By: Rick Blaine
For Warriors fans the months of January and February begin the long march to death. Not a traumatic, theatrical demise, but a slow, insipid decay. You see, mid-winter marks the annual onset of apathy, a death all its own. Watching Warriors basketball becomes a struggle, and many just stop watching altogether, finding other diversions and developing other interests.
It’s been said that ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart. For those who follow the Warriors, it is not the rending of time that euthanizes the fan in us, but the mundane reverberation of too many bad basketball games piled up recklessly like heaps of jalopies in a junkyard.
The pattern is all too familiar. The renewed hope of September gives way to cold reality in October, which devolves into disillusionment in November, and then to bitter frustration in December. The ennui of winter ensues, spared only by the diversion of the Super Bowl and the NBA All Star Game. (It’s always sardonically interesting to see which former Warriors make it, and observe which current Warrior gets snubbed.) Then in spring, while other teams’ fans are gearing up for the playoffs, Warriors fans look to a more distant future. It comes in the form of ping pong balls. The Warriors under owner Christopher J. Cohan make their annual springtime appearance to the NBA draft lottery with the preternatural regularity of the swallows of San Juan Capistrano returning to the mission.
This year, of course, is no different. With a record of 13-34, third worst in the league, the Warriors are yet again certain to miss the playoffs. The quest for a high draft position has already begun. For those of us who are still somehow engaged, the only intrigue left is watching Stephen Curry develop and projecting how many ping pong balls the team can collect by losing games. Everything else is just window dressing on a dilapidated mansion.
Warriors fans, who have been among the best in the NBA, don’t deserve to this Sisyphean fate. Spirited and vivacious, they have filled the Oracle over the years, in spite of a product that is, to put it kindly, mediocre. But even the most loyal and true of fans have their limits. Much of the fan base has finally lost interest, and many of those who still somehow remain engaged are boycotting the team with the hope that declining ticket revenues will encourage Chris Cohan to sell the team. Make no mistake about it, a movement is under way. This year, for the first time, numerous Web sites, such as fansvscohan.com have emerged urging Warriors followers to boycott games or to publicly shame the Warriors with signs or T-shirts that have an anti-Cohan message. The now commonplace sight of empty seats at the Oracle might indicate that the movement is gaining traction. At the very least, it is a sign that fewer people in this economy are willing to invest their diminished disposable income on a bad product.
For Chris Cohan, there may not be a better time to sell this franchise. His reputed troubles with the IRS and the decline in season ticket sales could mean that Cohan will have cash flow issues soon if he doesn’t liquidate his investment. With the economy still slumping and the Warriors once again deep in the tank, the outlook for 2010-2011 season ticket sales is even grimmer than last year at this time. If he sells now, he can cash in his considerable gains. He paid $130 million for the team, and it is estimated to be worth over $300 million today.
Financial concerns aside, the now reclusive Cohan must also consider the battering that his reputation has taken over the years. The list of ignominies is well known: the 2000 All Star Game where he was booed at half time standing next to his son; the infamous 2002 Special Report in the Chronicle by Mark Fainaru-Wada in which Cohan was portrayed as a litigious and uncouth (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/10/SP74259.DTL); and the recent distinction by Sports Illustrated of his team being the worst NBA franchise of the decade (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/magazine/specials/2000s/12/03/nba.highlights.lowlights/index.html). Imagine the emotional and mental toll that owning the Warriors has taken. Selling the team would bring tremendous relief to the embattled Cohan.
Enter Larry Ellison. The news that Ellison is trying to buy the Warriors has excited fans more than any other Warriors-related news item this year. Warriors fans, who are a passionate and contentious bunch, don’t often agree on what is best for their team, but there is consensus among them that the current ownership is the source of the team’s perpetual failure, and the only way for the Warriors to become relevant again is for Cohan to sell the team. Larry Ellison is no saint, and he has earned a reputation for being egotistical, flamboyant, ruthless, iconoclastic, and even unethical. Yet, if he were step up with an offer acceptable to Cohan, he would be instantly canonized by Warriors fans. He is a visionary and a leader, whose “great strength,” according to David J. Roux, “is to make exceptional employees do the impossible.” This is the kind of ownership fans want to see. They want a little more George Steinbrenner and lot less Donald Sterling; they want investment, not salary protection; they want championships, not “a great time out.”
Though Ellison has confirmed publicly that he would like buy the Warriors, Mitch Lawrence reported last weekend in a sidebar to his column in the New York Daily News that Cohan turned down an offer of $310 million for the team. (http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/2010/01/30/2010-01-30_wizards_gilbert_arenas_nba_contract.html) Sources indicated that Ellison’s offer came in $90 million short of what Cohan is asking.
Robert Rowell, who denied last summer that the team is for sale, recently told reporters, “At some point in time, the media speculation will become a reality. But right now, there’s not much to this [rumor of an offer by Ellison to buy the team].” Rowell’s cryptic comments seem to hint that something may happen down the road. How far down is anybody’s guess. But fans are watching this closely with the sense that Ellison’s pursuit of the Warriors will furnish their favorite team with its best shot at legitimacy. Are their hopes ill founded? Maybe, but probably not. The world’s fourth richest man has made an overture to an owner of a moribund enterprise who is in serious need of cash and an emotional rescue. It would seem that given Ellison’s ego (he’s gone public with this, and he won’t lose face) and Cohan’s impending IRS troubles there is plenty of room for negotiation.
For Warriors fans on the verge of yet another bout of ennui, let’s hope that there is.