Leonsis previously bought two of Mr. Pollin’s teams - the NHL’s Capitals in 1999 and the WNBA’s Mystics in 2005 - and secured the right of first refusal to buy the rest of Mr. Pollin’s Washington Sports & Entertainment holdings - including the Wizards, Verizon Center, and Washington-Baltimore TicketMaster - when Mr. Pollin retired or died.
In the changing world of professional sports, Mr. Pollin stood out for decades as an owner who tried to run his teams like a family business. He bemoaned the runaway salaries of free agency and said it would have been difficult for him to keep the Wizards but for the NBA’s salary cap.
Mr. Pollin considered his greatest accomplishment the Verizon Center. He risked much of his fortune to build the arena in a neglected D.C. neighborhood, and it has spearheaded a revitalization of downtown Washington since its opening in 1997.
“There’s no important initiative or any end to difficult situations or any settlement or any legislation that Abe was not leading the way on, across all these years,’’ NBA commissioner David Stern said in March. “He’s been an extraordinary league person, always voting the league way, similar to what he did in building Verizon Center. He was going the D.C. way, not necessarily what was in his best economic interest but what was in the best economic interests of Washington, D.C.’’
A builder by trade, Mr. Pollin also constructed the Verizon Center’s predecessor, originally known as the Capital Centre, in the Washington suburbs in 1973. He renamed his NBA team in 1997 because of the violent connotation of the word “Bullets,’’ particularly in a city associated with crime.
The Bullets won the 1978 NBA title, and Mr. Pollin maintained he would not sell the franchise until it won another championship - repeating that vow from his wheelchair in March as he was inducted into the George Washington University Sports Executives Hall of Fame.
