Unbelievable. An article on Houston Antwine

[DarrylS]

Very good analysis, remember in the mid 80's when we had some mediocre teams and went to work on Sundays.. there was not much pats gear then.. would have to see all the fans of the Giants, Dolphins and Jets fans with their stuff on.. used to try to get gear from JC Penney, which was a huge outlet, but often the Pats were left out...

There were few TV games, so I used to listen on a walkman every Sunday afternoon.. not supposed to but I did.. everyone thought I was a betting man, used to tell them I was just a fan.. they still thought I was a gambler.. not much sense in arguing.

It was hard to be a pats fan..

 

[RayClay]

By the way, being old enough to vaguely remember when my parents had just started a small business (my first "bedroom" was in the middle of the store) in the 1950's, I always thought the guy was a hero.

There were no credit cards*, and none of the financial maneuverings we take for granted today. You could read up on the early history of the NBA if you want to get an idea. I don't think anyone growing up today could believe it. it was more like the wild west than today's venture capital, line of credit business world.

Diners club and Bankamericard existed, very limited Visa and Mastercharge not until 1970.

 

[RayClay]

Very good analysis, remember in the mid 80's when we had some mediocre teams and went to work on Sundays.. there was not much pats gear then.. would have to see all the fans of the Giants, Dolphins and Jets fans with their stuff on.. used to try to get gear from JC Penney, which was a huge outlet, but often the Pats were left out...

There were few TV games, so I used to listen on a walkman every Sunday afternoon.. not supposed to but I did.. everyone thought I was a betting man, used to tell them I was just a fan.. they still thought I was a gambler.. not much sense in arguing.

It was hard to be a pats fan..

I assume you mean the late 80's, early 90's one of the two worst periods, I believe. They had a hell of a team late 70's up til the SB year in 1985. That three game revenge playoff run on the road is second only to TB's overtime heroics for me.

Oops, Daryl Stingley. Guess you liked those teams.

I never cared what the fair weather fans had on their jerseys, we were the underdogs and occasionally surprised.

I'm not saying we were always great, but we were entertaining and always had good football men except for a few loony years. there's no doubt we didn't have the money for top picks some years, but guys like
Bucko Kilroy made sure we had good talent.

We were never a sad sack team like the Lions, though we were the pits for a few 5 year periods.

 

[DarrylS]

I assume you mean the late 80's, early 90's one of the two worst periods, I believe. They had a hell of a team late 70's up til the SB year in 1985. That three game revenge playoff run on the road is second only to TB's overtime heroics for me.

The whole time, could never get pats gear.. I could not watch a whole game as I was working, caught parts sometimes, so the radio was my friend.. the point is that Pats gear was almost impossible to get, except squish the fish t-shirts.. maybe because I was from RI..

I greeted the airplane in Providence when they came back from one of the playoff games..

 

[italian pat patriot]

Well, let me straighten that out. The AFL was an expansion league the 8th franchise was supposed to go to Philadelphia. Sullivan scooped it up at the last minute, despite the fact no one wanted to even try to get a stadium done here.

[World League, XFL there are no guarantees with these things]

Nobody in the NFL or AFL wanted to give us a team because of the Stadium issue.

Sullivan was not a cheapskate. There was never any money to begin with. There was no stadium.

Nevertheless, he and Holovak put together a team good enough to go to the championship game by 1963, though they got slaughtered.

Look at the late 70's early 80's teams. Fairbanks situation was bad, but that was a great team in coaching and personnel.

The 1985-86 team had a top five payroll I believe, definitely one of the highest in the NFL.

In 1959 and even fairly recently, there weren't tons of millionaire's and billionaire's with enough free time to invest in sports teams, regardless of profit. There were a few, like oil tycoon Hunt for KC, but a lot were sports guys and syndicates. Sullivan put together a group and did the leg work.

He was a sports guy from BC. He also owned an oil company. Not oils wells, I'm sure he probably went up to your house and plugged the hose in on occasion. It was a different world back then, believe me.

No one wanted this team, no one wanted, or could afford to build a stadium, no one believed they could get political cooperation or funding for one.

The alternative was no team.

He tried to get some stadiums done and when the league threatened to leave us without a permanent home, he worked with people to put that tin can up in Foxboro, to keep a team in the area a few more years.

Did he make some bad business decisions to try to keep it afloat? Oh yeah.

