An end to the epic Spirits of St. Louis/NBA deal.

And I mean epic.

The NBA has reached a conditional agreement with the former owners of the defunct Spirits of St. Louis, buying out their share of the league’s television revenue, according to a published report Tuesday in the New York Times.

The agreement ends a lucrative deal that gave Ozzie and Daniel Silna, owners of the American Basketball Association franchise in St. Louis, “visual media” rights to NBA games “in perpetuity.”

The article reports that the Silna brothers made about $300 million off of those rights (the Spirits dissolved with the end of the ABA), and that the payout for them will be $500 million.  And at that the NBA is lucky.  This is why you think twice before you sign the contract, ladies and gentlemen: the NBA’s failure to think things true will end up costing them almost a billion dollars…

QotD, Yes, You Really Should Be Reading The Skin Horse Webcomic Already* edition.

Shaenon Garrity, talking about her contributions to her artists’ collective’s recent anthology (called SPIRITS) that I just bought and you should, too:

In addition to the Narbonic[**] story, I also did a feature where I illustrated selections from my personal wine log.  It’s super classy, or would be if my wine log wasn’t written in Sharpie while I was drunk.  You can order SPIRITS now at the Couscous Store.

I find this entertaining because it never would have occurred to me that wine logs would be written when sober.  I mean, doesn’t that mean that you’re doing it wrong?

Moe Lane

*Because it is well worth it.  How can you not appreciate something like this or this?  Or especially this.

**Narbonic: a now-completed webcomic. Theme: Mad Science meets True Love. Mutations ensue.