Nick Mileti, who helped discovered the Cleveland Cavaliers and have become a outstanding determine within the metropolis’s sports activities panorama within the Seventies, has died. He was 93.
Mileti died in his sleep Wednesday in Rocky River, Ohio, in keeping with a spokesman for the Cleveland Guardians, one in every of a number of groups Mileti as soon as owned.
The son of Sicilian immigrants emerged as one of many metropolis’s true powerbrokers after buying a minor league hockey workforce, the Cleveland Barons, and the Cleveland Enviornment in 1968.
He turned a key determine in possession teams that began buying or founding different franchises. In 1970, they introduced the NBA to Cleveland by promoting shares of the expansion-team Cavaliers at $5 every to boost $2.25 million and canopy the $3.7 million enlargement payment.
“A real pioneer on this planet of sports activities, Nick was not only a chief; he was a dreamer who remodeled that dream into actuality for numerous followers in Cleveland,” the Cavaliers stated in an announcement. “Nick Mileti modified the course of Cleveland sports activities historical past, and his ardour and dedication might be deeply missed.”
He bought controlling curiosity in 1972 within the metropolis’s Main League Baseball franchise, then named the Indians, as a part of a gaggle that included future U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, and he helped oversee building of the Richfield Coliseum, the place the Cavs performed from 1974-94.
Mileti additionally purchased a World Hockey Affiliation franchise in 1972 and moved it from Calgary to Cleveland, renaming the franchise the Crusaders, and owned two of the town’s largest radio stations.
He was changed as Indians president in 1975 and, beneath strain from banks, offered his stakes within the workforce. The Crusaders ceased operations in 1976 after an NHL workforce moved into city, and Mileti offered his stake within the Cavaliers in 1980.
Ultimately, although, Mileti acquired again into the sports activities enterprise.
After shifting to California in 1979 to assist produce and finance performs and flicks, he based the Canadian Soccer League’s Las Vegas Posse, owned a number of radio stations and wrote three books.
However Mileti’s affect in Cleveland continued.
He was a member of the inaugural class inducted into the Cavaliers’ Wall of Honor in 2019 — a part of the workforce’s fiftieth anniversary celebration — and was rewarded throughout that ceremony with an NBA championship ring from the Cavs’ first title workforce in 2015-16.
“I’ve typically heard individuals say, ‘It’s not how lengthy you reside, however what you reside for,’” former Cavs star Jim Chones stated. “Nick was rewarded with longevity as a result of he touched many in his mission to make Cleveland nice once more. His voice was delicate however assured, demanding consideration. He beloved Cleveland, and Cleveland beloved him.”