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Commssioner
of Major League Baseball: Bud Selig
Commissioner of the National Football League: Paul Tagliabue Commissioner of the National Basketball Association: David Stern Commissioner of the National Hockey League: Gary Bettman All these heads of the 4 major American sports professional organizations are Jewish (2002). By the early 1980s Jewish individuals owned or controlled a huge number of professional baseball, basketball, football, hockey and other sports teams. A sample includes the San Diego Chargers, Seattle Supersonics, Milwaukee Brewers, San Francisco Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Black Hawks, Cleveland Browns (Art Modell), Oakland A's, and part of the New York Knicks. [BAER, p. 30] (By the 1990s, both the New York Knicks and New York Rangers were owned by Viacom, headed by Jewish mogul Sumner Redstone). SILBIGER, S., 2000, p. 32] Sidney Shlenker, head of Pace Entertainment, owned the Denver Nuggets from 1985-89. Al Cohen was also one of the three owners of the Boston Celtics (he was also the chairman of the basketball owners' Board of Governors, beginning in 1986). Philip Mack owned the Minnesota Twins. Richard Bloch was president of the Phoenix Suns and also the chairman of the owners’ Board of Governors. A Jewish entrepreneur, Ed Snider, still owns the Philadelphia Flyers pro hockey team (he also a board member of the Simon Wiesenthal Holocaust museum in Los Angeles. He also owns Prism, the largest regional pay-per-view TV network in America, as well as Spectacor, which includes TicketMaster and the Philadelphia Spectrum sports center). Irwin Jacobs controlled the Minnesota Vikings. Jeff Smulyan, the CEO of Emmis Broadcasting, owned the Seattle Mariners ("Smulyan has won civil service awards for his efforts on behalf of Jewish causes ... Reclaimed land in Israel has even been forested in his name." [PRICE, p. C1] Bud Adams owns the (football) Tennessee Oilers (formerly in Houston)
and Les Alexander owns the (basketball) Houston
Rockets. Al Davis also eventually
owned the Oakland Raiders,
Carroll Rosenbloom the Los Angeles
Rams, and Abe Pollin not only the Washington
Wizards but also the Washington
Capitals. "Pollin,"
noted the Jerusalem Post in 1997, "the most senior owner in
the NBA, [was] a close friend of the late [Israeli] prime minister Yitzhak
Rabin." [KUTTLER, p. 20] Pollin,
with fellow real estate developer Albert Cohen, also built Washington
D.C.'s entertainment and sports complex, the Capital Centre. Jewish entrepreneur
Daniel Snyder also owns the other professional team in the nation's capital,
the Washington Redskins (football). "The rest of the National Football League,"
noted the New York Times,
"has
taken notice, not only of Snyder's fat wallet, but of his brashness,
[FREEMAN, M., 8-6- There's more. By the 1990s Thomas Werner
was the chairman of the San Diego
Padres and Jerry Reinsdorf (described
by Sports Illustrated as "one of the most powerful, loathed,
and loved men in sports" [SWIFT, p. 76] controlled both baseball's
Chicago White Sox and basketball's
Chicago Bulls (Michael Jordan
et al). In 1992 Bob Lurie, also
Jewish, sold the San Francisco
Giants for $110 million to a group of investors including (Gentile)
George Shinn, Walter Shorenstein, Warren Hellman, (Gentile) Charles Schwab,
and Richard Goldman (the mayor's chief of protocol). "Shinn,"
noted the San Francisco Chronicle, "gives motivational speeches
and several books, one of which is called 'Good Morning, Lord’.... Before
leaving for San Francisco, he asked [Larry] Baer whether he should bring
autographed copies of the book for local investors. Baer, knowing that
many of the potential San Francisco investors were Jewish, said it would
not be a good idea." [CARLSEN, p. A1] Nine of today's 22 part-owners
of the San Francisco Giants
are Jewish, including Larry Baer, the Giants' CEO. [ALTMAN-OHR, A., 4-14-2000]
In Michigan, William M. Davidson, owner
of the fifth largest glass manufacturer in the world, Guardian Industries, owns the Detroit
Pistons basketball team (Davidson's glass factory branch in Israel
is the "largest single undertaking of private industry in that country.")
[MAGINA, p. 42] Davidson also
owns a women's professional basketball team, the Detroit
Shock. (Davidson's gifts to Israel include a 1999 gift of $20 million
to a scientific center, the Weizman Institute). Michael Illitch, also
Jewish, owns the Detroit Tigers baseball and Detroit Red Wings
hockey teams. Chris Cohan owns the Golden State Warriors. Larry Tanenbaum
owns the Toronto Raptors. Charles Bronfman owned the Montreal
Expos, later owned by New York art dealer Jeffrey Loria (Loria once commissioned Jewish artist Larry Rivers
to "portray four millenia of Jewish history.") [HEBREW UNION
COLLEGE, 1999] Malcolm Glazer owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Hollywood
producer Jeffrey Lurie bought the Philadelphia Eagles in 1994 from another Jewish mogul, Norman Braman.
Eli Jacobs sold the Baltimore Orioles in 1992. Norm Green
owns pro hockey's Minnesota North
Stars (later, the Dallas Stars).
Howard Katz sold the Philadelphia
76ers in 1996 to the Comcast
Corporation (whose Jewish chairman is Ralph Roberts. Chief Financial
Officer for the 76ers? Andy Speiser, also Jewish). [SALISBURY, G., 3-30-99,
p. 65] Walter Haas (for years the head of the Levi-Strauss
clothing company) was the principal owner of the Oakland Athletics (where he
installed his son and son-in-law as executives) til the team was sold
to Steven Schott and Kenneth Hofman in 1995. Eugene Klein, described by
Sports Illustrated as America's "most successful thoroughbred
[horses] owner," owns the San
Diego Chargers. By the early 1990s, Robert Tisch was co-owner
of the New York Giants and
Howard Milstein owns part of the
New England Islanders. Fred Wilpon owns the New York Mets.
