RealGM

Have the Hawks been sold?!

Los Angeles businessman Alex Meruelo has reached an agreement to buy a majority ownership stake in the Atlanta Hawks, he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an exclusive weekend interview.
http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-hawks ... 83677.html

http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-hawks ... 83677.html


Here is an article by Mark Bradley about the new owner.
http://blogs.ajc.com/mark-bradley-blog/ ... nta-hawks/

uga_dawgs24 wrote:

Los Angeles businessman Alex Meruelo has reached an agreement to buy a majority ownership stake in the Atlanta Hawks, he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an exclusive weekend interview.
http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-hawks ... 83677.html

http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-hawks ... 83677.html


Here is an article by Mark Bradley about the new owner.
http://blogs.ajc.com/mark-bradley-blog/ ... nta-hawks/

DAMN YOU BEAT ME TO IT.

I wonder how much money Mr. Meruelo has, and will he be anything like Mr. Blanks? I hope so!!!!!

“I’m a person who doesn’t give up,” Meruelo said. “I want to bring a championship to the city of Atlanta.”

The last time I heard Alex Meruelo being mentioned in the press was when he purchased The Grand Sierra Resort and Casino.

I screwed up that merge of the topics.

myrak433 wrote:
I wonder how much money Mr. Meruelo has, and will he be anything like Mr. Blanks? I hope so!!!!!

I tried looking it up.

He seems to be very involved with many different investments. I just hope he cares enough to do what it takes to win a championship.

He's the owner/founder of Crazy Pizza (La Pizza Loca). I find this to be strangely comforting.

After reading, I think Mr. Muerelos is our man for the job. An actual single individual who cares about sports and actually started on a basketball team. So he knows about the sport. Most importantly, he has cash. not billionaire bucKs, but better than the ASG.

Two things.
1) only one cook in the kitchen as he claimed the buck stops with him.
2) he's LA based and clearly has numerous other investments to run so does that mean he'll actually leave the day to day running of the team to people with actual basketball knowledge rather than trying to play GM-Owner like ole Gearon Jr?

Now all we need is an actual GM rather than a mouthpiece and I may start feeling that ember of hope in my chest again.

finally!!!!!! Thank God

"Meruelo's parents arrived in the United States from Cuba in 1961, settling initially in Miami before moving to New York and, when he was around 3 years old, Southern California. He is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach.

"It is important to me," Meruelo said of potentially becoming the NBA's first Hispanic owner. "I'm very proud of my heritage. It's nice to be able to do something that is different and is not in the ordinary. I'm very blessed. I'm very lucky."

Many times, a young owner will storm in and spend money so foolishly that he angers the other owners.

Here's hoping.

Aim high, Mr. Meruelo. Dwight Howard is from Atlanta, you know.

parson wrote:Many times, a young owner will storm in and spend money so foolishly that he angers the other owners.

Here's hoping.

Aim high, Mr. Meruelo. Dwight Howard is from Atlanta, you know.

Has anyone mentioned that to him yet.

this is great....... anybody interested in buying an organization that has a team that has been a perinatal playoff team of half a decade now, is here to spend money and not cut fat.

this is great news of Jamal Crawford, Hawks fans and bad news for Dwight fans in Orlando.

Usually when I go on vacation, I come back to hear bad news, like us paying Joe Johnson a max contract, or the NBA getting locked out. This is a rare surprise.

http://futurenbagm.blogspot.com/2011/08 ... -home.html

I think this blogger has it right, unfortunately.

eitanr wrote:http://futurenbagm.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-ownership-should-look-for-new-home.html

I think this blogger has it right, unfortunately.

Al Horford does not play an exciting brand of basketball.
Is Joe exciting? maybe.

But this guy lumps Josh and Teague in with Horford. Al has generated wins but he doesnt bring excitement.

Smaller market teams like Cleveland over that span ranked 3rd, 2nd and 5th over that span. Yes they had LeBron, but fans kept showing up to see a winning product.

How about a different team with no real marquee talent that had similar winning outputs to the Hawks?

Well, the Portland Trail Blazers over the last 3 years ranked 2nd, 3rd and 3rd in attendance. During that same span their average NBA ranking in winning percentage was 9th, only 2 slots better than Atlanta and an attendance average ranking (3) 17 slots better.

Brandon Roy? Then you add Oden. Not even going to use WS/48 for them.
Those are marquee talents who get to the line and dominate.
Lot of drama as far as injuries but talent and record wise those are 50 win teams.

eitanr wrote:http://futurenbagm.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-ownership-should-look-for-new-home.html

I think this blogger has it right, unfortunately.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say YOU are "this blogger" - right?

"this blogger" wrote:Posted by Eitan Rosenberg at 2:42 PM

By the way, the Hawks are tied to Phillips Arena for years. Awhile back, I was worried about management taking the Hawks away and was made aware of how strong the legal (and financial) obligations are that hold the Hawks in ATL.

Before you try to get us all to click on your blog, ya might oughta look them thangs up.

Another good investment of his (Stock Market).

Alex Meruelo sold 1,259,669 shares of Hypercom Corp stock, or $14,815,147 worth, as noted in an SEC Filing today. After the transaction, Alex Meruelo reported his stake in Hypercom Corp at 6,512,017 shares of stock (a 16% decrease from before the transaction took place).

As noted on March 28, 2011, Alex Meruelo's sale was done indirectly through "See Footnotes" over 4 transactions from March 24, 2011 to March 28, 2011. The share price ranged from $11.5 to $11.97 according to the regulatory filing detailing the transactions.

If we look over the past 12 months, Alex Meruelo has sold a total of 2,769,271 shares of Hypercom Corp, proceeds from the sale totaled $33,460,672. Over the same time period, Alex Meruelo has purchased 260,703 shares of Hypercom Corp, with a total cost of $954,417. http://secwatch.com/hyc/4/insider-tradi ... 28/7780797

Thank God. I think a city like Atlanta is a tough place to sell your product if you're a pro sports franchise but it can be done with the right ownership and commitment.

The ASG's strategy of conveniently waiting until the coach or GM's contract was up before making a "bold" decision(spending as little money as possible) is exactly they had no business running a team in the 1st place. I don't expect the new owner to break the bank open but just keeping things the same for the sake of continuity doesn't bring you any closer to relevance.

I would also like to add that the legal battle over the Joe Johnson thing was pointless on the ASG's part.