Could he have sold out for a good profit in later years? Sure.

But he wouldn't. Maybe that was a fault, but he loved football and the team and he plowed whatever he had back into it, I don't think there's anyone who thinks he made a bundle.

Sure he never had much of an original investment, but i think investing the better part of you life is worth something.

great analysis from my side too, RayClay

i agree 100%-very well said

 

[flasox27]

The ironic thing about Billy Sullivan is that his family might have still owned the team if his son hadn't mortgaged the team to finance the Jackson's Victory Tour, an incredibly bad decision.

 

[RayClay]

The ironic thing about Billy Sullivan is that his family might have still owned the team if his son hadn't mortgaged the team to finance the Jackson's Victory Tour, an incredibly bad decision.

That's why people hated him and i can understand it. The sonofabeetch would have held onto that team until the grave and Pat probably would have taken over.

It all worked out for the best, because it was still a bottom feeder and he never would have been able to afford a first class operation like we have now.

He did love that team more than anything, though. Can't take that away from him.

 

[TrueBeliever]

Well, let me straighten that out.

Whoa there, Ray, my intent was not to offend and I hope you didn't take it that way. I was just saying that the stuff I had heard was probably why a lot of today's fans think Sullivan wasn't that good of an owner. Personally I have no problem with him and think he deserves a lot of credit for not only getting a team in Boston after the other ones had failed and for keeping it there as long as he was an owner. But I had heard that the way he had become a self-made millionaire was by being very thrifty when it came to expenditures (some people would just call that "good business sense", I call it being cheap) and that he tried to run the Pats that way as well.

Obviously I need to do more research about the team.

I remember too when Sullivan passed away that a number of the other AFL owners credited him with playing a big part in working out the merger agreement. Coincidentally my wife just got me the Larry Felger book about the merger so I'm hoping there'll be some details of it in there. Anyway it's unfortunate that Sullivan isn't one of the people that usually comes to mind when people talk about the AFL. They usually think of Al Davis, Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams. For that matter, while Harry Wismer was a disaster as the owner of the Titans, Ed Gruber's book states that he played a very big part in securing the league's substantial broadcast contract with ABC, which in turn brought in a lot of money to the league without which it may have struggled even more than it did.

Also I have to admit I didn't know the 8th club was originally meant for Philadelphia; that's ironic because the 7th (the Bills) was originally intended for Detroit because that's where Ralph Wilson is from. After a while however he accepted that he wouldn't be able to compete with the Lions and agreed to look at other cities. Personally I think it was good that the AFL mainly stayed out of NFL cities.

Finally, another reason I thought Pats fans weren't that fond of Sullivan was they didn't like his son who helped him run the team later on. (I think his name was Pat?) I think that son was also the one who convinced him to finance the Jackson tour.

 

[AzPatsFan]

Well, let me straighten that out. The AFL was an expansion league the 8th franchise was supposed to go to Philadelphia. Sullivan scooped it up at the last minute, despite the fact no one wanted to even try to get a stadium done here.

[World League, XFL there are no guarantees with these things]

Nobody in the NFL or AFL wanted to give us a team because of the Stadium issue.

Sullivan was not a cheapskate. There was never any money to begin with. There was no stadium.

Nevertheless, he and Holovak put together a team good enough to go to the championship game by 1963, though they got slaughtered.

Look at the late 70's early 80's teams. Fairbanks situation was bad, but that was a great team in coaching and personnel.

The 1985-86 team had a top five payroll I believe, definitely one of the highest in the NFL.

In 1959 and even fairly recently, there weren't tons of millionaire's and billionaire's with enough free time to invest in sports teams, regardless of profit. There were a few, like oil tycoon Hunt for KC, but a lot were sports guys and syndicates. Sullivan put together a group and did the leg work.

He was a sports guy from BC. He also owned an oil company. Not oils wells, I'm sure he probably went up to your house and plugged the hose in on occasion. It was a different world back then, believe me.

No one wanted this team, no one wanted, or could afford to build a stadium, no one believed they could get political cooperation or funding for one.

The alternative was no team.

He tried to get some stadiums done and when the league threatened to leave us without a permanent home, he worked with people to put that tin can up in Foxboro, to keep a team in the area a few more years.

Did he make some bad business decisions to try to keep it afloat? Oh yeah.

Could he have sold out for a good profit in later years? Sure.

