When Victims Rule (pdf)

MONEY, CLASS, AND POWER
1989, p. 239] In Boston, Burton “Chico” Krantz “became a notorious Boston
bookmaker who ended up as a key government witness against leaders of the
mob in New England to whom he was forced to pay ‘rent,’ or protection
money.” [KORSEC, T., 1-27-2000]
In 2000, Jay Cohen, founder of an online sportsbook called World Sports
Exchange (wsex.com: “the Internet’s most popular and profitable online gambling
site”), and partners
“were charged by the US government with taking sports wagers by
phone and over the Internet, in violation of the Wire Act. Cohen returned
to the US to stand trial and was convicted by a New York jury.
He was fined $5,0000 and sentenced to 21 months in prison.” [CASINO
NEWS, 1-10-01] (Head of the “International Association of Gaming Attorneys?”
Lloyd D. Levenson.) [PR NEWSWIRE, 9-28-99]
“Pick up a player, any player,” declared Black Enterprise magazine, “among
the ten highest paid black athletes in the National Basketball Association
(NBA), the National Football League (NFL), or Major League Baseball, and 29
out of 30 have an agent who is anything but black.” [CLAY, p. 48] These agents
are overwhelmingly Jewish; those noted by Black Enterprise include Marvin
Demhoff, Steve Zucker, Barry Axelrod, and Leigh Steinberg (who had the largest
stable of NFL athletes, about 70, by 1995). Steinberg, noted the New York
Times, “does the bidding for nearly every quarterback in the NFL.” [HIRSCH-
BERG, L., 11-17-96] “Leigh Sternberg,” adds the (Jewish) Forward, “virtually
created the modern sports agent in 1975.” [Smith, B., 9-4-98, p. 18] He also
“underwrites the Anti-Defamation League’s Steinberg Institute.” [ALTMAN-
OHR, A., 1-7-2000, p. 38]
In 2001, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called another Jewish agent, Tom Reich,
“a super agent, a pioneer in his industry and one of the most influential men on
the landscape of pro sports in the 21st century.” Reich was
“the first agent to win a baseball player a contract worth $1 million a
year, counting deferred payments. Reich with the Pirates’ Dave Parker
in the last 1970s. [He was also] the first agent to win a hockey player a
contract worth $2million: Reich with the Penguins’ Mario Lemieux in
the late 1980s …[Reich] long ago set up shop in Los Angeles, Florida
and New York, the first and last because of their market importance, the
middle one because, well, doesn’t every Jewish boy of his generation
crave a Miami abode?” [FINDER, C., 4-29-01]
By 1996, another Jewish sports agent, David Falk, had 38 clients in professional
basketball, the largest number of any agent. These were in large part a
group of elite players like Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning,
and Allan Iverson. (Falk, marketing whiz, conceived and pushed the “Air Jordan”
basketball shoe as well as a Warners movie featuring Michael Jordan and
Bugs Bunny). “We don’t want to grow to fast or become too large,” he said about
his agency called F.A.M.E., “We want to remain a boutique for star players.”
[BANKS, L., 1-21-96] “Since Falk controls a large block of top players,” noted
the New York Times, “he can in many ways dictate the structure and the eco-
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