Forty years ago today, Jerry Reinsdorf officially became the chairman of the Chicago Bulls.
I went back and forth on whether or not to do this one, because JR is a profoundly unpopular figure around here, and I understand why. But he might also be the single most consequential figure in the history of the franchise other than Michael Jordan, and I thought it was a worthy date to mark. I am ambivalent about this because of the risk of attracting negativity, but I'd hope that we can acknowledge both the good he did early on(what this thread is really about) as well as the more frustrating stuff later on. I should also acknowledge that I don't follow baseball so I can't say anything about the Sox. This is about basketball. So here goes - it might be a long read but it's mostly quotes from other people:
Dick Klein was the founding owner of the Bulls from 1966 until 1972 when, after prolonged disputes with the minority stakeholders, he sold the team to a group led by Arthur Wirtz - then the owner of the Blackhawks as well as Chicago Stadium - and that also included George Steinbrenner, among others. At this time, the Bulls were a good team, led by Walker/Sloan/Van Lier/Love and coach Dick Motta, and Wirtz thought it would be a good investment, but he didn't really care about basketball(obviously, he was a hockey guy).
Under Wirtz, the team had an unusual power structure where it was run by a four-person committee made up of Wirtz and three other stakeholders. One of these stakeholders was Jonathan Kovler, who owned just ten percent of the team but was a huge fan and the only one of the bunch that actually cared about basketball, so he eventually became the "managing partner" who handled the day-to-day(with a GM underneath him - first Motta in a dual coach/GM role, then Krause in his first brief stint, then Rod Thorn) and was the frontman for the committee. Still, all major decisions had to be approved by all four members of this committee, and this made it time-consuming to make moves and also it made it such that there was little in the way of a singular vision for team building.
Between Wirtz's relative disinterest in basketball, the tedium of running things through the committee, and the league in general being a down period in the late 70s and early 80s, the Bulls as an organization did not keep up with the times. What follows are quotes from the book "And Now...Your Chicago Bulls: A Thirty-Year Celebration" about what the organization was like in those years:
Irwin Mandel / VP for Financial & Legal Affairs 1973-2014:
"The committee, in my opinion, was a mistake the Bulls made. There were seven owners, and they were all very successful businessmen. They would all agree that the team was not run in the most efficient way possible. There was a four-person executive committee - Arthur Wirtz, Lester Crown, Philip Klutznick, and Jon Kovler. Every decision had to go through them first, and those four were hardly ever all available. In sports you often need a fast decision, and that's too hard to do with four people."
Mandel again:
He did not believe in marketing. He felt that how good the team or product was, was what sold it. If he was living today, I think he would modify that view. I agree with him a hundred percent in the importance of the team. That is by far the most important factor. But he went further and placed very little in marketing. In the NBA today, you can see that the best teams usually have the best marketing. I feel that he didn't put enough importance into the marketing.
Steve Schanwald / VP for Marketing & Broadcasting, 1987-2015:
When I first came to Chicago in 1981, the Stadium was a dead building for basketball. I used to enjoy coming out because I could get a seat and stretch out. But it was really kind of an embarrassment to see. I couldn't believe this was NBA basketball. It seemed more like the CBA, or worse. The Stadium itself was always great when it was filled with people. When it was devoid of people, it was kind of a depressing setting, like a tomb. There was no glitzy scoreboard. I am told that in the early days Bulls fans used to watch basketball games through the hockey plexiglass! That's how little respect the Bulls had. And the Chicago Sting, the indoor soccer team which no longer exists, used to outdraw the Bulls. Benny the Bull was the mascot, but he looked more like a human body with a Bulls head on top. He had human fingers instead of hooves. It was kind of a bush-league costume. In the early eighties, the experience of attending a Bulls game was nothing like the energy which runs through the building today. It was almost laughable. It had too be depressing to work there because it was sure depressing to watch.
Tim Hallam / Director of Media Relations, 1978-2023
"Westhead and his people were coming from the Lakers. They wanted to do everything like LA did. Well, they were coming to the Chicago Bulls, who really hadn't grown with the league. Our facilities weren't nice. They were archaic. There were mice everywhere at Angel Guardian, that bad little gym. The coaches wanted everything first class. They wanted video equipment, which was their style in LA. God bless 'em, they should've had it. But we were years behind anything they had done in LA."
Arthur Wirtz passed away in 1983, and the other stakeholders wanted out after enduring a decade of - mostly - financial loss. George Steinbrenner was one of those minority stakeholders, and he and Reinsdorf knew each other from baseball. So they started talking in the fall of 1984, before MJ had played a game, and by all-star weekend it was announced that Reinsdorf and his group would buy 58% of the team from the Wirtz estate, Steinbrenner, and a number of other shareholders. The deal closed on this date in March 1985, and that's when JR was given the keys, so to speak.
Reinsdorf:
"I was stunned, absolutely stunned at what I found when I took over the team. I asked Kovler to meet with me and when we did, my first question was, 'How many season ticket salesmen do you have?' He said, 'None.' I said 'What?' He said, 'We don't really sell season tickets. People who want them just call us.'
The state of the franchise was terrible. The practice facilities were terrible. The offices were terrible. They were dingy. The team charged employees for Cokes if they wanted them. Morale was terrible. The franchise was understaffed. It wasn't that the people running the Bulls were bad, but they all had other things to do. Kovler was the nominal, day-to-day manager, but he didn't have any authority. The committee involved three other people, and they all had their other interests and investments."