But he wouldn't. Maybe that was a fault, but he loved football and the team and he plowed whatever he had back into it, I don't think there's anyone who thinks he made a bundle.

Sure he never had much of an original investment, but i think investing the better part of you life is worth something.

I like your post, but as I understood it, Minneapolis was the last and 8th AFL franchise.

In order to disrupt and perhaps kill the fledgling AFL, the NFL expanded into both Dallas, Hunt's franchise and Minneapolis at the last minute. The NFL had been rejecting Hunt's continuing appeals for a Texas team, withhim as owner. So he basically said FU! I'll start my own league, and he did.

The Cowboys and Vikings were the expansion franchises meant to kill off the fledgling AFL. Hunt had to move his Dallas Texans franchise to KC, renaming them the Chiefs, and the Minneapolis franchisees got cold feet and withdrew. They weren't willing to fight the new NFL franchise there.( the Vikings). So Sullivan got the last and 8th AFL franchise as a last minute decision, so as to fill out the League,even though Boston had been a deathbed fro numerous football attempts.

Unlike the other expansion leagues, the AFL was remarkably stable. None of the original franchises folded. Two did move. Conrad Hilton's Chargers moved from LA to San Diego while in competition with the LA Rams. The Dallas Texans moved to KC; and the New York Titans were renamed the New York Jets by a new owner. Other wise, all the Teams remained where founded. Even the AFL expansion franchises endured. In 1966, before the merger, the AFL voted to expand; and the the two new expansioon teams, the Miami Dolphins and the Cincinnatti Bengals both prospered.

The Bengals were a kind of ironic story. A new Brown's owner, Art Modell, fired Paul Brown for whom the Team was named, despite his glorious history. Brown promised revenge, but this time he would BE BOTH the Owner and Coach. And he would stick it to the Browns. He started out in Ohio, robbing some Brown's territory. He also chose Team colors that were a duplicate of the Browns colors and uniforms. The Bengals were an early success, and went to the Super Bowl long before the Brown's did.(they haven't). There are some who say the Bengals poaching, even drove the Browns to relocate to Baltimore as the Ravens.

 

[RayClay]

Whoa there, Ray, my intent was not to offend and I hope you didn't take it that way. I was just saying that the stuff I had heard was probably why a lot of today's fans think Sullivan wasn't that good of an owner. Personally I have no problem with him and think he deserves a lot of credit for not only getting a team in Boston after the other ones had failed and for keeping it there as long as he was an owner. But I had heard that the way he had become a self-made millionaire was by being very thrifty when it came to expenditures (some people would just call that "good business sense", I call it being cheap) and that he tried to run the Pats that way as well.

Obviously I need to do more research about the team.

I remember too when Sullivan passed away that a number of the other AFL owners credited him with playing a big part in working out the merger agreement. Coincidentally my wife just got me the Larry Felger book about the merger so I'm hoping there'll be some details of it in there. Anyway it's unfortunate that Sullivan isn't one of the people that usually comes to mind when people talk about the AFL. They usually think of Al Davis, Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams. For that matter, while Harry Wismer was a disaster as the owner of the Titans, Ed Gruber's book states that he played a very big part in securing the league's substantial broadcast contract with ABC, which in turn brought in a lot of money to the league without which it may have struggled even more than it did.

Also I have to admit I didn't know the 8th club was originally meant for Philadelphia; that's ironic because the 7th (the Bills) was originally intended for Detroit because that's where Ralph Wilson is from. After a while however he accepted that he wouldn't be able to compete with the Lions and agreed to look at other cities. Personally I think it was good that the AFL mainly stayed out of NFL cities.

Finally, another reason I thought Pats fans weren't that fond of Sullivan was they didn't like his son who helped him run the team later on. (I think his name was Pat?) I think that son was also the one who convinced him to finance the Jackson tour.

No problems, he wasn't a good owner as far as having money. He was always trying to pull a rabbit out of his hat to keep things going and might have been a millionaire on paper, but never really had any money, only a team with no stadium which he wouldn't sell anyway.

You also have to consider he knew he would be forced to sell eventually if he didn't get a stadium done. The only way he might have become a millionaire would be to sell, that's for sure.

Finally, another reason I thought Pats fans weren't that fond of Sullivan was they didn't like his son who helped him run the team later on. (I think his name was Pat?) I think that son was also the one who convinced him to finance the Jackson tour.

