It’s a tale as old as time. From 1996-2011 Ed Snider served as one of few sports owners with teams in the NBA and NHL. It’s been widely speculated that Snider never truly cared about his NBA franchise, with nearly all of his attention going to the Flyers, a team he once mortgaged his house to establish as an expansion franchise. Four years after the passing of the Comcast Spectacor chairman, one of his closest confidants went on the record with Snow The Goalie to set the record straight.

Per Peter Luukko, former President & COO of Comcast Spectacor and the Flyers, Snider cared about both teams, but there was a clear line:

Transcription after the jump:

CB:You mentioned a little bit ago about, you know, not only owning the Flyers, but also owning the Sixers and the arena and the network at the time and about the culture. I wanted to see if you could address, because it seems like a narrative that is always kind of surrounded Ed’s time as the owner of the Sixers was that the flyers were his baby and the Sixers were kind of there. It wasn’t necessarily as, maybe the culture hadn’t become as pervasive as it had with the flyers. Do you think that’s a kind of fair criticism? Is it unfair? Since you were so closely linked there, can you put this one to rest for us?

Luukko: Listen, in a very positive way, the flyers are so special, were so special to Ed that that couldn’t possibly change. It just couldn’t. I mean, it changed his life, it changed everything. But what is unfair is he had an incredible passion for the Sixers. He was there every game, just like the Flyers. He enjoyed that part of it. He had played basketball as a young man, wasn’t a hockey player. He became lifelong friends with Larry Brown. So he did have that passion for them. Again, I would say you could look at the Flyers like one of his children and the Sixers as a business, right, and so of course he was the flyers, but I’ll tell you what, we had just as many meetings on the Sixers as the flyers, we had just as much communication, whether it was you know, Larry or Billy King or whoever. I mean, so no, no, he was really into it because he was a competitor. And you know, the crazy years with Allen Iverson and Larry and the crew, that was just unbelievable and Pat, you know, that was a lot, a lot of fun and we had some great, great times.

There you have it. Snider cared more than people gave him credit for, but there was still a distinct difference in each team’s standing in his heart and mind.

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