Reinsdorf's first orders of business were to beef up the marketing and sales departments and to replace Rod Thorn with Jerry Krause. He actually brought Krause in before letting Thorn go.
Krause:
"About 11:00 he says, 'I got to call Rod.' He calls Rod downtown. I get in the car with him and drive downtown. He goes up to Rod's office while I wait downstairs in the car. He goes upstairs and he lets Rod go. He walked in and said 'Rod, we're going to end your services.' Jerry came back downstairs and he was ashen-faced. The man was white. I looked at him and said 'What's the matter with you?' He said, 'You know, in all my years at Balcor I only fired one person. That's only the second person I've fired in my life. I don't like firing people.' And I thought, 'Gee, that's a great sign. Here's an owner who doesn't want to fire anybody.'"
Reinsdorf is from New York and had held the early 70s Holzman Knicks teams in high regard, and his edict to Krause was to build a team in that image - constant movement on offense and tough, hard-nosed defense. Given this edict, it makes perfect sense that Krause went out and brought Tex Winter and Johnny Bach in, and then Holzman's protege in Phil Jackson, it makes sense that they fired Doug Collins(who was content to let MJ dominate the ball all the time) and promoted Phil, and it makes sense that they went after defensive guys like Oakley, Grant, Pippen, Cartwright, and later Rodman. While many would argue that, despite his later mistakes and shortcomings, Krause was one of the great GMs of all time, but I think JR should get some credit as well for defining the initial direction.
Roland Lazenby, author of the book, on some of JR's early accomplishments:
He hired a phalanx of season ticket salespeople and produced a new source of revenue. He upgraded the team's broadcasting contracts and moved the team's practice facility from Angel Guardian to the Deerfield Multiplex(in 1992, the Bulls built their own practice gymnasium, the Berto center). By 1988, the team had given up flying commercially and begun using a charter service, mainly to avoid the hassle of taking Jordan through public airports.
To add to that, another thing of note he did in the early years was the deal he made in 1989 to broadcast Bulls games on the WGN Superstation, which exposed the Bulls to an even wider audience, and which gave way to a legal battle and eventually had a big impact on revenue sharing in the NBA.
He also hired Steve Schanwald in 1987, who became highly respected in his own right. David Stern on Schanwald upon the latter's retirement: in 2015
"Steve was a trailblazer in every sense of the word in respect to marketing, game presentation, sponsor sales and branding of the team," said former NBA commissioner David Stern. "People could say and probably did that it's easy to fill up Chicago Stadium when Michael Jordan is in his prime. But because of Steve's ability to adapt to new ideas, new techniques and technology, after Michael retired and the Bulls weren't doing quite as well on the court, their attendance and revenue levels, nevertheless, remained at an extraordinary high level, which was a tribute to Steve's expertise."
In short, JR took an organization that in 1985 was probably a decade behind the times and in a short period of time transformed it into an organization that was, in some ways, ahead of its time. He is often described around here(and elsewhere) as one of the worst owners in basketball, but until the dynasty ended, I believe he was widely regarded as one of the best owners in basketball, if not sports. I believe he deserves credit for that. Yes, he had a great basketball situation, but not all great basketball situations are managed well from a business standpoint.
As for how the dynasty ended...first, I believe he deserves credit for us having six rings instead of five because he was the one who vetoed the Scottie/Celtics trade and forced Krause to bring everyone, including Phil, back for the 98 season. He always gets flack for not forcing Krause's hand in 98 - perhaps deserved - but he should also get credit for doing in 97 when he didn't in 98.
But my eyes are wide open about why he allowed the dynasty to end the way it did. It's because in 97 Pippen had a year left on his contract and in 98 he was a free agent, and it's because there was no luxury tax system in 97-98 and there was in 99. Between paying big money for a declining asset in Pippen and paying a hefty luxury tax bill, It was going to cost him a f-ton to keep that team together. It was a money decision. Of course it was.
I think he was mostly a great owner for the first 15 years at least, that he did a lot to modernize the organization and through its influence in the 90s, the league. I think he has gone above and beyond to take care of a lot his players off the court.
When Jordan retired the first time, he left him play baseball on the White Sox AAA team, and gave a whole multi-hour event where his jersey was retired, his statue was unveiled, and a procession of teammates and peers lined up to sing his praises.
He paid JWill after his accident when he was under no obligation too.
He gave Scottie that last contract in 2003 and then gave him a job in the organization afterwards.
He's going to retire Derrick's jersey as a show of respect even though the team didn't actually accomplish that much with him.
Having said all of that, I am not here to mount some big defense of the way the organization has been run for the last 25 years, and especially the last 10. I think the league - both the on court product and the financial side of things - has probably passed him by. I think he was never as effective an owner after the 1999 CBA when the luxury tax system was implemented. I think because he doesn't have much business outside the Bulls and Sox, he's less willing to take financial risks with them(like tanking for multiple years instead of pushing for eighth seed playoff berths). And I think because he doesn't like firing people, he's been slow to let new blood into the organization. I mean, those have long been the big criticisms of him, right? That he's too fiscally conservative and loyal to a fault.
So, I don't share the animus and anger some of you seem to have towards him, but I do share the feeling that it would be nice, at this point, to have a new voice at the top, and that neither Jerry nor Michael are inspiring a ton of confidence in recent years.
But I thought was worth marking forty years for such a consequential figure, and I hope this doesn't descent into another JR-bashing fest.