No, that was Chuck, the supposed businessman. He seemed like a real idiot and seemed to muck up the John Hanna negotiations to. Chuck seemed to mess up anything he was involved in.

Pat was feisty, but i think people respected his love for the team.

I will say, even old time critics have to admit that nothing compared to the sheer joy of the three road wins leading upo to the 85-86 Super Bowl.

After being dumped on for years, Pat Sullivan even got his head split open and didn't really care. Nice article here.

While "Mosi's Mooses," Tatupu's legion of fans, celebrated back home, years of frustration spewed from the visitors' sideline at the Los Angeles Coliseum as Pat Sullivan, the Patriots' general manager and son of team founder Billy, drew the attention - and ultimately the wrath - of Raiders Howie Long and Matt Millen. Upholding the Raiders' "bad boy" image, Millen opened a gash over the GM's left eye with one rather wellplaced swing of his helmet following the game.

With bloody brow, but still unbowed, Sullivan stood defiantly in the Patriots' locker room, proclaiming that his organization was righting more than a decade of wrongs that included referee Ben Dreith's game-swaying roughing-the-passer call against Ray Hamilton in a 1976 playoff game and Jack Tatum's hit on Darryl Stingley in a 1978 pre-season game that paralyzed the wide receiver.

"Let me tell you something," said Sullivan. "We're just getting back for Jack Tatum and all the other crap that this football team has put on our football team for 12 years. This is the greatest moment in our lives."

"All we'd heard was ‘the jinx ... the jinx ... the jinx ...,' how we were oh-and-whatever and couldn't win in Miami," said Jones. "After the L.A. game, a few Raiders players, including Michael Haynes and Lester Hayes, said something to the effect of, ‘We just handed Miami a trip to the Super Bowl.'We went down there fed up with it all."

The Miami clash was the greatest moment in Patriots history to that point in time. An 18-game losing streak was laid to rest and an AFC championship won by a relentless ground attack with fresh-legged backs running behind a line led by Hall of Fame left guard John Hannah. The Patriots produced 255 yards, including 105 from James, 81 from Weathers and another 61 from Tony Collins. The defense was dominant as the Patriots forced six more turnovers, recovering four Miami fumbles and intercepting two Dan Marino passes.

The final score? Patriots 31, Dolphins 14.

"Squish the Fish," indeed.

 

[RayClay]

I like your post, but as I understood it, Minneapolis was the last and 8th AFL franchise.

In order to disrupt and perhaps kill the fledgling AFL, the NFL expanded into both Dallas, Hunt's franchise and Minneapolis at the last minute. The NFL had been rejecting Hunt's continuing appeals for a Texas team, withhim as owner. So he basically said FU! I'll start my own league, and he did.

The Cowboys and Vikings were the expansion franchises meant to kill off the fledgling AFL. Hunt had to move his Dallas Texans franchise to KC, renaming them the Chiefs, and the Minneapolis franchisees got cold feet and withdrew. They weren't willing to fight the new NFL franchise there.( the Vikings). So Sullivan got the last and 8th AFL franchise as a last minute decision, so as to fill out the League,even though Boston had been a deathbed fro numerous football attempts.

Unlike the other expansion leagues, the AFL was remarkably stable. None of the original franchises folded. Two did move. Conrad Hilton's Chargers moved from LA to San Diego while in competition with the LA Rams. The Dallas Texans moved to KC; and the New York Titans were renamed the New York Jets by a new owner. Other wise, all the Teams remained where founded. Even the AFL expansion franchises endured. In 1966, before the merger, the AFL voted to expand; and the the two new expansioon teams, the Miami Dolphins and the Cincinnatti Bengals both prospered.

The Bengals were a kind of ironic story. A new Brown's owner, Art Modell, fired Paul Brown for whom the Team was named, despite his glorious history. Brown promised revenge, but this time he would BE BOTH the Owner and Coach. And he would stick it to the Browns. He started out in Ohio, robbing some Brown's territory. He also chose Team colors that were a duplicate of the Browns colors and uniforms. The Bengals were an early success, and went to the Super Bowl long before the Brown's did.(they haven't). There are some who say the Bengals poaching, even drove the Browns to relocate to Baltimore as the Ravens.

