BevHills billionaire[[by way of Flint) buys Pistons, Palace, Pine Knob

[rjk]

The attendace record at the SD was around 62,000. Regular season game against the Celtics.

As mentioned above, cheap seats and even free at a gas station as part of a promotion, but it was always a good time when I was in high school. One of the nice things about the SD was that just about anyone could go and see a game regardless of how much money you had.

[EastsideAl]

No, he's Jewish.

According to his Wikipedia article:
"Tom Gores was born in Nazareth, Palestine, to a Lebanese mother and a Greek father."

This doesn't of course preclude his being Jewish, since there are both Lebanese and Greek Jews, but given the location of his birth and that mixture of parents it's considerably more likely that he's of Christian descent. A Bill Shea Crain's column from last August discussing his bid for the Pistons and his views on the Israel-Palestine conflict identifies him as having been "raised Lebanese Catholic" [[see the update at the bottom of the article).

[Detroitej72]

Thanks for the update. I had heard on the radio that he belonged, at some point, to a Jewish Fraternity with Bill Davidson.

[showstoppa]

personally, I think the Palace is easily a top-10 arena. My only problem with it is simply it's location ! with $4.00 gas here I don't think a fan from cities like Canton, Westland, and other downriver communities will make the drive to the Palace like they would downtown.

while I am happy that Gores bought the Pistons, I honestly do not think the Palace is the long-term answer. I do see them moving downtown, just not anytime soon

[Brian1979]

I thought I read somewhere that the reason they didn't play at the Joe was because the city wanted them to sign a long term [[30 years, maybe?) lease and Davidson didn't want to commit that long to a place he didn't own or have control over and most likely knew was too barebones for his taste anyways. I agree, the Silverdome sucked for basketball.

Ok yeah I'm sure that had something to do with it, that must be the reason. But putting them in the Silverdome for 10 years was a joke.

[Brian1979]

personally, I think the Palace is easily a top-10 arena. My only problem with it is simply it's location ! with $4.00 gas here I don't think a fan from cities like Canton, Westland, and other downriver communities will make the drive to the Palace like they would downtown.

while I am happy that Gores bought the Pistons, I honestly do not think the Palace is the long-term answer. I do see them moving downtown, just not anytime soon

I agree with that, if the location was better than it would be better for everyone. I see them moving downtown as well just probably not anytime soon like you said.