Jeremy Jacobs owns the Boston Bruins hockey team. Lewis Katz is the "principal owner"
of the YankeeNets company,
which controls the New York Knicks
basketball team (president and CEO: Harey Schiller).
Robert Irsay (originally: Robert Israel)
died in 1997; at the time he owned pro football's Indianapolis Colts (moving them from Baltimore.) His son Jim took
over ownership. The Baltimore Sun noted that Irsay was
"remembered best for his drunken public
appearances and unstable
management ... Mr. Irsay became something of
a legend for his
public denunciation of players and staff in
Baltimore, and calling in
plays from the owner's box." [MORGAN, p. 1A] Tom Matte, a broadcaster for the Colts in Baltimore noted that Irsay "never
created any good will. He only created bad will. And that's why the fans
hated him." [MORGAN, p. 1A] His
own mother called Irsay "a devil on earth." [MORGAN, p. 1A]
Donald Sterling owns the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team (he
also owns over 5,000 apartment complexes in southern California, including
22 in Beverly Hills. [TURNER, p. 8] Herb
Kohl owns the Milwaukee Bucks.
Mark Cuban, well-known for accumulating fines for emotional outbursts
against referees at games, bought the Dallas
Mavericks in 2000. Robert Kraft owns (football's) New England Patriots. (Kraft's wife, Myra, is one the board of the
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; she travels to Israel "at
least four times a year" and "besides the state of Israel and
her own Jewish heritage," notes the Boston Globe, "Kraft
counts family above virtually everything else." [KAHAN, p. C1] Robert Kraft also owns his team's playing site, Foxboro Stadium. "Some people have
said," noted Newsday in 1997, "that Kraft abuses power.
After Kraft pursued and bought the tiny Robertson Paper Box Co. in Montville,
Conn., in the 1980s, and built a new plant ... [the] move resulted in
300 layoffs." [ZIPAY, p. 79]
Ted Arison (CEO of the Carnival Cruise company, who also lives
in Israel) owns the Miami Heat. Mel and Herb Simon (owners of the biggest shopping
mall in the United States, among 130 others across America) own the Indiana Pacers basketball team. (Herb's
wife, Diane, has served as the Democratic National Convention chairwoman).
[APGAR, p. 1A] Phil Granovsky,
until his death in 1995, was part-owner of the Toronto
Raptors; he was also twice the local chairman of the United Jewish
Appeal. Stan Kasten is the president
of both the Atlanta Hawks and
the Atlanta Braves. Randy Levine is president of the New York Yankees. In 1997 Jon Stoll and
Ken Horowitz became owners of Miami's new professional soccer team. Ed
Tepper owns the Philadelphia Kixx
soccer team. In 1998, Al Lerner
bought the new Cleveland expansion football team for $530 million. (It
was named the Cleveland Browns and Art Modell's original
Cleveland Browns that had moved to Baltimore was christened the Baltimore
Ravens). Murray Pezim, "one of Canada's richest citizens"
[1991] owns the British Columbia
Lions in the Canadian professional football league. [LOONEY, p. 90]
Even an ultra-Orethodox rabbi, Joseph Gutnik, by the 1990s one of the
richest men in Australia, is president of the Melbourne Football Club.
In 1999, Howard Milstein, already co-owner of hockey's New
York Islanders, led a group that sought to buy the Washington Redskins.
A few of these sports moguls have questionable
pasts, having been linked (though never convicted of anything) with characters
in the criminal underworld. Early in his career, Art Modell (owner of
the Cleveland Browns/Baltimore Ravens) was
chums with Ben Marden, "a former bootlegger and casino operator in
Havana who was associated with [mobster Meyer] Lansky ... Modell also
had ties to several bookmakers and gamblers." Modell was also partner
in a horse-racing operation with Morris Wexler, who was described as one
of the 'leading hoodlums' in running Empire News
Service by a Congressional committee. Wexler was also "linked
to [Jewish mobster Moe] Dalitz's Mayfield Road Gang" in Cleveland.
[MOLDEA, 1989, p. 106] Modell was also an associate of William Weinberger,
the eventual head of Ceasar's Palace in Las Vegas. One of Weinberger's
business pals, Jerome Zarowitz, was "convicted for trying to fix
the 1946 championship game." [MOLDEA, 1989, p. 107]
Jack Molinas was a Jewish basketball player in the early years of the professional sport. In 2002, a book came out about him entitled "The Wizard of Odds. How Jack Molinas Almost Destroyed the Game of Basketball." As a New York Times book review notes: "Molinas, who had had a Jewish middle-class upbringing in the Bronx, was a sort of double prodigy in his own right. He took up both gambling and basketball in 1944, when he was 12 years old, and by the time he was starring for Sturyvesant High Scholl and then Columbia University, he was working with a mob-backed bookmaker -- betting against his own team, at times throwing games outright, at other times playing hard enough to win but intentionally bungling shots and dropping passes in order to stay under the point spread. 'To Molinas, playing in a rigged ball game was more exhilirating than playing it straight,' Charlie Rosen writes in 'The Wizard of Odds.' 'Was it time to kick a pass out of bounds, or get called for a three-second violation? Or should he go on a scoring binge to make his own statistics respectable? ... Molinas loved the idea of playing so many secret games at the same time' ... Molinas was, briefly, one of the premier high-scoring forwards in the fledgling N.B.A., before he was suspended for gambling during his first and only season with the Fort Wayne Pistons." [KONIGSBERG, E., 3-2-02] Carroll Rosenbloom (owner of the Los Angeles
Rams) and mob-linked Morris Schwebel and Lou Chesler were the three largest
shareholders in Seven Arts,
a firm that once managed to buy the film libraries of Warner Brothers, 20th Century
Fox, and MCA/Universal.