They would have been, but there was never an AFL franchise in Minn. due to the NFL offer. The eighth franchise was then bound for Philly according to a 1959 Herald story [many thanks to Annihilus at the Planet]

Clink links for continued columns.



http://www.patriotsplanet.net/images/PatriotsPlanet/History/1959/1959-11-18-BostonHerald/2.jpg

http://www.patriotsplanet.net/images/PatriotsPlanet/History/1959/1959-11-18-BostonHerald/3.jpg

 

[TrueBeliever]

Okay, let's straighten all this out.

The AFL was originally started with six teams: Dallas, Houston, New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Denver. Later, the owners decided to add two more teams - the seventh was the franchise awarded to Ralph Wilson which ultimately became the Buffalo Bills (though as I mentioned, he originally wanted to put his team in Detroit); the Patriots were eighth and, for a few months, the final one.

As AZ pointed out, the NFL was tired of competing with rival leagues and tried to put the newest one out of business before it played a down. Bud Adams has said George Halas personally invited him to become an NFL owner as long as he would leave the AFL; Adams refused because he said he wouldn't go back on his word (though he would do so a lot with the city of Houston once the Oilers got established, but that's another story.) The NFL was, however, able to convince the ownership of the Minneapolis franchise to pull out of the AFL in early 1960 and join the NFL instead (though the club didn't actually start play until 1961.) Angered but undeterred, the AFL simply went to the next city on its list, Oakland - and thus the Raiders became the last of the original eight franchises.

Although the NFL told Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams that they weren't interested in expanding, they really were, but they already had potential owners in mind. Minneapolis and Dallas were two markets they were strongly considering (although they also lied about this to Hunt, saying that after the 1952 Dallas Texans went bankrupt they weren't about to put another team in Dallas.) They put together the Cowboys franchise relatively quickly, and (like the Raiders) their somewhat last-minute formation resulted in a club that was terrible on the field for its first few years.

This is the irony of the three-year rivalry between Lamar Hunt's Texans and the Cowboys - the Texans were a much better team on the field, and Hunt signed several players from Texas universities to boost local support. Nonetheless, the Cowboys were much more popular and not even winning the AFL championship against in-state rival Houston could put the Texans on top. In fact the 1962 championship game was the last game the club played as the Texans; during the following off-season Hunt reluctantly agreed to move the team to Kansas City.

Also ironic is that Paul Brown joined the AFL solely to get back into the NFL. He told the owners of both leagues flat-out during the merger negotiations that he was only going to start up his Cincinnati team if they hammered out a merger agreement and the team would eventually be part of the NFL.

Finally here's a quick list of the AFL teams:

1960:
Dallas Texans (became Kansas City Chiefs in 1963)
Houston Oilers (moved to Tennessee in 1997, became Tennessee Titans in 1999)
New York Titans (renamed Jets in 1963)
Los Angeles Chargers (moved to San Diego in 1961)
Denver Broncos
Buffalo Bills
Boston Patriots (renamed New England Patriots in 1971)
Oakland Raiders (moved to Los Angeles from 1982-1994)

1966:
Miami Dolphins

1968:
Cincinnati Bengals

 

[RayClay]

The NFL was, however, able to convince the ownership of the Minneapolis franchise to pull out of the AFL in early 1960 and join the NFL instead (though the club didn't actually start play until 1961.) Angered but undeterred, the AFL simply went to the next city on its list, Oakland - and thus the Raiders became the last of the original eight franchises.

Yeah, I read that recently, or something like it. Couldn't remember it and still don't clearly, but that Oakland being the last one so there would be a natural rivalry with L.A. sounds very familiar.

Actually it was the Wiki. According to that, Wilson was a part owner of the Lions who wanted to put the team in Miami and Baron Hilton requested the Raiders so his Rams would have a rivalry, Minn was out before the Patriots, but Oak wasn't in until after the 1st draft.

Great stuff, true believer. When it comes to these "facts" I'm sure there are different versions, but stories of new leagues are always great. Flying by the seat of their pants, they were!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Football_League#cite_note-7

 

[patfanken]

Q

That's why people hated him and i can understand it. The sonofabeetch would have held onto that team until the grave and Pat probably would have taken over.

It all worked out for the best, because it was still a bottom feeder and he never would have been able to afford a first class operation like we have now.

He did love that team more than anything, though. Can't take that away from him.

