Michigan billionaire industrialist and sports tycoon Bill Davidson and his wife, Karen, are giving $75 million to help build a 14-story hospital tower in Jerusalem.

Their gift is believed to be the second-largest one ever given to a Jewish charity.

Is it going to be a Jews only hospital?

only jews who are piston fans.

What a jackass. Giving money to charity when he knows Chauncey's contract is up.... selfish bastard.

Obviously, hospitals are not subjected to a luxury tax.

I'm going to guess he just did has taxes and he owes some money. I can't see someone as cheap as him donating anything.

He's already given billions to Isreal before this.

It is well known that Bill Davidson is a member of the Mossad. Thus, you should not fuck with him or his money.

i heard ben was in favor of the formation of an independent palastinian state. another mistery solved???

What a jackass. Giving money to charity when he knows Chauncey's contract is up.... selfish bastard.

his money comes from us, imparticularly the detroit area. im talking out of my ass here cuz i havent looked at his financing records, but i could see how some people (myself included) could criticize him for sending that amount of money to israel when detroit and michigan are in such desperate need.

ready for criticism. thats how i feel.

Agreed diddy but maybe he felt israel was in more need than we are.

It is well known among certain circles of people who know these types of things that Bill Davidson in a member of a clandestine group of "Super Rich Men" who gather every third Thursday of every month and each attending member eats $100,000.00 in small, unmarked bills.

Davidson's empire isn't just about cars and Detroit anymore. His building materials space is huge. He's the largest producer of mirrors in the world.

Davidson owns production plants and employs hundreds of people in predominantly Jewish places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Davidson's given $55 million to U-Michigan alone.

Davidson heads an ownership group considering the acquisition of Chrysler.

And yes, Davidson is being a tightwad about his sports teams:

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/04/Lightning/Feaster_focuses_on_on.shtml

"predominantly Jewish places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia"?

I was going for sarcastic snark, there. :)

See if the bold part sounds familiar...


Bill Davidson's a no-nonsense owner

With Pistons, Shock, Palace and global glass company, he plays to win

March 4, 2007

Bill Davidson knows only one way to run a business properly: Play to win. Compete vigorously every day. And don't take any nonsense from anybody.

For running his basketball teams, the Detroit Pistons and Detroit Shock, the way he built the glass manufacturer Guardian Industries Corp. -- with daring, competitive zeal and common sense instead of nonsense -- Davidson was nominated for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. If he wins at least 18 of 24 votes from the hall's electors, his selection will be announced April 2 and he'll be enshrined in September.

In a rare interview Thursday, Davidson, 84, displayed his no-nonsense candor in zinging some of the younger, high-profile team owners in the National Basketball Association and business practices that he says helped cripple the automotive industry in metro Detroit.

First, Davidson on mercurial team owners Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks and James Dolan of the New York Knicks:

"They spend a lot of time criticizing the league, nit-picking, calling the league 20, 30 times a day. Ridiculous things," said Davidson, an elder statesman among NBA owners, along with Abe Pollin of the Washington Wizards.

"I'm the one person who can speak up and has spoken up and tell these people that they're just wrong," Davidson said. Dolan has toned down his criticism of the league, he added, "but Cuban still goes on."

He was equally frank about the auto industry.

When I asked Davidson how Guardian Industries prospers while so many other Michigan-based suppliers to the automotive industry are in disarray, he replied:

"Much to my regret, I had to go negative and I had to teach our automotive group to just plain say no. And if you want to know why the other companies are going (bust), it's because they didn't say no to all the really ridiculous, I call them stupid, requests," Davidson said, obviously referring to car and truck makers' demands that suppliers lower their prices. Some of the major suppliers' Chapter 11 bankruptcies were blamed on chasing extra volume by accepting unprofitable contracts.

Michigan's auto companies and key suppliers must compete with foreign rivals on a playing field that is not always level. "But that doesn't mean they don't have to run their own businesses properly," Davidson said.

Running the business properly: It's a theme that crops up consistently in conversations with Davidson and his top executives, Tom Wilson, president of Palace Sports & Entertainment, and Ralph Gerson, Guardian's executive vice president.

When Davidson bought the Detroit Pistons from Fred Zollner for $8 million in 1974, he viewed it as frosting on the cake, a sports team he could enjoy while running Guardian, a local glass fabricator he had rescued from bankruptcy and grown into a global producer of glass and building products.

"Maybe a year after I bought the team and had the idea it was going to be fun, I realized it was a business," Davidson said. "So then I began to conduct it as a business. We tried to make it into a model franchise."

He succeeded, by any measure: three NBA championships for the Pistons in 1989, 1990 and 2004; two WNBA crowns for the Shock; building the Palace of Auburn Hills in 1988, a trend-setting arena where the Pistons racked up league-leading attendance figures year after year. And Davidson was the first NBA owner to provide a team airplane for his long-legged stars.

Like the automobile industry and many other businesses, professional sports are not a level playing field. Big-city teams almost always have an edge, in the NBA and elsewhere.

"No matter how equitable the league tries to make things, New York and Los Angeles will always have a major advantage over us," Davidson said. "It's more profitable for (players) to be in those areas. They can get movies, L.A. has a tremendous advantage -- Shaq (Shaquille O'Neal) wanted to go into movies -- and they can have more incidental revenues than they could here.

"So," Davidson said, "the only way you offset that advantage is to run a better club than they do, a club that players want to come to."

By establishing the Pistons as a trendsetting club, Davidson vastly increased the value of his franchise, from $8 million 33 years ago to $429 million last year, according to Forbes magazine. The Palace, built with private money in 1988 and upgraded frequently since then with private clubs, luxury suites, a food court and new entrances, figures in the Forbes estimate of franchise value.

Davidson, who also owns the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team and DTE Energy Music Theatre, spreads credit for his Pistons success to others, like NBA Commissioner David Stern and Tom Wilson. Wilson oversees the sports teams, the summer concert site and the Palace.

"Tom doesn't rest," Davidson said. "He's always moving forward, always looking for new things to do. He's innovated and made the Palace a whole new building."

Lest one think Davidson is a hands-off boss, however, know that Wilson gets a phone call from Davidson around mid-morning virtually every workday. The boss still goes into his office at Guardian headquarters, a couple of hundred yards from the Palace, most days and touches base with his key executives.

Davidson attends most Pistons and Shock home games, too. He offers this assessment of the current Pistons and their newest player, Chris Webber, the former University of Michigan star who pleaded guilty of contempt in a case about perks during his college career:

"I'm very happy with the team. We're exceedingly happy with Webber. He's just been a tremendous addition and he's a very, very fine person who has had a basic bad rap. And the reason Chris came back is he wants to regain his reputation in this area, which is wonderful for us. And it's working and it's wonderful for him. He's as happy as he can be. And he's quickly becoming a leader."

With another trip to the NBA finals a distinct possibility for the Pistons this year, perhaps Detroit will get another chance to hear a few salty words from the publicity-shy but no-nonsense team owner. He surprised a Detroit crowd at the 2004 victory parade by declaring as "bullshit" all the predictions that the L.A. Lakers would cream the Pistons.

Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com.

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