[MOLDEA, 1989, p. 109] Rosenbloom (well known as "a notorious gambler")
[MOLDEA, p. 133] and his associates built the first casino in the Bahamas,
the Monte Rio. [MOLDEA, p. 131]
Another Jewish sports mogul, Sonny Werblin
(owner of the New York Jets) "maintained close personal and business
ties with Chicago mob attorney Sidney Korshak [also Jewish] who represented
the underworld's interests in Hollywood." [MOLDEA, 1989, p. 136]
Werblin, also a division head at MCA in Hollywood, "was very close"
to NBC head Robert Sarnoff
(also Jewish) and managed get the television network to extend a five
year contract to the fledgling American Football League (rival to the
old National Football League), thus ensuring the new league's survival.
[MOLDEA, 1989, p. 137]
There are also questions about Eugene Klein
(owner of the San Diego Chargers). As Dan Moldea notes
"In
March, 1970 San Diego Chargers owner Gene Klein was
registered at the twenty-one-room Acapulco Towers
in Mexico
during
a meeting of major underworld figures ... Among those
in attendance was [Jewish mobsters] Meyer Lansky
and Moe
Dalitz ... Klein was one of twelve stockholders
in the hotel, who
also included [Jewish lawyer to the mob] Sidney
Korshak and
Moe
Morton, a major gambling figure in California." [MOLDEA,
p. 232] (Other
co-owners included Phil Levin. "Through his
holdings," over the New Rangers hockey team, [MOLDEA, 1989, p. 466] Klein was also once fined $20,000 by the
San Diego County District Attorney's Office which accused his team of
an "indiscriminate use" of drugs. The current head coach and
eight players were also put on probation. The former Chargers head coach,
Sid Gillman was also "placed on probation by the NFL for forcing
his players to take drugs. Also punished for prescribing excessive amounts
of amphetamines was Dr. Arnold J. Mandell, who was fired by the team psychiatrist
but not charged with any crime." [MOLDEA, 1989, p. 259]
Mandell, also Jewish, was the co-chairman of the Department of
Psychiatry at the University of California in San Diego.
In 1983, Jewish mogul Steve Belkin backed
out of a deal to buy the Boston Celtics basketball team, citing too much
negative media publicity and his "guilt by association" with
close business associates. Belkin owned a company called Trans National.
His vice president, Henry Lewis, had been "convicted, of kidnapping
charges in 1969, and again on a bookmaking charge in 1977. He was allegedly
under investigation for gambling charges." Lewis' brother, Alan,
was president of Trans National and the Lewis' father, Edward, was also
"a convicted bookmaker." In later years Belkin's interests bloomed
towards common Jewish themes: he became friendly with officials at the
Anti Defamation League and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies and "for
the last year years," noted the Boston Herald in 1999, "he
and wife, Joan, have taken 160 people to the Holocaust Museum in Washington
DC." [UPI, 7-29-83; RESENDE, P., 2-21-99, p. 35]
Jewish author Robert Friedman wrote a book about the "Russian" mafia in 2000; "Because the Russian mob was [and is] mostly Jewish, it was a political hot potato, especially in the New York area, where the vast majority of refugees were being resettled by Jewish welfare agencies." Friedman's book includes a look at "Russian" mafia influence in the National Hockey League "by threatening players from Eastern Europe and Russia and extorting money from them." [BONNER, R., 11-16-00] In 2002, in Israeli, the professional Israeli Football Assocation (i.e., soccer), Shalom Ibn-Ezra, was embroiled in scandal when five referees were arrested "for allegedly taking money in exchange for fixing matches." "The police," noted Israeli newspaper Haaretz, "have a list of suspects who are not referees, but are known to be involved in running illegal gambling. Some of them have a sporting past ... There is sufficient evidence floating around to cast a shadow over the viability of Israeli soccer. It is important that [sports minister Matan] Vilnai and Shalom move quickly, because after the next criminal fiasco, there will be nothing left of Israeli soccer to save." [KOFMAN, R., 5-8-02] In 1984 David Stern became commissioner
of the National Basketball Association
and, as noted earlier, is still at the heal into 2000 (NBA publicist through the 1970s, Haskell Cohen, was also a columnist
for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Deputy NBA Commissioner
Russ Granik is also Jewish ). Robert Kraft, also Jewish, president of
the National Football League
from 1967-1970, bought the New
England Patriots in 1993. Sara
Levinson is president of NFL Properties,
the league's merchandising division. Bud Selig, 35% owner and former CEO
of the Milwaukee Brewers, has been the "acting" Major League Baseball commissioner since
1992, formally becoming the official commissioner in 1998. (In 1999 baseball's National and American league
president offices were eliminated, thereby centralizing decision making
in Selig's office). Sandy Alderson is one of major league baseball's vice
presidents, for "baseball relations." By the 1990s Alan Rothenberg
was the president of the professional soccer league, U.S. Soccer. Val Ackerman is president of the Women's National Basketball Association. In 1982 it was noted that Marvin Miller, as Executive Director of
the Major League Players Association,
"has single-handedly transformed baseball from being merely an American
past time to a big business." [WALDMAN]
For the baseball owners' part, under the cloud of a 1994 players'
strike Jewish lawyer Richard Ravitch worked for them as their chief negotiator
with the baseball union. On the other side of the battle, representing
the union, was Donald Fehr who asked time off "so he and several
members of his staff could prepare for Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday."
[FISH, p. D3]
At only age 28, Charles Harris was the number
two executive in public relations at the Los Angeles Dodgers. "People always ask me how I could leave
that for Israel," he says [he emigrated to the Jewish state], "But
I knew that if it didn't work out here, I was young enough. I could always
go back into sports." He eventually contracted to represent Major
League Baseball in Israel. [ORBAUM, S., 7-28] And the Jerusalem Post
noted the case in 2000 of Jewish baseball player Shawn Green: "When
he compelled his former team, the Toronto Blue Jays, to trade him, he
stipulated that he go to a team with a large Jewish fan base." [ORBAUM,
S., 7-28]
Gil Stein is both a former president and
CEO of the National Hockey League.
He was also the NHL's vice-president and general counsel for fifteen years.
