Interesting issue raised about Gores and his company

[flow]

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/nba-tom-gores/

[vic]

Platinum Equity is spinning it as if they are "doing the work" trying to change it from the inside.

https://www.platinumequity.com/PlatinumEquity/media/Library/LandingPages/aventiv/pdfs/Letter-to-Michael-Govan-10-08-2020.pdf

I doubt if I believe them... I say keep bringing the pressure. It's a stain on the NBA and a stain on the City of Detroit for Pistons basketball to be connected with predatory prison practices.

They better show some real actual profit reducing reforms on that business model pretty soon or it could get uglier for Tom.

Would be great if he could sell to somebody else. Maybe Lebron?

[bstein14]

100% a bad look for us as a FA destination and a bad look for the league.

He should wash his hands of it selling it off, or he should make it a nonprofit. He has already made boatloads of money off of prisoners.

On one hand we've seen a lot of great press about Gores and the work he has done in Michigan (Detroit and Flint specifically) so I hope it ends up folding to the pressure and makes this right.

[DBC10]

For sure he should sell it off, preferably to a minority based ownership group that has ties with former ex-cons and to approach the community better

This would be such an easy PR move for Gores to score positive press, not sure why he's keeping it around unless he's making so much bank, but I doubt it, since I can't imagine even a quarter of revenues from Plat Equity comes from this

[Uncle Mxy]

This FCC filing tells you a lot about how Securus was structured:

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1051102799338/FCC%20214%20Application.pdf

[Manocad]

Side note: There's a rule in jail that once you're in there and had money put into your account for making phone calls, you always use it up before you get out or it will cause you to wind up back in jail again.

[Billl]

This is pretty old news, and it's pathetic that he hasn't done something about it by now. There is no reason to charge prisoners for phone calls in 2020. It shouldn't even be a business. It's just private companies exploiting poor people for profit with help of the government.

[ElectricMayhem]

I was impressed with LACMA for kicking Gores off the board. Good on them. I did not know about Securus illegally recording attorney-client phone calls, though. Scummy company all around. I'm avoiding the Pistons logo until they aren't associated with taking advantage of the most vulnerable members of society anymore.

[Uncle Mxy]

This is pretty old news, and it's pathetic that he hasn't done something about it by now. There is no reason to charge prisoners for phone calls in 2020. It shouldn't even be a business. It's just private companies exploiting poor people for profit with help of the government.

The prisons and governments get a LARGE cut, often more than half. That's why they help, and that's why it persists. There are requirements unique to the prison situation where it makes sense to charge $ (e.g. must record all calls, except to attorneys), but captive audiences inevitably lead to jacked-up rates for everything, not just telecoms. Take a cut of every transaction from those who aren't in a position to object, who are mostly deemed as scumbags who should rot when they're not paying money.

t's not as if other team owners aren't in scummy lines of businesses... Amway, sub-prime lenders, etc. That doesn't make it right, but rarely have I heard complaints, or maybe I just haven't noticed? The last NBA owner whose principal business was highly criticized was Sterling,who was a scumbag on so many levels. I suspect this doesn't amount to much as far as the Pistons are concerned.

[Billl]

This is pretty old news, and it's pathetic that he hasn't done something about it by now. There is no reason to charge prisoners for phone calls in 2020. It shouldn't even be a business. It's just private companies exploiting poor people for profit with help of the government.

The prisons and governments get a LARGE cut, often more than half. That's why they help, and that's why it persists. There are requirements unique to the prison situation where it makes sense to charge $ (e.g. must record all calls, except to attorneys), but captive audiences inevitably lead to jacked-up rates for everything, not just telecoms. Take a cut of every transaction from those who aren't in a position to object, who are mostly deemed as scumbags who should rot when they're not paying money.

t's not as if other team owners aren't in scummy lines of businesses... Amway, sub-prime lenders, etc. That doesn't make it right, but rarely have I heard complaints, or maybe I just haven't noticed? The last NBA owner whose principal business was highly criticized was Sterling,who was a scumbag on so many levels. I suspect this doesn't amount to much as far as the Pistons are concerned.

I work in field handling similar data, and there really is no need to charge. The call is essentially free. The storage cost is fraction of a cent per call. It would cost the jail more to invoice a prisoner or process a payment that any of those actual costs. It's just a corrupt system top to bottom. Beyond that, it's so counter productive. One of the biggest predictors of whether someone will return to prison is if they have a stable support system of family and friends on the outside. Putting up barriers to that is horrible public policy.

[Manocad]

Not an issue for me personally since it has no bearing on whether or not I consider spending money on the Pistons (or any pro sport) an acceptable value proposition. I’d rather just chill in the man cave watching big screen HDTV while drinking bourbon at state minimum price or craft beer on sale, with a bathroom ten feet away. Gores could employ nothing but minority nuns and disabled veterans while selling life-saving products at cost and he’s still not getting any of my money.

[Uncle Mxy]

Not an issue for me personally since it has no bearing on whether or not I consider spending money on the Pistons (or any pro sport) an acceptable value proposition. I’d rather just chill in the man cave watching big screen HDTV while drinking bourbon at state minimum price or craft beer on sale, with a bathroom ten feet away. Gores could employ nothing but minority nuns and disabled veterans while selling life-saving products at cost and he’s still not getting any of my money.

My, what a new age sensitive guy you are.

And yeah, that's the point. A team owner's social responsibility in their main line(s) of business typically has little relevance to the team. I might be tempted to see a team of minority nuns play NBA basketball once, though, especially if they allowed yardsticks and knuckle-rapping... kickin' it old school.

It might matter with individual players who might not want to sign up for millions of dollars if the owner is in a scammy business, which explains all those people who didn't play for the Orlando Tragic... LOL

[Manocad]

Not an issue for me personally since it has no bearing on whether or not I consider spending money on the Pistons (or any pro sport) an acceptable value proposition. I’d rather just chill in the man cave watching big screen HDTV while drinking bourbon at state minimum price or craft beer on sale, with a bathroom ten feet away. Gores could employ nothing but minority nuns and disabled veterans while selling life-saving products at cost and he’s still not getting any of my money.

My, what a new age sensitive guy you are.

And yeah, that's the point. A team owner's social responsibility in their main line(s) of business typically has little relevance to the team. I might be tempted to see a team of minority nuns play NBA basketball once, though, especially if they allowed yardsticks and knuckle-rapping... kickin' it old school.

It might matter with individual players who might not want to sign up for millions of dollars if the owner is in a scammy business, which explains all those people who didn't play for the Orlando Tragic... LOL

Generally speaking, I draw the line at legality relative to having an expectation that a business owner should be actively rallied against/forced to take action deemed appropriate. If laws are being broken I certainly have an expectation that something should be done. Outside of that, I just won't spend my money at said business. And taking it one step further, even if I felt that going to a Pistons game WAS an acceptable value proposition, it wouldn't matter to me one bit that the owner of the team had another business that sounds totally unethical but is also totally legal. If you're going to take the stance that it should matter to me, then you'd better ignore MLK's messages because he ran around on his wife and liked to knock her around a bit. And you'd better not vote for Trump because he's rich and paid $750 in federal income tax in 2020. Oh wait...people do that already. You get the point.

I'd postulate that it's LESS likely to matter to the athlete signing up for millions. If history has taught us anything it's that money washes away a lot of reservations. To an already rich star player clearly on the decline but still capable of being a decent bench player and signing that last contract at a heavily reduced price? Sure, I could see it mattering then. But in that scenario it's no longer about the money so "the owner is a scumbag/does ugly business" could certainly be more of a factor in that player's decision-making process.