Saw this from Glen and found it interesting:

We both ran a similar poll asking a different version of the same question – Does it bother you/do you care that Josh Harris will own both the Sixers and Commanders? Our poll is going to finish with a “no” response and his with a “yes,” and my main takeaway is that there seems to be a generational split among Philadelphia sports fans when it comes to the Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment topic.

First things first, however –

Josh Harris and David Blitzer own the Devils and have for some time. Did Philly sports fans care about that? I don’t think so, namely because the Devils have largely sucked ass during the HBSE ownership. Only this year did they begin to turn the corner. The other consideration is that hockey is not as big as football and there is much less crossover between Sixers and Flyers fandom compared to Sixers and Eagles fandom. More Sixers fans watch the Eagles while fewer watch the Flyers, so Harris also owning the Devils was “meh, whatever,” while him owning the Commies, a division rival, is much more in your face.

In terms of sports ownership, I think we’re all conditioned to believe that the people at the top should want what we want. To win and to give a shit. Jeffrey Lurie and John Middleton certainly care about those two things (as did Ed Snider), so they supply their front offices with the necessary resources to do just that. Lurie used to walk around the parking lot and engage with fans while Middleton is still mingling and inviting people into his box and really getting around the ballpark like a normal guy, which fans appreciate. You get the sense that they genuinely care about the team, while the thought with Harris and Blitzer is that they only care about money and growing their portfolio.


I think a younger generation of sports fans just shrug their shoulders at that because it is what it is. Sport and money go hand in hand, which brings us to the idea of mutual exclusivity. Does Harris being an out of town hedge fund guy who owns other teams result in any kind of tangible negative on day-to-day or year-to-year Sixer operations? They’ve got plenty of resources, a veteran GM and robust front office staff, beautiful facilities in Camden and Wilmington, recently renovated digs at the Wells Fargo Center, and the money and ambition build a brand-new, team-owned arena. You can think that Harris is some hedge fund bozo, and maybe he is, but you also have to admit that the Sixers in 2023 are LIGHT YEARS ahead of the franchise that practiced at PCOM.

In an ideal world, every owner of every sports team would be a local guy who thinks like us and cares as much as we do. But it’s not an ideal world. Between Middleton and Comcast/Dan Hilferty, those are two local entities that care about Philly (and the Flyers will get it turned around). Lurie is from Boston but has run a fantastic Eagles organization. Jay Sugarman is a New York guy who doesn’t have endless reserves of cash, but put the right people and plan in place to turn the Union into a buzz saw. And then you have Harris, Blitzer, and the Sixers situation we just talked about.

Honestly, the ownership situation in Philly sports is not bad at all. It could be much worse.