I probably could have forgiven the mismanagement of the team and its tightfisted ways, which squandered a few situations that would have made the Pats a consistent contender, instead of a once a decade pretender (the Chuck Fairbanks fiasco comes immediately to mind.) But what I can't forgive and what is never really mention was the fact that Sullivan pretty much "stole" the team from the many of the original investors who bought stock when the team was founded. Sullivan was just one of many "original" owners, all of whom never got true value for their shares when Sullivan made his power play to get control of the team.

I'm afraid I don't know all the details, but I'm sure it would make an interesting story. BOTTOM LINE: Sullivan was never the humble family guy the media represented after the fact. In reality (IMHO) he was an unscrupulous businessman who would stab his mother in the back if it was to his benifit. There were several time where he could have sold the team to owners who really had the financial ability to run it properly. Kraft, Paul Fireman (Reebok) and Bob Karp, all at one time or another wanted to buy the team. Can you imagine Pats history if Bob Kraft had own the team a decade or two BEFORE he finally got them. The final insult was when Sullivan FINALLY did have to sell the team, did he sell them to solid guys like Kraft, Fireman or Karp. No he sold it Victor Khayam who was almost as big an idiot as Sullivan himself. Thanks for that one Billy

 

[RayClay]

Re: Q

I probably could have forgiven the mismanagement of the team and its tightfisted ways, which squandered a few situations that would have made the Pats a consistent contender, instead of a once a decade pretender (the Chuck Fairbanks fiasco comes immediately to mind.) But what I can't forgive and what is never really mention was the fact that Sullivan pretty much "stole" the team from the many of the original investors who bought stock when the team was founded. Sullivan was just one of many "original" owners, all of whom never got true value for their shares when Sullivan made his power play to get control of the team.

I'm afraid I don't know all the details, but I'm sure it would make an interesting story. BOTTOM LINE: Sullivan was never the humble family guy the media represented after the fact. In reality (IMHO) he was an unscrupulous businessman who would stab his mother in the back if it was to his benifit. There were several time where he could have sold the team to owners who really had the financial ability to run it properly. Kraft, Paul Fireman (Reebok) and Bob Karp, all at one time or another wanted to buy the team. Can you imagine Pats history if Bob Kraft had own the team a decade or two BEFORE he finally got them. The final insult was when Sullivan FINALLY did have to sell the team, did he sell them to solid guys like Kraft, Fireman or Karp. No he sold it Victor Khayam who was almost as big an idiot as Sullivan himself. Thanks for that one Billy

That's a prevailing view from some. He wasn't a great businessman nor a saint.

However, what did those other owners do to keep the team in Boston? Was he arrested, or accused of stock fraud? How much time and energy did he put into running the team, acquiring talent and coaches and chasing down every possible stadium deal, including the one without which the team would have been dissolved or sold.

It's easy to say someone's crooked, but there are laws involving stock deals. Was he indicted for fraud? I could say Kraft was a crook and probably find rivals who thought so. Does that make it true?

Sure he could have sold the team after it had become somewhat stable, and made enough to retire on. If he didn't care, he could have made even more by selling to out of state interests.

He hung on until circumstances and his own family's (Chuck) blunders left him a beaten man with few options.

I'm just saying he was a pioneer, nobody wanted to invest in a team without a guaranteed stadium and there was zero prospect of a stadium. Slice it any way you want it, without him there would be no Patriots, unless the NFL went for an expansion team by the 1990's at the earliest.

 

[RayClay]

This is when he "stole" the team by the way.

Class action lawsuit

After being ousted as President of the Patriots in 1974 (despite owning more than 20% of the voting stock), Sullivan sought to regain control over operations. By 1975, Sullivan had repurchased 100% of the voting stock. Once in control off the corporation, Sullivan removed all directors of whom he disapproved. Notably, however, in order to pay back the loans required to purchase the voting-stock (more than 5.3M), Sullivan agreed with lenders to assign income of the corporation and assets of the corporation over to the banks. In order to do this, however, Sullivan needed to eliminate the non-voting public shareholders. Sullivan was successful in structuring a deal that provided the non-voting public shareholders $15/share; this transaction was approved by the shareholder class. A (1) dissenting shareholder (a long time Patriots fan) refused to tender his shares and filed suit. Eventually, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found the merger/elimination of the minority shareholders as illegal and effected for Sullivan's personal benefit.[3] Additionally, the Court found that Sullivan's actions constiuted a waste of corporate assets. It was ordered that the shareholders be paid the value of the shares, not in 1975 dollars but as the value would have stood in 1986 (the time of the ruling).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Sullivan_(American_football)

One shareholder filed suit and won. The settlement was the difference between $15 and the 1986 value of same after inflation.