The current National Hockey League
Commissioner, Gary Bettman, is also Jewish. (This makes the current
-- 2002 -- commissioners of the five major American sports: professional
baseball (Bud Selig), basketball (David Stern), hockey (Gary Bettman),
football (Paul Tagliabue), and soccer (Don Garber) ALL
Jewish). Under criticism during a 1994 strike, New York's Jewish-dominated
Village Voice reported that
"Bettman has confided that his discomfort
is increased by the
tinge of anti-Semitism that hovers in the
strike rhetoric. Toronto
columnists have referred to Bettman as 'nebbish'
and complain
the league is now run by 'New York lawyers,'
and players have
joked that Bettman's wife would rather 'go
shopping' than watch
a hockey game -- all of which can be construed
as a code word
for Conn of Hockey,' sentiments." [EXTON/SKOLNICK/KLEIN, 10-11-94, p. B28] As the NHL's senior Vice President and Director
of Hockey Operations, Brian Burke, complained:
"In
my mind a couple of writers [in Toronto] are clearly influenced in
their hierarchy league higher-ups are Jewish." [GORDON, J., 10-23-94, p. B28] For National Football League commissioner Paul Tagliabue's part, in 2002 he was awarded the American Jewish Congress' Louis D. Brandeis Award for "excellence in the law and commitment to the public good." "Tagliabue, who pledged to support Israel's war on terror," noted the Jerusalem Post, "until 'terrorism against civilians in Israel is no longer perpetrated and the integrity of the State of Israel is assured.'" [RADLER, M., 4-25-02] On November 13, 2001, the Archive of American Jews in Sports, a division of the American Jewish Historical Society, presented "its inaugural Hank Greenberg Sportsmanship Award to [deceased Jewish baseball baseball player] Hank Greenberg and professional sports commissioners Bud Selig, Paul Tagliabue, Gary Bettman and Don Garber." [http://www.ajhs.org/about/media_press] In the sports media world, Steve Greenberg
-- former deputy major league baseball commissioner -- is the president
of the Classic Sports Network.
Howard Katz is president of ABC
Sports (ABC Sports was sued in 2000 by fired reporter Lesley Visser
for age discrimination). Harvey Schiller is president of Turner Sports. Steve Bornstein is president of the ESPN sports broadcasting company (where
Al Bernstein has been an on-air "boxing analyst” for 18 years). A
new [1998] ESPN boxing promoter
is Russell Peltz.
"When ESPN became implanted in the national consciousness, Chris Berman
emerged as its biggest star" and Ray Firestone is ESPN's "master interviewer." Both Berman and Firestone are
also Jewish. [QUINDT, F., 1994, p. D1] In 1990, Robert Irsay, then owner
of the Indiana Colts (and also Jewish) made the news for apologizing to
another Jewish reporter, ESPN's
Fred Edelstein, for saying, "Edelstein's a little Jewish boy and
he doesn't know what he's talking about." [SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE,
11-20-92, p. C2] For the roving (female) reporter role on CBS's
2000 NCAA basketball championships, we had Bonnie Bernstein. [This is
just the tiniest beginning of a story. See later Mass Media chapter about
Jews in prominent positions in the mass media. Also, click
here to read one Jewish online web site's listing of Jews in prominent
positions in the sports world].
In 2000, Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John
Rocker, represented by the Jewish sports agency SFX, found himself in a kind of Jewish web, becoming America's nationally
vilified scapegoat for political correctness when (Jewish) Sports Illustrated
writer Jeff Pearlman reported Rocker's comments about New York City. He
didn't like riding on the Number 7 subway train, Rocker told Pearlman,
with
"some
kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS next to
some
dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time next to some
20-year
old woman with four kids ... The biggest thing I don't like
about
New York are the foreigners ... Asians and Koreans and
Vietnamese
and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and
everything
up there. How the hell do they get in this country?"
These comments, excerpted from Pearlman's
story, were splashed across the newspapers of America and Rocker made
international news as a mindless bigot. (Jewish) baseball commissioner
Bud Selig fined Rocker $20,000, suspended him for a month, and ordered
him to undergo psychiatric counseling. Weeks later Rocker passed Pearlman
alone in a hallway, and bitterly yelled at the reporter for betraying
his confidence. Pearlman reported this incident too, and Rocker was soon
disciplined again and sent to the minor leagues.
Nat Hentoff (also Jewish) of the Village
Voice was one of the few public voices that addressed the earlier
context of Rocker's hostile comments:
"There
was more to the Sports Illustrated interview than the parts
that York Rocker complained in the original article
of being spit at by New York Met fans, he had bottles and batteries thrown
at him, people screamed that they copulated with his mother, and someone
threw beer on his girlfriend. Emotionally reacting to New York hostility
with hostility, privately to the reporter, Rocker came close to losing
his baseball career. Conversely, when reporter Pearlman was invited to
speak publicly about the furor he had instigated, "he ducked interview
requests from the Ted Koppels and Larry Kings of the world." [CLIMER,
D., 4-23-2000; MORGAN, M., 6-22-2000, p. D2; HENTOFF, N., 2-8-2000, p.
39]
Jews have also long dominated the boxing
world, as promoters, managers, agents, and other entrepreneurs. "So
many of the fighters, trainers, promoters, and managers were Jewish,"
notes Allen Brodner about the sport's foundations, "that it would
have been difficult for anti-Semites to obtain a foothold." [BODNER,
p.4] For decades, Ray Arcel and Whitney Bimstein
were the foremost trainers in the sport. Other prominent Jewish trainers
included Heinie Blaustein, Freddie Brown, Manny Seaman, Charley Goldman,
and Izzy Klein. Rocky Marciano's trainer (Al Weil) was Jewish, as was
Rocky Graciano's (Irving Cohen). But, notes Bodner, "probably in
no area of boxing were Jews important for so long a period as in the promotion
of matches." [BODNER, p. 11]
Mike Jacobs, for instance, was a famed Madison Square Garden promoter -- pioneer
Black heavyweight fighter Joe Louis fought for him 25 times. Jacobs, says Peter Levine, "became [in
the 1930s and 1940s] boxing's dominant figure. Anyone who fought in a
major bout in the United States went through 'Uncle Mike.'" [LEVINE,
P., p. 183] As a promoter, notes Jack Newfield, Jacobs had "total
control, total monopoly" over Joe Louis. [NEWFIELD, J., 1995] Over
objections from many in the Jewish community, Jacobs even promoted the
German Nazi's heavyweight contender, Max Schmeling, in 1936 to fight Louis
in New York City. Schmeling won, a propaganda boost for Aryan fascism.
