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Megan Stack has an interesting story in today’s LA Times about Shabtai von Kalmanovic, a Russia oligarch who’s spending a lot of money to get underpaid WNBA players to play for a team and a league that no one seems to care about. [Insert obvious crack about the WNBA here.]

Nobody is making money off Spartak. On the contrary, it’s better described as an extravagance than a business: Kalmanovic has to pay Russian television to air the games, and they often end up being broadcast in the middle of the night. Nobody even bothers to sell tickets to the games. Too much bureaucracy, Kalmanovic says. The spectators are mostly schoolchildren, soldiers and locals looking for a free night of entertainment.

(via brijit)