guys, Peter Guber and Joe
Lacob.
Now keep in mind that Larry was the 4th wealthiest man in the world at that point, so everyone
assumed that the new owners had overpaid dearly.
The duo bought the Warriors for $450 million, a record price for an NBA franchise that doesn't
own an arena.
Despite getting new owners, the Warriors didn't really improve until 2013, when they made
it to the second round of the NBA playoffs.
Then, on May 14, 2014, the Warriors scored a huge victory by naming Steve Kerr as head
coach.
He single-handedly reorganized the team and helped kickstart the success of Stephen Curry,
who is now widely regarded as the greatest shooter in NBA history.
In 2015 he was voted MVP and he led the Warriors to their first championship since 1975.
One year later, the Warriors broke the record for the most wins in an NBA season and Curry
became the first player in NBA history to be elected MVP by a unanimous vote.
Since the 2015 season, the Warriors have won 85% of their games, and as a consequence they're
now valued at $2.6 billion.
Their 20-year lease of the Oracle Arena is set to expire on June 30, 2017, but they recently
negotiated a 2-year extension.
This will help them ease the transition to the new Chase Center in San Francisco, a $1
billion arena set to open in late 2019.
In the current 2017 season the Warriors have continued their dominant performance, and
although the signing of Kevin Durant wasn't received very well, he has in fact become
a crucial part of the team's success.
The 2017 finals are shaping up to be one of the greatest showdowns of all time, with the
Warriors set to face the Cleveland Cavaliers for the third time in a row.
The Warriors are expected to win, but even if they don't, they'll still offer the
most expensive contract in NBA history, signing Steph Curry for another five years for a whooping
$207 million.
So whatever the outcome of this year's finals, it's a safe bet that the Warriors will continue
their stellar performance, both on the court and financially.
Thanks for watching.
If you enjoyed this video, please consider supporting us on Patreon, it would be an immense
help!
This is our first take on looking at a sports team from a business perspective, so if you'd
like to see more of these, leave a comment down below.
Once again, thanks a lot for watching, and as always: stay smart.
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