Incredibly, even Schmeling's manager was Jewish -- another Jacobs, this
one Joe. A proposed Schmeling fight for the world heavyweight crown against
then-champ Jimmy Braddock never materialized, reportedly due to pressures
put upon Braddock's own Jewish manager, Joe Gould. [LEVINE, P., p. 186]
"Max Baer," also notes Steven Silbiger, "was the heavyweight champion in 1933 and wore a Star of David on his boxing trunks. Although he is often mentioned as a Jewish sports hero, he was not even Jewish. By passing as a Jew, though, he developed a loyal following of Jewish fans who supported his career." [SILBIGER, S., 2000, p. 31] Other prominent Jewish promoters have included
Harry Markson and Teddy Brenner. Nationally/internationally, Sam Silverman
staged fights in Boston, Jack Solomon in London, Herman Taylor in Philadelphia,
Harry Glickman in Seattle, and Bernie Feiken in Baltimore. In recent history,
controversial promoter Bob Arum, originally a Harvard-trained lawyer,
has often been in the public eye. Arum's Top Rank firm has managed many of recent history's most famous boxers,
including Muhammed Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns,
Roberto Duran, George Foreman, and Oscar De La Hoya. More recently too,
for example, when controversial heavyweight fighter Mike Tyson left Black
boxing entrepreneur Don King in 1998, Tyson's new "advisors"
were Shelley Finkel, Jeff Wald, and Irving Azoff (the latter two also
prominent in the recording industry). [SPRIGER, AN EERIE, p. C1, C4] One of Tyson's early co-managers was Jim Jacobs.
In 1997, the "first female boxing manager,"
Jackie Kallen, also Jewish, was inducted into the Michigan Jewish Sports
Hall of Fame. That same year she was the commissioner of the new "International
Female Boxers Association." "That's what men want to see,"
Kallen says, "Sex sells. Men like to see beautiful women tie their
hair back, go in there, and beat the
... out of someone." [SPRINGER, S., p. C10]
The Everlast
Company, which for years monopolized most of the boxing equipment
market, was also Jewish-owned, as was the sport's periodical bible, Ring
Magazine (run by Nat Fleisher). In horse racing, Sam and Dorothy Rubin
even owned John Henry, the most profitable race horse of the early 1980s.
Hollywood Jews built the Los Angeles Hollywood Park race track (MGM head
Louis Mayer was by 1945 the "second leading money winner in America." [GABLER, N., 1988, p. 263, 265] A Jewish entrepreneur in Texas,
Jerry Meyer, is the chairman of Pinnacle
Brands, which sells over $150 million worth of sports products and
souvenirs a year. [FRIEDMAN, p. 32] The Sorin family founded and controls
the famous Topps baseball card
company. Mike Levy is the CEO of Sportsline,
USA, an internet website worth $285 million.
Eventually, Jewish gangsters like Meyer
Lansky, Dutch Schultz, Waxey Gordon, Bugsy Siegel, Arnold Rothstein, and
Lepke Buchalter helped move the criminal underworld into boxing. "The
gamblers who did business in the rear of each fighting club," observes
Allen Bodner, "were Jewish, as were many of the managers and promoters.
It was a logical step for the Jewish racketeers to move aggressively into
boxing." [BODNER, p. 130]
The world of sports betting and gambling
has long been largely Jewish as well, influenced in many spheres by the
Jewish criminal underworld and the Italian Mafia. Mort Olshan, for example,
was "perhaps the most renowned football [betting] handicapper in
the United States and publisher of the widely read Gold Sheet."
[MOLDEA, 1989, p. 29] From Minneapolis,
Billy Hecht's Gorham Press "became the first national odds
making institution. Many considered its newsletter to be a bible for gamblers." Leo Hirschfeld became a partner at Gorham
Press in 1940, and its name changed to the Weekly Gridiron Review.
[MOLDEA, 1989, p. 61] Moses Annenberg created The Daily Racing Form (for the betting on horse races) in 1922, soon to
be embraced by the criminal underworld. William Kaplan created Kaplan
Sports in the 1930s and the bulletin Handicapped. Kaplan "was
also a close associate of Sidney Wyman, a former St. Louis bookmaker and
a known front man for mob casino operations in Las Vegas." [MOLDEA,
1989, p. 86] Sam Minkus was "the owner of National Publications
of Miami, the largest producer of football betting cards in the United
States." [MOLDEA, p. 87]
Brooklyn-born Robert Martin "has been the most influential sports
odds makers in the United States since the 1950s." Close associates
were Julius Silverman and Meyer Schwartz. All three "were convicted
of illegal gambling activities" and sentenced to five years in prison,
but the surveillance system used to watch them was declared to be illegal
and they were freed. [MOLDEA, 1989, p. 192]
"During the 1950s and 1960s, the outlaw [sports betting] line
was controlled by the New York Mafia ... The man responsible for managing
the outlaw line for the Chicago Mafia was Frank Larry 'Lefty' Rosenthal."
