WILLIAM DAVIDSON - MANAGING PARTNER

DETROIT PISTONS 2004-05 MEDIA GUIDE

During the 2003-04 sports year, Detroit Pistons Managing Partner William Davidson became the first owner in sports history to win championships in three different professional leagues. 

The Pistons returned to glory, winning the organization’s third championship in franchise history, the Tampa Bay Lightning won their first Stanley Cup and the Shock won their first WNBA Championship. 

Recognized as one of the most successful owners in the National Basketball Association for over 30 years, Detroit's 1989, 1990 and 2004 World Championships can be directly attributed to Davidson. He has been the club's majority owner since 1974, and, under his direction, the Pistons have been considered one of the league's elite franchises for over 15 years. He continues to keep the team at the league’s forefront with such amenities as a state-of-the-art practice facility, solely designed for the Pistons. Team members are able to use the facilities all summer long while working on personal off-season conditioning goals. It will also be used for the team’s training camp for the 10th straight year, alleviating the need to go off-site for the preseason. 

Davidson’s world champion Pistons were the first professional sports team to own their own plane, Roundball One. Roundball Two, a newer, larger, multimillion-dollar aircraft was purchased and refurbished in the summer of 1998 for the organization. Its 42 luxury seats and state-of-the-art video system allows the Pistons to fly in true, first-class comfort. 

Davidson became one of just a few multi-sport, major players in 1999, when he, along with Palace Sports and Entertainment partners David Hermelin and the late Robert Sosnick, purchased the Tampa Bay Lightning of the National Hockey League. 

Davidson’s vision for duplicating the success of the Pistons and their home, The Palace of Auburn Hills, in Tampa came to fruition during the 2003-04 season when the Lightning hoisted the Stanley Cup in front of a capacity crowd at the St. Pete Times Forum, one of the United States’ finest new venues. 

The Shock joined the Washington Mystics as the first two expansion teams in the WNBA in 1998 and the team was an immediate success. The shock finished with a 17-13 record in the Eastern Conference during their inaugural season. The 2003 season was a banner year for the Shock as they recorded a league-best 25- 9 record and were crowned WNBA Champions by defeating the Los Angeles Sparks 2-1 in the WNBA Finals. The Shock set a WNBA attendance record (22,076) in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals and was the first team since 1890 to go from the worst team in a professional sports league to the best team. With the busiest amphitheater in the country, DTE Energy Music Theatre, purchased in 1990, Palace Sports and Entertainment now has the ability to bring the best in summer entertainment to its clientele. 

In 1988-89, the Pistons began play in The Palace, a state-of-the-art arena built with Davidson’s financial support: a facility, which when combined with the Pistons, forms the foundation of his entertainment business. The company also added management of the Meadow Brook Music Festival in the summer of 1994, further developing the entertainment division of Palace Sports and Entertainment. The Pistons have played in the postseason in 15 of the past 21 years, including seven of the past nine seasons. 

Davidson acquired the Detroit Pistons in 1974 from the late Fred Zollner, the man who founded the team in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the 1940s. Zollner later moved the franchise to Detroit before the 1957-58 season. 

Interested in a wide variety of sports, Davidson is one of the most knowledgeable heads of a NBA franchise. He can usually be found sitting courtside at all Pistons home games, and has studied many players and coaches in the league and is able to make some very astute observations. Davidson’s athletic history dates back many years and has continued alongside his business career. 

He was a high school and college trackman and played football in the Navy during World War II. Davidson was an inaugural inductee into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. The Pistons’ majority owner likes success and has known it in his business interests. That’s why now, the success of the Detroit Pistons comes as no surprise to those who are aware of Davidson’s ability to manage people. His secret is simple: Hire competent managers and place the responsibility on them. 

Educated in Business Law, Davidson received a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Michigan and earned a Juris Doctor’s Degree from Wayne State University. After three years, Davidson gave up his law practice to take over a wholesale drug company. He rescued it from bankruptcy and turned it around in three years. After this success, he did the same with a surgical supply company. 

The next step was to take the Guardian Glass Company, the family business, pay off all debts and head it into the profitable direction the company now enjoys. Today, Guardian Industries remains the flagship of his corporate interests. Its world headquarters are located on the same property as The Palace and the Pistons practice facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Davidson’s previous track record has paved the way for the Pistons, The Palace and DTE Energy Music Theatre. 

His formula for success, which turned the Pistons around and made The Palace one of the top arenas in the world, carries over into the DTE Energy Music Theatre, now considered one of the top amphitheaters in the country. Davidson’s management talents are continually on display in NBA circles, where he served as Chairman of the Board of Governors and has been active on several committees, including the one that selected former NBA Commissioner Lawrence O’Brien in 1975. Davidson’s involvement in the Detroit community is well documented. In 1997 he was honored for his lifelong philanthropic efforts, locally, nationally and internationally, by the Council of Michigan Foundations. 

The same year, he was listed in a New York Times article as one of America’s most generous donors. Davidson was also one of the “founding fathers” who originated the Pistons/Palace Foundation, a charitable vehicle that has donated more than $20 million dollars in cash and merchandise since 1989. 

In January 1995, the foundation worked in conjunction with the City of Detroit’s Parks and Recreation Department to establish the Partnership to Adopt and Renovate Parks for Kids (PARK) Program. The program provides for restoration of Detroit parks, basketball courts, baseball diamonds, running tracks and playground equipment. 

In 1992, he donated $30 million to his alma mater, the University of Michigan’s School of Business Administration. The grant to establish the William Davidson Institute will provide assistance in a special program to help develop market economies throughout the world. He has also endowed the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York with a $15 million gift, and the American Technion Society to establish the world’s first educational institution entirely dedicated to the international management of technology-based companies at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. 

In 1999, the Davidson Institute of Science Education was established at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. His $20 million gift was the largest private donation ever given to the Institute that is a leading international science research center and graduate school. Locally Davidson has donated a renewable $2 million gift to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra that enables the organization to make long-term touring plans both in the U.S. and internationally and pledged to fight cancer with a gift of $1 million to support collaborative research, prevention and early detection programs in breast and pediatric cancers at the Karmanos Cancer Institute and Children’s Research Center of Michigan. The Detroit Pistons ownership group includes Legal Counsel Oscar Feldman, and Advisory Board Members Warren Coville, Milt Dresner, Bud Gerson, Dorothy Gerson, Miriam Mondry, Eugene Mondry, Ann Newman, Herb Tyner and William Wetsman. Davidson and his wife, Karen, currently reside in Bloomfield Hills. He has two grown children, Ethan and Marla.