1) Isaac Hayes, Memphis Sounds

When notably capricious owner Charlie Finley abandoned his ABA franchise the Memphis Pros and essentially dumped the team’s finances on the league office in 1974, commissioner Mike Storen wasn’t ready to give up on basketball in Bluff City. He rounded up a group of local, prominent investors, mostly the types you’d expect, like prominent sports entrepreneur Avron Fogelman and Holiday Inn hotel chain founder Kemmons Wilson. But Storen also reached out to Hayes, a singer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer who is widely considered responsible for creating the signature “Memphis Soul” sound of Stax Records. Hayes is typically credited as an owner and the inspiration for the name change from Pros to Sounds, but that may not have necessarily been true. According to Storen, who ultimately stepped in and became the team owner himself, Hayes attempted to pay his initial $50,000 ownership fee in a bag full of cash. When Storen refused the payment and demanded a certified check instead, Hayes reportedly never followed up, likely because he was concurrently in a legal battle with Stax, which eventually forced the legendary singer into bankruptcy. Whether his ownership was real or apocryphal, Hayes’ presence did little to help the franchise anyway, as the Sounds were forced to relocate to Baltimore at the conclusion of the ’74-’75 season, then folded soon after.

2) Art Kim, Anaheim Amigos

Over a decade before the NBA adopted the three-point line, the first player ever to lead a major league in three-point field goals was Les Selvage in the ABA in ’67-’68. It was appropriate that Selvage played for the Anaheim Amigos, as his owner, Kim, was the man mainly responsible for the regulation coming to the league. Born in Maui to Korean parents, Kim is arguably the largest looming figure in basketball history in the 50th U.S. state’s history. He got his start in the sport as owner and operator of the Washington Generals, the hapless squad famous for losing continually to the Harlem Globetrotters. But Kim fulfilled a dream of bringing a pro basketball team to the islands in 1960, when he chartered the Hawaii Chiefs (based in Honolulu) of the American Basketball League. The ABL lasted less than two seasons but was the first major U.S. pro league to adopt the three-point line, an innovation that Kim subsequently convinced original ABA commissioner George Mikan to implement. The Amigos were a charter ABA franchise, playing home games at the Anaheim Convention Center, just across the street from Disneyland. But their locker room was far from the happiest place on Earth, with a promising roster slumping to a 25-53 finish in ’67-’68, leading to disappointing ticket sales and Kim selling the team to a construction magnate, who moved them up north to Los Angeles. After another failed basketball venture, Kim stepped away from the sport, spending his remaining years as a teacher.

3) Bob Folsom, Dallas Chaparrals

While the struggle for many ABA ownership groups was financial solvency, that was never an issue for the Dallas Chaparrals. A charter franchise in 1967, the Chaps were led by Folsom, a wealthy real estate investor with his own distinct history of sports glory. Folsom played for the Army Cadets football team during the program’s greatest era, which included two “Game of the Century” appearances, in 1945 against Navy and in 1946 against Notre Dame. Folsom then returned home, transferring to Southern Methodist University, where he lettered in basketball, track and field, and baseball, in addition to football. Like so many men of his era, he then found uncomplicated success in the Dallas real estate market, building up an empire that allowed him to get in on the ABA ground floor. But despite Folsom’s vast wealth, the Chaps were a notoriously economical franchise, often trading away their highest draft picks or lowballing them into joining the NBA instead. The team was still successful in spite of these business practices, due largely to the presence of legendary player-coach Cliff Hagan, but struggled to draw fans. In 1971, Folsom reportedly leased the franchise to Red McCombs for one dollar, then outright sold them to him a year later (they subsequently relocated to San Antonio and became the Spurs). But Folsom’s relationship to Dallas basketball was far from over. He successfully ran for mayor of the city in 1975 and one of the biggest projects of his tenure (when he wasn’t fighting tooth-and-nail against busing and integration) was getting Reunion Arena financed and built, leading to the Mavericks joining the NBA in 1980.