[MOLDEA, 1989, p. 239] In Boston, Burton "Chico" Krantz "became
a notorious Boston bookmaker who ended up as a key government witness
against leaders of the mob in New England to whom he was forced to pay
'rent,' or protection money." [KORSEC, T., 1-27-2000]
In 2000, Jay Cohen, founder of an online sportsbook called World Sports Exchange (wsex.com: "the Internet's most popular and profitable online gambling site"), and partners "were charged by the US government with taking sports wagers by phone and over the Internet, in violation of the Wire Act. Cohen returned to the US to stand trial and was convicted by a New York jury. He was fined $5,0000 and sentenced to 21 months in prison." [CASINO NEWS, 1-10-2001] (Head of the "International Association of Gaming Attorneys?" Lloyd D. Levenson.) [PR NEWSWIRE, 9-28-99] "Pick up a player, any player,"
declared Black Enterprise magazine, "among the ten highest
paid black athletes in the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), or Major League Baseball, and 29
out of 30 have an agent who is anything but black." [CLAY, p. 48] These agents are overwhelmingly Jewish; those
noted by Black Enterprise include Marvin Demhoff, Steve Zucker,
Barry Axelrod, and Leigh Steinberg (who had the largest stable of NFL athletes, about 70, by 1995). Steinberg,
noted the New York Times, "does the bidding for nearly every
quarterback in the NFL." [HIRSCHBERG, L., 11-17-96] "Leigh Sternberg," adds the (Jewish)
Forward, "virtually created the modern sports agent in 1975."
[Smith, B., 9-4-98, p. 18] He
also "underwrites the Anti-Defamation League's Steinberg Institute."
[ALTMAN-OHR, A., 1-7-2000, p. 38]
In 2001, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called another Jewish agent, Tom Reich, "a super agent, a pioneer in his industry and one of the most influential men on the landscape of pro sports in the 21st century." Reich was "the first agent to win a baseball player a contract worth $1 million a year, counting deferred payments. Reich with the Pirates' Dave Parker in the last 1970s. [He was also] the first agent to win a hockey player a contract worth $2 million: Reich with the Penguins' Mario Lemieux in the late 1980s ...[Reich] long ago set up shop in Los Angeles, Florida and New York, the first and last because of their market importance, the middle one because, well, doesn't every Jewish boy of his generation crave a Miami abode?" [FINDER, C., 4-29-2001] By 1996, another Jewish sports agent, David
Falk, had 38 clients in professional basketball,
the largest number of any agent. These were in large part a group of elite
players like Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, and Allan
Iverson. (Falk, marketing whiz, conceived and pushed the "Air Jordan"
basketball shoe as well as a Warners movie featuring Michael Jordan and
Bugs Bunny). "We don't want to grow to fast or become too large,"
he said about his agency called F.A.M.E.,
"We want to remain a boutique for star players." [BANKS,
L., 1-21-96] "Since Falk controls a large block of
top players," noted the New York Times, "he can in many
ways dictate the structure and the economics of the entire league. Falk
is considered the second most powerful person in the NBA after its commissioner, David Stern [also Jewish]." [HIRSCHBERG,
L., 11-17-96, p. 46]
Another prominent sports agent in the basketball
world, Arn Tellem, is also Jewish (by 1997 he was the agent for 22 players,
including Kobe Bryant and Reggie Miller). Tellem also has a reputation
for representing temperamental and controversial players (described by
the New York Daily News as "infamous clients"), including
Latrell Sprewell, J. R. Rider, and baseball's Albert Belle. Tellem started
out in the agent business with partner Steve Greenberg, who has since
become the president of Classic Sports Network. [COFFEY, W., 12-7-97,
p. 102]
Both Tellem's and Falk's companies were
bought out in 1998-1999 by SFX
Entertainment, a talent agent conglomerate founded and headed by Jewish
entrepreneur Robert F. X. Silberman. [See Mass Media section] David Falk
became the chairman of SFX's
sports division, SFX Sports Group.
[SANDOMIR, R., 1-30-2000, p. 15; NEW YORK TIMES, 10-1-99, p. D6]]
Basketball hero Magic Johnson has been represented
by Leo Rosen since 1987. Eric Grossman is the agent of controversial baseball
star Daryl Strawberry. Alan Hirchfeld (with a number of past problems
with the law) went into business with boxer Mohammed Ali, founding Champion
Sports Management. [JENKINS, p. 175]
African-American golf star Tiger Woods' agent is Mark Steinberg.
(Famous Black golf pro Arthur Ashe's father even "was a driver
for a wealthy Jewish man in Richmond, Virginia, named William Thalhimer."
[BERKOW, IRA, 12-26-95, p. D12] Superstar Ken Griffey's agent is Brian
Goldberg. [msnbc.com, 7-28-01] Mark McGwire's agent as he chased major
league baseball's single season home run record was Bob Cohen.
McGwire's home run challenger in recent
years has been Sammy Sosa. In 2000, Sosa made the news when his charitable
foundation in the Dominican Republic was revealed to be close to bankruptcy.
"Chase Kaufman," noted the Associated Press, "a
member of the foundation's board, said he once bought Sosa's brother,
Jose, a sports car with money from the foundation.... Adam Katz, one of
Sosa's agents, told [Fortune magazine], 'I can assure you there's
been no impropriety." [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 4-4-2000] Katz also represents
other players on Sosa's Chicago Cubs baseball team.
Other prominent Jewish sports agents include
Lawrence Fleisher who "was not only the [NBA] union's general counsel and strategist but also the biggest agent
to NBA players, with a roster
of more than 30 clients, most of them stars." [CHADWICK, p. 39] And down South, "no agent in the NFL," said a Florida newspaper in
1995, "has ever had as many players on one team [17] as [Drew] Rosenhaus
has with the [Miami] Dolphins, and so in this new era of free agency,
no agent has wielded so much potential influence over a single team."
