Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Report: Sixers owners looking to run NFL team in London

BROOKLYN - If the on-court happenings of the 76ers aren't very interesting, the off-the-court activities certainly are. According to Forbes, Sixers owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer are looking to become the first owners of an NFL team in London and would flip the Sixers in order to do it, a source told the magazine.

Sixers owner Josh Harris (left) and Jerry Colangelo.
Sixers owner Josh Harris (left) and Jerry Colangelo.Read more(Steven M. Falk/Staff Photographer)

BROOKLYN - If the on-court happenings of the 76ers aren't very interesting, the off-the-court activities certainly are.

According to Forbes, Sixers owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer are looking to become the first owners of an NFL team in London and would flip the Sixers in order to do it, a source told the magazine.

Before Thursday night's game against the Brooklyn Nets, Sixers public relations director Mike Preston said, in part, that the reports "are not true."

Harris and Blitzer, also owners of the NHL's New Jersey Devils, recently invested in the Crystal Palace Football Club in London in order to "get to know the market," according to the source for the magazine.

At training camp in September at Stockton University, Harris was asked if he had any plans to sell the team, as rumors swirled that he was looking into that.

"That is not at all in my thoughts," Harris said at the time. "I expect to be, and the ownership expects to be, happily involved with the Philadelphia 76ers for many, many years to come. There are no plans to sell it. Our ultimate goal hasn't really changed and that's to bring an NBA championship to Philly and be an elite team over many years."

Harris and his group purchased the Sixers in the summer of 2011 for close to $285 million. With a new NBA television deal set to begin in 2016, the organization could be worth almost three times that amount. Forbes listed the Sixers as worth $700 million earlier this year.

In the Forbes story, the source said of Harris and Blitzer: "They're more interested in getting the NFL in London than they are in the NBA. Their No. 1 goal is to get the NFL team in London. They want to flip the Sixers anyway."

Earlier this week the team brought in longtime NBA executive Jerry Colangelo to help oversee the rebuild that started when general manager Sam Hinkie took over the club three seasons ago. Reportedly, the move was initiated by the NBA, as league executives haven't been happy with the product the Sixers have put on the floor in two-plus seasons, which has produced a 38-148 record going into Thursday's game.

Colangelo told a Phoenix radio station on Thursday that he had been contacted by commissioner Adam Silver and Harris and that they "pleaded" for him to give the Sixers some help.

Thad thoughts

Thaddeus Young is only starting his second season in the NBA not as a member of the Sixers, after spending his first seven in Philly.

It seems so much longer ago that Young was a Sixer. When Young was dealt in the summer of 2014 to the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Sixers were in the infancy stage of "The Process." Looking at him now, compared to the youngsters who make up the Sixers' locker room, the 27-year-old seem a wily old veteran.

"It's so different over there now," Young said of the Sixers. "I definitely thought it was going to get better (than it is now). Just by the simple fact that the energy that the coaching staff brings every day and how they were trying to structure everything. But I don't know what's going on. It's a different ballgame, a different situation. They are who they are right now. They just have to figure it out.

"It's so different from when I was there. But things will change when they want them to change. They have the cap space. They are set up in a position to help guys grow there. It's just a matter of when they start making moves."