4) Ozzie and Daniel Silna, Spirits of St. Louis

When it came time for Adam Silver to negotiate his first broadcasting contract as commissioner of the NBA in 2014, he first managed to end a financial relationships that David Stern had spent decades unsuccessfully attempting to terminate. It all dated back to 1974, when the Silna brothers wisely spotted a shrewd business opportunity. Born in Palestine to Latvian Jewish immigrants, the brothers grew up in New Jersey and New York, making their fortune by inheriting and subsequently expanding their father’s textile business. When the Carolina Cougars were put up for sale in 1974, the Silnas swooped in and immediately relocated the franchise to St. Louis. They had no direct connection to the Midwest locale but rather chose it because it was the largest U.S. city at the time without an NBA or ABA franchise, thus they assumed it bolstered their chances of being included in the pending merger. Despite on-court and off-court successes over the next two years, this plan didn’t come to fruition, with the Spirits ultimately being one of two franchises not selected in the 1976 agreement between the leagues. But the Silnas certainly don’t require sympathy, as they negotiated an unprecedented deal as part of their folding, receiving one-seventh of television revenue from the four merging teams (Pacers, Spurs, Nets, and Nuggets) in perpetuity. That wasn’t worth much at the time but the returns increased exponentially over the years, eventually netting close to $300 million in passive income for Ozzie and Daniel. When Silver finally got an agreement with the brothers in 2014, it cost the NBA an additional $500 million to buy out the Silnas. Not a bad haul for the pair, who originally purchased the Cougars for just under one million dollars. Ozzie, who spent his later years pouring his earnings into environmental activism, passed away soon after from cancer.

5) Morton Downey, Jr., New Orleans Buccaneers

Long before there was Jerry Springer, Sally Jesse Raphael, or Maury Povich, the biggest name in trash television was Downey. The son of a singer father and actor mother, Downey entered show business early in life, making his name in radio broadcasting as a teenager and later as a singer and songwriter. He took a sabbatical from the music business in the ’60s and turned his attention to sports ventures, including joining the ownership group of the Buccaneers, one of the ABA’s charter franchises. As acting president of the team, Downey largely assembled the roster that reached the inaugural ABA Finals in 1968. But like most of the fledging league, the Bucs struggled financially and ownership re-organized in 1970, followed by a relocation to Memphis. When an attempt to challenge the MLB with a new baseball league in the mid ’70s fell through, Downey returned to broadcasting, eventually settling into his bombastic persona as host of the Morton Downey, Jr. Show. Though short-lived, the syndicated talk show was wildly influential with its coarse and histrionic house style, ultimately influencing not just trash TV but also shock jock radio and troll internet culture.

6) Charles Finley, Memphis Tams

Though he made his initial fortune in insurance, Finley himself liked to quip that his middle initial “O” stood for “Owner” (it was actually for Oscar if you’re keeping score). His obsession with sports ownership started in the ’50s, when Finley made five bids on Major League Baseball (MLB) franchises before finally landing the Kansas City A’s, which he soon after re-located to Oakland. Known for his innovative marketing ideas, like orange baseballs and bonuses for players who grew mustaches, Finley was a seemingly perfect fit in the cutting-edge world of the ABA. But it still seemed odd that an Oakland based sports magnate (Finley also owned the California Golden Seals of the National Hockey League) would be interested in a basketball team in Memphis. It’s never really been made clear why but Finley jumped at the opportunity, but he purchased the Memphis Pros in 1972 to save them from folding. Unfortunately, beyond his penchant for gimmicks, Finley also proved to have another thing in common with many ABA owners. He was cheap, regularly cutting or trading key players to avoid paydays. Finley also irked players and fans with his trademark tweaking, renaming the team to the confusing moniker Tams (supposedly an acronym of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi) and changing their jersey color scheme to the A’s green-and-gold. To top it all off, he was mostly absent, hardly ever showing up for games and supposedly rarely communicating with his front office personnel, concentrating instead on his beloved A’s. After two seasons of failure, Finley ultimately just bailed on the city of Memphis, turning the franchise over to the league. He continued running the A’s until the early ’80s, then turned his attention to other sports ventures, including a failed attempt at starting a new football league to rival the NFL.