[MELL, p. 1C]
Rosenhaus got his start in the business under fellow Jewish agent Mel Levine who was at the time "the hot agent." [ROSENHAUS, D., 1997, p. 48] (Marvin Demoff was also "one of the top agents in the business.") [ROSENHAUS, D., 1997, p. 76] Rosenhaus began scheming to betray Levine as soon as possible, taking over his employer's clients: "[Levine] had let the shark into the fish pond. It was a day Mel would never forget ... By the time I got into the car and started driving, I knew it was just a matter of time before I took over. Within fifteen minutes of getting the job, I wanted to make ME the top guy." [ROSENHAUS, D., 1997, p. 52] Rosenhaus' road to the top was made easier by the fact that Levine soon went to prison: "Almost over night, Levine was out of business. The claim was Levine stole money from his clients. I was shocked. Levine was charged with certain white collar crimes and ultimately he went to jail on a tax charge. The suspicion that Levine was another one of those agents who stole money from his clients spread like brushfire. He lost his clients. Money got lost -- and when that happens, bad things follow." [ROSENHAUS, D., 1997, p. 89] Levine had earlier "beaten an NCAA investigation that claimed he had purchased cars for a number of college recruits. This huge scandal in South Florida was called 'Auto Gate.'" [ROSENAHAUS, D., 1997, p. 48] "Agent," confesses Rosenhaus about his chosen career, "considered a four-letter word, or referred to as the 'A word,' is synonymous with being a sleazeball lawyer. I became the face for this picture. I became the poster boy for greed in sports today. I wanted to be famous; I became infamous." [ROSENHAUS, D., 1997, p. 112] Sports Illustrated even featured him on its cover (July 15, 1996), calling him "The Most Hated Man in Pro Football." The firm Magnum Sports and Entertainment (Chairman: Charles Koppelman; President and CEO: Robert Gutkowski; head of the football division: Joel Segal) by 2001 represented over 40 National Football League players. [http://www.wwentertainment.com] Another prominent Jewish lawyer/agent, Frank
Rothman, also represented the National Basketball League itself, as well
as National Football League. Still another, Bob Woolf, represented 9 of
the 12 Boston Celtics in their most recent championship years, 14 of the
members of 1967 Boston Red Sox (a championship year), and 2,000 clients
in total. "I'm very Jewish-oriented," said Woolf in 1992, "[and]
... I'm proud of the basketball tournament that's been held in my name
in Israel for the past 15 years." [ROTHENBERG, p. 22]
In 1990, sports agents Lloyd Bloom and Norby
Walters were convicted by jury trial of "racketeering, racketeering
conspiracy, conspiracy, and two counts of mail fraud." An appeals
court overruled the conviction. These agents preyed upon college athletes,
breaking NCAA collegiate rules to sign sports stars to contracts before
they finished college. In a three year period, 58 athletes were signed
from 32 different schools. Walters, also a booking agent (for a short
time even the agent of African-American singer Dionne Warwick) and nightclub
owner, had ties to organized crime. (Mobster Michael Franzese even testified
that he invested in the two agents' business start-up costs). Bloom was
initially convicted of fraud and making extortionist threats to former
clients. In 1992, Bloom only pleaded guilty to mail fraud. [FIFFER, S.,
1989, 4-14-89; FIFFER, S., 1989, 4-23-89; LEGAL INTELLIGENCER, 8-31-92,
p. 4]
In Great Britain, Jonathan Barnett and David Mannaseh own Stellar Management, the agency for "nine of Britain's top athletes." They both are members of the same synagogue. Barnett "is a patron of Girl's Town -- Or Chadash, an Israeli-based charity, assisting underprivileged children and adults. The charitable interests of his Israeli wife, Nava, include Jewish Care." [LEVITT, L., 3-201, p. 19] Going to buy a hot dog at a sports event? Chances are good that you'll be putting money into the hands of Larry Levy, co-founder -- with his brother -- of Levy Restaurants. This firm owns "more than 20 major sports, entertainment and convention foodservice concessions," as well as 21 restaurants in a variety of cities, including New York and Chicago. Contracts include "several new Major League sports venues in Denver, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Miami and Cleveland." A new National Basketball Association store in New York City also features a Levy restaurant. [WALKUP, C., 8-10-98] In the bodybuilding world, Joe Gold founded
the famed Gold's Gym and, later,
World Gym. But another Jewish
entrepreneur, Joe Weider, has long dominated the sport as the most aggressive
business monopolizer of weight training products and bodybuilding competitions.
Weider started the Mr. Olympia
bodybuilding contest in the 1960s; he brought Arnold Schwartzenegger to
America in 1968. By the late 1990s Weider's empire was worth $400 million
and nephew Eric Weider was installed as the CEO of the Weider Health and Fitness company. The Weiders run 12 brands and produce
about 1,400 products; in the nutrition category, these include Tiger's Milk, PrimeTime, Fi-Bar, Signature, Great American Nutrition, Excel,
Metaform, and Victory. Weider products can
be found in 38,000 retail outlets, in every American state. [CHAIN DRUG
REVIEW, p. 260] Bob Paris, a former Mr. Universe also under contract to
Joe Weider, and whose personal manager was also Jewish, Harry Kessel,
notes that
"For good or bad, Joe and his brother Ben
control bodybuilding.
The (Muscle and vitamins and other clothing. Joe is publisher of the empire. His brother Ben all the companies are concerned, but Federation of Bodybuilders more member nations that for all intents and purposes is the only legitimate international bodybuilding the IFBB and the unrelated. Only a naive In what Paris suggests is a "monopoly"
of the Weider firms and the
IFBB, the most exceptional
bodybuilders are inevitably forced to sign promotional contracts with
Weider for his product endorsements and to pursue a career in the field.
"They put a clause in the IFBB
rule book," says Paris, "that says an athlete can be suspended
just for publicly criticizing or questioning any of the policies of the IFBB or its officers." [PARIS, p.
74]
In the field of violent spectacle, Robert
Meyrowitz, president and CEO of SEG
Sports, is the brainchild (and Executive Producer) behind the regularly
scheduled Ultimate Fighting Championships
where "almost anything goes -- elbow chops, head butts, knees
to the groin (only eye gouging and biting are frowned upon)." [PLUMMER,
p. 86] Meyrowitz, noted Forbes,
in his earlier years, was "one of the leading radio impresarios in
the United States, supplying hundreds of stations with canned programs."
