On Tuesday afternoon, Washington Wizards team president Ernie Grunfeld fired Flip Saunders, the only coach he’s officially hired during his eight-plus seasons in D.C., after a 2-15 start to this season and a 51-130 cumulative record over Saunders’ tenure with the team. (This post originally misstated Saunders' record.) “We felt the team had become unresponsive,” [...]

Ted Leonsis, the owner of the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals, is one of those members of the District elite who transcends politics.
Which isn't to say that Leonsis, a tech mogul turned sports tycoon, doesn't have the skills to make it in his city's main game. Last night, I watched the owner of the 1-12 [...]

That's No Oil Spill, That's Our River: D.C. officials and the Coast Guard responded last night to reports of an oil spill on the Anacostia River. The good news: There was no oil spill. The bad news: The river is sufficiently polluted that they thought there was. Keep toting those reusable bags. -3

The Washington Wizard isn’t gone—he’s just officially buried in a sea of red, white, and blue, likely never to be heard from again.
Ted Leonsis’ ownership group finally unveiled the much-anticipated new look for the city’s basketball team today, with dim lighting, pop music, balloons, and customized cupcakes giving the Verizon Center's practice court a feel [...]

You may have heard that two of the cuddliest folks on the D.C. sports scene have been playing the feud.
Ted Leonsis, a fabulous sports owner turned blogger, went after sportstalk station WTEM-AM in a recent blog post after Thom Loverro, a fabulous newspaper columnist turned blogger (and WTEM host), called the Leonsis-owned Washington Wizards an [...]

I'm more awed by the minute at how swimmingly things have gone for PuckBuddys pretty much ever since the first blog dedicated to gay Washington Capitals fans  dove into the mainstream around New Year's Day.
Ted Leonsis was among the first to embrace the place. From the get-go and with no fanfare, the Caps owner [...]

Today, alongside halfsies offers for "three LipoLaser treatments" at Help for Health in Springfield and a "scrub" at Alexandria's Frizzles Salon and Spa, Groupon is offering fire-sale prices on Washington Wizards tickets.
From the Groupon pitch:
Choose from the following seating options:
* $150 for One Box VIP Ticket (a $225 value, including all you can eat and [...]

The Washington Post has announced it's hosting a roundtable of area sports owners next week.
The gathering, titled “Scoring Big: The Business of Sports,” is headlined by Dan Snyder and Ted Leonsis, but the supporting cast will include Robert Tanenbaum and Marla Lerner Tanenbaum of the Nationals and D.C. United's Will Chang.
For now, this crowd should [...]

Last week, with the 2010-2011 NBA season on the verge of tipping off, Ted Leonsis threw Washington Wizards tickets onto the deal-of-the-day site Groupon. A whole lot of Wizards tickets. Wizards tickets, in fact, for every home game this season except for when a very few top-shelf opponents are in town—only games against "the Miami Heat, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, and Orlando [...]

Mike Wise went on the WJFK airwaves Wednesday and said he had to pay off a bet with co-workers. The Washington Post columnist and sportstalk host called his girlfriend during his radio show and, while others at the station could be heard giggling and begging both parties not to make the biggest mistake of their [...]

I'm not ready to say Ted Leonsis would rather have lost the NBA draft lottery than lived through what happened in Cologne, Germany, over the weekend: Jaromir Jagr and the Czechs whupped Alex Ovechkin's defending champ Russians, 2-1, in the finals of the IIHF World Hockey Championships.
I'm not ready to say he wouldn't've, [...]

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Maybe it's too early to write off seeing LeBron James in a Wizards uniform. But the salutatorian of this year's NBA free-agent class, Chris Bosh, surely ain't coming to D.C.
Bosh just named the five squads he'll play for, and ours wasn't among 'em. AP [...]

The cost of jumping on the bandwagon, or just hanging on for the ride, went up this week. Ted Leonsis has hiked Washington Capitals ticket prices for next season.
"Ouch," says Mike Rucki from onfrozenblog.com.
Rucki writes that the tab for his seats went up "approximately 32%." The Great Dan Steinberg, in summarizing the inflation, says season [...]

We were told last night that President Obama "has taken us beyond black and white in our politics."
Oh, for somebody to do the same for Georgetown basketball!
(Full disclosure: Repeatedly bringing up the role of race in the Hoyas basketball history will only do wonders for the value of my Tom Lang trading card collection. I [...]

Your volunteer prospects are grim
Since this has filled up to the brim
With cash, you are blessed?
Then let me suggest
You purchase the 'zards on a whim

Go quick, or you'll lose out to Ted
Who wants 'em, now Pollin is dead
He's willing to pay
'Cause the place where they play
Could get the Caps outta the red