7) Pat Boone, Oakland Oaks

Of all the famous ’60s singers you would have expected to associate themselves with the rebel, counter culture ABA, Boone was likely at the bottom of the list. Like a more vanilla version of Elvis Presley, Boone gained renown in the ’50s for his bowdlerized versions of hit songs by prominent Black artists. Clean-cut, religious, and conservative, Boone was subsequently a natural fit to parlay his entertainment successes into American entrepreneurship, including his foray into ownership of the Oakland Oaks. The self-described basketball “fanatic” was invited into the owner’s group by Kenneth Davidson. Boone supposedly thought his agreement was to be basically a figurehead of the organization with no monetary responsibility, but he eventually found himself in financial trouble when Davidson filed for bankruptcy in 1969, leaving Boone holding the then insolvent franchise’s bag. The crooner managed to negotiate a sale to Earl Foreman, who relocated the team across the country, renaming them the Virginia Squires (a move that didn’t sit well with star player Rick Barry). Hardened by the experience, Boone reportedly later turned down opportunities to join the ownership teams of the NBA’s Suns and Mavericks. But he maintained his lifelong love of the sport, eventually participating in the National Senior Games basketball tournament in 2013, at age 79.

8) Joe and Mamie Gregory, Kentucky Colonels
9) John Y. Brown, Jr., Kentucky Colonels

Though the Kentucky Colonels fell just short of making the NBA merger, it was no indictment of their success or stability as a franchise. One of just three ABA teams to play all 10 seasons without ever re-locating and to win at least one championship (the Pacers were the other), the Colonels also changed ownership just once in their history, in 1973. But that consistency also belied the idiosyncrasies and larger-than-life personalities of their owners. It started with Joe and Mamie Gregory, a married couple who chartered the Colonels despite having almost no interest in basketball. Their sports of choice were dog shows and auto racing, respectively, as Joe was a longtime champion canine breeder while Mamie (nee Reynolds) was the first woman to ever qualify for the Daytona 500. Mamie in particular lived an especially charmed and interesting life. The daughter of an infamous U.S. Senator and granddaughter of the final private owner of the Hope Diamond, Mamie inherited millions of dollars as a child when her mother passed away, which she parlayed into a socialite life of leisure. This eventually connected her with a fellow dog show devotee in Joe and they became a preeminent power couple in Louisville. Their prize Brussels Griffon Ziggy became an unofficial mascot and supposed owner of the franchise, which found steady success on the court. But when a rumored sale of the Colonels to a Cincinnati investor popped up in 1973, another local luminary stepped in and saved the day, purchasing the team. Like Mamie Gregory, Brown was the scion of a prominent Kentucky politician who eschewed politics for business pursuits. He purchased Kentucky Fried Chicken from Colonel Harland Sanders from 1964 and transformed it into the fast food behemoth it is today (side note: The Kentucky Colonels team was not named after Sanders, but rather an honorary title bestowed on the state’s governor). All that chicken money was maneuvered into his Colonels purchase and Brown immediately renovated their operations. This started with putting his wife Ellie in charge of the board of directors, which she filled with all women. The Colonels won the ABA title in 1975 but the subsequent ’75-’76 season was marked by Brown’s skimping and saving, most notably his trading of star Dan Issel to the Memphis Sounds. Rather than fight for the Colonels to be included in the 1976 merger, Brown instead cut and ran, accepting a $3 million settlement in exchange for folding. He soon after broke into the NBA anyway, using that money to purchase the Buffalo Braves, which he would later trade to Irv Levin in exchange for the Boston Celtics.