[NEWCOMB, p. 328] His new company
markets brutal fighting on pay-per-TV, in 1995 reaching 300,000 American
homes for $24.95 per showing. By then, however, his bouts were formally
banned in three states -- Kansas, Ohio, and South Carolina. Senator John
McCain of Arizona joined many protesters, saying that he objected to the
UFC on "a moral level ... [It embodies]
the decay of American society. And I'm opposed because of risk to the
health of the combatants." [PLUMMER, p. 86] By 1998, because of continued angry nation-wide condemnation, Meyrowitz's
promotions were formally banned on many pay-per-view networks, including
Cablevision Systems, InterMedia Partners, CI, TIme-Warner, Adelphia, Jones
Intercable, and Request.
Promoter Don Gold, at a company that distributed
UFC bouts on videotape (Vidmark Entertainmment), noted that the
action in one of their most recent tapes "was very violent. There
was a lot of blood, broken bones, and some fighters were taken away in
an ambulance. But people into martial arts will love this." [FITZPATRICK,
p. 57] Rich Goffman, a marketing executive at Star Video, who had an advanced screening
of the Vidmark tape, observed
that "on one hand, it was sick and I was horrified because it was
so brutal. On the other hand, it was unique and nothing like anything
I've ever seen before." [FITZPATRICK, p. 57]
In the world of scripted theatrical (i.e.,
"fake") wrestling, Eric Bischoff heads the World Championship Wrestling organization. David Meltzer publishes
the Wrestling Observer. [BACHMAN, J., 4-8-2000] One of the major
promotions of the WCW is a
former professional football player, Bill Goldberg, known simply in all
the sensational hype by his clearly Jewish last name. He recalls what
image he sought to create in his wrestling character, i.e., what would
be his best marketing ploy:
"I was considering calling myself the Beast, or the Annihilator, and I even went so far as considering the name 'the Mossad,' after the Israeli secret service." [GOLDBERG, B., 2000, p. 50] He decided on simply his last name, which has become a media icon for Jewish physical (and other?) power. Goldberg's managers are also Jewish, Barry Bloom and Michael Braverman. The man Goldberg fought early in his career for the U.S. title in this world of creation and illusion was also Jewish: Scott Levy, known professionally as "Raven." [GOLDBERG, B., 2000, p. 74] (Other Jewish wrestlers in the circuit include Dean Simon [stage name: Dean Malenko] and Barry Horowitz). [GOLDBERG, B., 2000, p. 110] Goldberg, so recognizably Jewish, was introduced into the WCW with over 150 straight (scripted) victories. Although Goldberg's accomplishments are merely orchestrated, theatrical illusion, he notes that "there is a marketing company in New York that conducts surveys to determine the popularity and marketability of celebrities and athletes. The result is called the Q rating. Michael Jordan [the basketball star] had the highest Q rating in the country for ten years. At one point in 1998, he dropped to number two behind ... yes, as strange as it may seem, it was Goldberg the wrestler." [GOLDBERG, B., 2000, p. 116] "Thanks to the tremendous media coverage," he notes elsewhere, "my popularity was skyrocketing. It's funny, because people have actually come up to me and asked if Goldberg is my real name." [GOLDBERG, B., 2000 p. 110] Goldberg was the only wrestler listed in the 1999 Sporting News "Most Powerful People" in sports. "Goldberg," notes Daniel De Vise and Jared Varsallone,
"once appeared on the front page of the
newspaper USA Today beside
a headline that read, 'How Bad Is Wrestling for Your Kids? ... The Jewish National Fund will present him with its prestigious Tree of Life award this fall in Israel." [DE VISE/VARSALLONE, 8-6-2000] "I have received various honors and awards from Jewish organizations," he says, "I've been asked to give out awards at the Maccabee [sport] games in Israel and to speak at the Young Jewish Men's conference. The Jewish National Fund wants me to dedicate a water project in Israel, and I was offered a ride on the Estee Lauder family plane ... One thing's for sure, when I do decide to give up wrestling, I could have a long and profitable career on the Bar Mitzvah circuit." [GOLDBERG, B., 2000, p. 111] In 1996, Jewish entrepreneurs Marvin Winkler
and Jay Schottenstein bought into the Gotcha company, an organization that "owned U.S. Surfing, which produces the OP Pro Surfing Championship, a television
show and three extreme-sports magazines. A year later, they owned a controlling
interest in both companies." [EARNEST/RECKARD, 10-10-99, p. C1] Going
hiking? Mark Goldman is Chairman of Eastpak, a Massachusetts-based backpack manufacturer. [GELBWASSER,
M., 6-11-98, p. 2] Bowling? In 2000, Rob Glaser became one of three owners
of the Professional Bowlers' Association
(PBA). [PEZZANO, C., 3-26-2000, p. S19] The head of Brunswick, the billiards and bowling firm founded in the late 1800s,
was John Brunswick. He was also Jewish. His son-in-law, Moses Bensinger,
took over the company at the founder's death. [JEWHOO, 2000]
Going skiing? By 1973, Mark Fleischman and
Robert Millman headed the company (Davos)
that ran "the biggest ski area in the world," Mt. Snow, in Vermont.
[Berry, I.W., 1973, p. 113] More
recently, "two of the country's largest ski operators" are Vail Resorts (its holdings, rooted in
Colorado, include Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, and Keystone) and
the American Skiing Company (which includes
Steamboat Springs and Sunday River in Maine. In 1997 alone, this firm
also bought Heavenly at Lake Tahoe and Wolf Mountain -- now called The
Canyons -- in Utah). The CEO of American
Skiing is Les Otten, son of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. The
CEO of Vail Resorts is Adam Aron. [GONZALEZ,
E., 1999, p. 1G] The (Jewish)
Crown family also own Colorado's Aspen
Skiing resort company. "Aspen [Colorado] is the Crown's playground,"
notes Chicago magazine, "Lester and at least three of his
children own homes there, and family members are on the boards of the
Aspen Foundation and Aspen Institute." [LALICH, p. 50]
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