So 1 non-voting shareholder cost him quite a bit of money. Not a criminal complaint BTW.

 

[RayClay]

By the way, I'm not denying business deals and lack of money led to some fiascos.

This was an expansion league franchise and it was not offered, probably due to lack of stadium.

Something is better than nothing and this mythical big money owner that was going to carry the team for a decade with no stadium didn't exist.

 

[Pats Fanatic]

Great thread.
Just think how much our perception of Billy Sullivan would be different if it wasn't for Ben Dreith. That 76 team would have won the Super Bowl and that would have changed every thing. I personally thin that that would have be the start of a dynasty then, he would have gone down as a winner. I think that Sullivan should be very commended for keeping the team in New England even though if was a tough sell at first. he also had a super bowl caliber team in the 60's, 70's and of course the 80's they weren't all losers.

 

[patfanken]

Thanks for all the info Ray, it certainly illuminates the situation as it happened....but I guess we will choose to interpret the information from different sides of the fence, It was a long time ago and I my memories aren't as clear as I would like, but I recall my attitudes being formed from conversations I overheard because either a relative or a friend of a relative was one of the stockholders that felt they were being screwed by the settlement Sullivan was offering.

I also have a slight insight into how the Pats were run in '60-'70 because of the time I played for the Quincy Giants, which was affiliated with the Patriots organization. You'd here things from guys they sent down to us, or coach/scouts who also worked with us. They were'nt always complimentary.

Clearly the BoD's trying to get rid of Sullivan were keenly aware that as well meaning as he seemed, he didn't know what he was doing running the team and what happened in the future just bore that out.

I know he gets credit for building the Foxboro Stadium, et al, but you have to wonder that had we had a competent ownership group from the start that a better stadium alternative would have been sorted out and the team might STILL be the Boston Patriots. Sullivan HAD to build in Foxboro because that was the only deal HE could get done...that doesn't neccessarily mean that that was the ONLY deal out there....just the only one HE could pull off.

For all the trouble Bob Kraft had to go through when he got the club, it "only" took him about 8 years to get a stadium deal finalized and it would have been a lot sooner if Bill Weld was more than just a pretty face as Governor at the time....but that's another sad story.

 

[RayClay]

Great thread.
Just think how much our perception of Billy Sullivan would be different if it wasn't for Ben Dreith. That 76 team would have won the Super Bowl and that would have changed every thing. I personally thin that that would have be the start of a dynasty then, he would have gone down as a winner. I think that Sullivan should be very commended for keeping the team in New England even though if was a tough sell at first. he also had a super bowl caliber team in the 60's, 70's and of course the 80's they weren't all losers.

That late seventies team with Hannah was tremendous. To be fair to those bitter about the Sullivans, business problems kept them from establishing a consistent winner too.

I say, it's the 50th year. Our history is what it is, we've had some great talent, no well heeled owner would have started and kept a team with no stadium alive for ten years, it took an obsessed, single minded lunatic and we had one.

I was more a Red Sox fan in the 60's, thanks to my father, and they managed to put a pretty crappy product on the field despite a stable owner with deep pockets.

Was going to put an Andre tippet quote saying how sullivan tried his best, but the hell with it.

Clive Rush and the Black Power Defense.

Rush was the prize head coaching prospect in the league BTW. Fresh off coordinating the Jets Super bowl wining offenses...

"1969 Clive Rush is the new head coach. I go up to training camp and I'm tipped off by trainer Bill Bates that Rush is a bizarre personality, to say the least. After the morning session, I ask PR man Gerry Moore to set up a lunch interview with Rush. He tells me to meet the coach in his dorm room. I knock and enter. The temperature in the room is below freezing. There are two humongous air conditioners in the windows. Rush is sitting behind his desk, wearing only a towel around his neck. He starts by telling me he has a cold and can't seem to shake it. Wonder why."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Facing Houston in the eighth game, he comes up with another gem: the Black Power Defense. He informs his team that he is going to be the first coach in the history of pro football to put 11 black players on the field at one time. However, there is a problem. He doesn't have 11 black players on defense. He has only 11 on the team and has to convert three or four offensive players to defense for the week."