Some people are still getting rich off of the merger that happened in 1976. For those of you who don’t know, this was the year that the ABA merged with the NBA. While many teams from the ABA folded, four teams moved on: Nets, Nuggets, Spurs, and Pacers. (See more on this subject in the movie Semi-Pro)

While most people know this happened they may not know the details. In 1970, when the merger began to be hyped up, there was an antitrust lawsuit challenging the NBA, filed by St. Louis Spirits’ owners Ozzie and Dan Silna (pictured below). They won the case, by the time the merger happened, because the judge decided that they were unfairly left out of the new league. That judge passed away last year.

The deal states that the brothers will make money off network television deals for those 4 teams. For all of you out there working, you will be happy to know that they sit around and have compiled over $240 million over the past 36 years. They are now bringing the case back up to a new judge saying that the NBA should have to pay them for international deals as well. The NBA has never failed to pay them, they put it in their budget each year, and this pisses off the owners for obvious reasons. What do you think?