QOTD

Tom Benson:

In a brief interview with Fox Sports New Orleans sideline reporter Jennifer Hale that was shown on the video boards of the Smoothie King Center at halftime of the Pelicans game against the Nuggets, Benson dismissed accusations that he's not healthy enough to make sound business decisions.

"People think there's something wrong with me," Benson said. "I've been in the office everyday putting in a full days of work. I feel fine."

He can feel any way he wants. We're still gonna think there's something wrong with him.  Also, we heard this interview in person at the Pelicans game last night but could barely make out what he was saying thanks to the exceptionally crappy sound system in the Blended Beverage Building. Maybe some of the inheritance can go to getting that fixed.

Update: As a bonus, here is Drew Brees feeling some balls on TV.

Upperdate: Wish I'd seen this before making this post.  This is an excerpt from Brian Boyles' New Orleans Boom and Blackout: One Hundred Days in America’s Coolest Hotspot about the run-up to  Superbowl XLVII  in New Orleans.

“We’re here today to witness a major miracle,” Governor Edwards announced at a press conference on June 3, 1985. “I can’t tell you how many times it took just another little miracle to keep the deal afloat.” [i] The governor rarely shied from hyperbole, but he had a point: after seventeen losing seasons under original owner John Mecom, the woeful Saints were rescued by a native son. Mecom was a rich man’s son, an unpopular Texan whose family owned oil wells and chemical plants. His Saints never finished with a winning record, going a combined 83-187-5 and driving fans to don paper bags over their heads in shame. Some predicted the franchise would relocate. Instead, Tom Benson returned to purchase his hometown team. He entered the bidding as an underdog: the NFL required an owner to purchase 51 percent to officially hold a controlling stake in the team. Unable to hit the percentage on his own, Benson lobbied successfully for special approval by league owners to be declared the principal owner among a group of ten investors. Once again, the Saints found themselves on the positive side of a rule change. Together with Edwards, Benson wrestled a new Superdome lease and a sales-tax waiver on concessions from a skeptical state legislature. On May 31, 1985, the sale was approved. “I want everybody to know who I am,” Benson reportedly told his lawyer. “Everybody is saying, ‘He’s just a used car dealer.’ Let them see me now.”

Benson needed help from the state, and from the Governor's political pull just to have himself installed as the Saints' owner.  He's been benefiting from state largesse ever since. It has made him a billionaire.  But even so, he and whoever inherits his fortune somehow retains the prerogative to remove the team from the city on a whim. 

One such whim could be the owner suddenly thinks the Dome is out of date.  Where would he/she get an idea like that?