On Josh Harris’s first day of business as owner of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers, the first sports team he purchased, he fired its general manager.
“I’ve done this before,” Harris assured, “and I believe we are up to this task.”
He’s bought before, the 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils (and even a few shares of the Pittsburgh Steelers — shares that he must divest himself of now that the Commanders deal has closed). But never a product like this.
For when hindsight arrives, the easy part of what Harris will have done is to assemble a disparate group of 20 billionaires and millionaires to back his $6.05 billion check to buy this woebegone football club. It includes Magic Johnson, who was on hand at FedEx and urged the assembled to applaud Harris, which it did, for inviting Black ownership into his group. The easy part will have been to, right out the chute, attract former and current players to sing his praises before he has so much as signed a first-round pick or big-name free agent or added a kombucha station to the headquarters’ lounge. Team employees were so happy (and relieved) to applaud Harris’s every promise. Build a winner. Assure ticket-buyers an enjoyable experience. Make the team, which he and I grew up with, the heartbeat of this town again.
“Let’s go!” Harris implored the crowd more than once.
But the only reason the 58-year-old from Chevy Chase was presented with an opportunity to buy this team was because of what attorney Mary Jo White, investigating for the NFL, found about the conduct of the previous ownership. That it cheated their partner franchises out of revenue that the league requires to be shared and that the disgraced and now former owner Daniel Snyder sexually harassed a former team employee. That came after reports by The Washington Post that Snyder all but turned the workplace he oversaw into a bachelor, which he wasn’t, pad. The cynic in me wonders if it was the pilfered revenue rather than the bacchanalian office environment that cost Snyder whatever support he had left from fellow owners.
“A lot of stuff happened that was unfortunate,” Harris said. “We’re focused on changing the culture. I think a lot of that [change], hopefully, has been done. I mean, that’s what we think. But we’ve got to get in there.”
A new work atmosphere is more important than where a new stadium will be planted. A new mantra is more critical than another new team name.
What rotted this franchise started at the top. What will cure it starts there, too.
Ed Stefanski, fired by Harris on Day One with the 76ers, had been the team’s general manager for five seasons when Harris took over. Wright has been president since August 2020, when Snyder made him the league’s first Black team president. He isn’t implicated in what the league’s investigation uncovered. Most of those people have been jettisoned, and The Post reported weeks ago that Wright will be retained.
But under Wright’s leadership the team blew the reveal of its new name — a choice with so little backing that what fans remain still seem to want a do-over. The club’s honoring of Sean Taylor — with what looked like a mannequin borrowed from a Foot Locker — was widely mocked. The club had to correct a new team crest that had the wrong years for its Super Bowl victories.
How much housecleaning must be done? How culpable is anyone? The assessment must be done.
“I look forward to working with Jason and Ron to create great experiences and create that culture,” Harris said.
It isn’t good enough in the short run just to make the horrific game-day experience at FedEx palatable. But clearly that’s important. Getting in and out of FedEx is a nightmare. Concessions are sad. I grew up in a family that had season tickets forever, when there was a 20-year wait list Harris lamented his family couldn’t break, and I have turned down free tickets from friends for years now.
After all that has happened with this franchise, it seems only a complete break from the past is probably necessary.
Johnson told NBC’s Craig Melvin the other day that changing the name again was on the table. It should be. That, after all, was made on Snyder’s watch.
That’ll cost the new ownership group more money. But it will be money well spent. As Harris acknowledged Friday, “It’s not what I think about [the name], it’s what the city thinks about it.”
But who knows how much it’ll cost to change the culture that has made this once gold-plated franchise a piece of expensive tin?
“It’s on us,” Harris declared. “So we’re going to be very intentional about culture.
“It’s about zero tolerance, on ethically challenged behavior,” Harris said. “When you own a sports team in a city, everyone looks at what you do. It’s that old adage that my mom and dad used to say, ‘Behave as if whatever you do is going to be written about on the front page of The Washington Post.’ And here I am.”
It’s an easy start.
Kevin B. Blackistone, ESPN panelist and professor of the practice at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, writes sports commentary for The Post.
