What an ending. Your favorite his NBA team has won the championship. The superstar finished his hero’s journey in a sweat. The players are exhausted but overjoyed. Some are crying.
Introducing the shiny Trophy, the coveted prize that gives meaning to a tough season. It’s clear who should put it up first. Billionaire owner of the team.
Anyway, that’s the stance of the NBA and many other sports leagues in the US, where franchise owners, not players, are the first to touch and lift the shiny trophy awarded in the emotional aftermath of a championship win. There are many things.
This is a tradition that dates back to the American amateur athletic associations of the 1800s, and today highlights the uniqueness of the American league on the world sporting stage.
It also drives a lot of people crazy.
“Nobody wants to see them,” said Graham Ivory, a former sports radio broadcaster for Canadian network TSN, to the frustration of the many fans who watch the NBA and WNBA finals, the Super Bowl and the World Series each year. Synchronized. “The emotional dip from ‘Oh my God, we won the trophy’ to ‘Oh wait, the guy in the suit won the trophy’ is huge.”
Fresh off leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to an NBA title in 2016, LeBron James sobbed as he placed his hand on the trophy. It was a poignant scene — a hometown star ended a 52-year streak of major sports championships — but Rocket Mortgage founder and billionaire Dan Gilbert was the first. It took a long time because the trophy had to be lifted to the
Last year, Stephen Curry started crying before the final buzzer sounded to secure his fourth title with the Golden State Warriors. Like James, Curry and his teammates waited their turn to lift the trophy. In the end they were overjoyed and fans may have enjoyed watching it. But the cameras asked for a live interview with billionaire venture capitalist Joe Lacob, who was already enjoying his moment with the trophy.
“What does it mean to you to be handed that trophy again?” Lacob asked as the players celebrated somewhere off screen.
Even Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban believes athletes deserve more attention this time of year. Cuban hoisted the trophy when the team won the title in 2011, but in a recent interview he knew Nowitzki’s moment of jubilation would remain in the image forever, so Dirk Dirk, who was the man of the match in the final, won the title. He said he was eager to give Nowitzki the trophy. seasonal.
“I wanted that moment to belong to the players,” Cuban said. “And after all, Dirk holding the trophy above his head was iconic. If my ugly mug is holding up there, it won’t happen.”
(Cubans did Tweet At dawn the day after the title was decided, the trophy was with him in his bed. )
These displays are therefore considered buzzkills and disrupt the flow of emotions that celebrate the impact of money.
At least it feels like bad TV.
“I don’t think there’s been a happier moment for the players,” said Julian Gressel, a midfielder for the US men’s soccer team. He had to wait for Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank to lift the MLS trophy (even Blank) Got my own confetti cannon shower) when Atlanta United won the title in 2018.
Gressel, who was born in Germany and now plays for the Vancouver Whitecaps in MLS, pointed out how simple and satisfying such presentations are in European football. Teams gather around the trophy. The captain picks it up. Players and fans alike are in a commotion.
After all, athletes are the embodiment of the hopes and dreams of their fans. People form an emotional bond with star point guards, beefy quarterbacks, and slugging centerfielders. Who supports the Chief Executive Officer and Managing General Partner?
Experts say it’s a very American moment of record.
Andrei Markovitz, a professor of sports culture at the University of Michigan, says the franchise model gives U.S. team owners collective decision-making power within leagues, allowing teams to be “more infinitely more flexible than their European counterparts.” become stronger,” he said.
Billionaire investor John Henry owns the Boston Red Sox, English football club Liverpool and the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. After the Red Sox won the World Series in 2018, Henry stood next to Commissioner Rob Manfred with a big smile on his face as he accepted baseball’s shiny trophy. When Liverpool won the Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League in 2020, Henry was nowhere to be seen as players danced with euphoria on shiny hardware.
The American tradition of handing out trophies to club owners dates back to the 1800s, when the sport was still an amateur hobby, according to Joe Horrigan, senior adviser to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The oldest NFL trophy in Hall’s collection dates from 1924 and bears the name of Sam Deutsch, a noted jeweler and owner of the Cleveland Bulldogs, he said.
“It’s been basically the same since the game started,” Horrigan said.
John Thorne, the official historian of Major League Baseball, said the practice of honoring team owners (and technically trophy owners) tasted like “a pagan sacrifice or fertility ritual” and that the commissioner ” I would be happy to serve you,” he joked. ” Opinions of 30 Club Owners.
“They don’t have to actually receive the trophy, but their egos don’t,” Thorn said. “This could exemplify a larger phenomenon, such as capitalism being the religion of the United States. But shouldn’t the owner have something to gain or lose?”
Some players, who presumably know who signed the check, said they understood the moment of glory for the team owners.
“At the end of the day, ownership is what holds the team together,” said Udonis Haslem, a three-time champion and reserve forward for the Miami Heat, who will face the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals.
As if to underscore the power dynamics, former Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander said: Retained the team’s 1994 and 95 championship trophies When he sold the franchise for $2.2 billion in 2017, he literally took them home. The Rockets now have a replica of it on display in their offices.
Noble outliers exist. The NHL usually hands the trophy, Stanley His Cup, directly to the captain of the winning team, after which each player takes turns skating with it. The National Women’s Soccer League has also handed the trophy to the team captain.
Athletes actually tend to want shiny objects. Teams hang trophy pictures around the facility as motivation. Ultimately they are tainted with an almost mystical quality. In hockey, it is considered bad luck for a player to touch the Stanley Cup before winning.
“The look on their faces when they reached the top of the mountain and touched the cup for the first time was incredible,” said Phil Pritchard, curator and curator of the Toronto Hockey Hall of Fame. A kind of trophy. “It’s powerful. It’s emotional. It’s grown men crying.”
That sentiment is why Jeffrey Hayes, MLS’ vice president of special events from 1998 to 2010, argued that the league’s trophy should go to the captain of the winning team. (“I was determined – I was determined!”) But the league changed course shortly after Hayes’ departure, after which Commissioner Don Gerber handed over the Philip F. Anschutz Trophy to the owner of the winning team. rice field. The trophy is named after a Kansas billionaire who once owned six MLS teams simultaneously. .
There is at least one instance in the NBA of a player touching a trophy before its owner. The end of the 2019-20 season, which ended in a so-called bubble near Orlando, Florida in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, was marked by an unusual ceremony that saw Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss as a player. I suggested they collect the baseballs. Take a prize from a lonely perch.
“You guys, come get your trophies!” said Bass, who had attended numerous title ceremonies by that point.
The players awkwardly looked around before JR Smith (among others) slid to the front of the pack and scooped it up.
It was a priceless moment for the players, as the owner is unlikely to relinquish that privilege any time soon.
