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Russian Investing in ... WNBA Stars?

Posted Mar 26, 08 12:45 PM CDT in Sports,  World 

(Newser) – Basketball-crazy Russian billionaire Shabtai von Kalmanovic is pouring money into women's hoops—flying WNBA players to Russia in the off-season and paying them 10 times what they make in the US. Players like Diana Taurasi are put up in luxury digs and chauffeured around. "They should be treated like people of art, like stars," Kalmanovic tells the Los Angeles Times.

Kalmanovic made his money constructing buildings in black sections of apartheid South Africa. He has been linked romantically to Liza Minnelli, the Times reports, and imprisoned in Israel for being a Soviet spy. Players getting the star treatment don't seem to care much about their employer's past, however. "I don't know those things to be true or not," says one.

Source Los Angeles Times

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Women's basketball team Spartak celebrate after winning 76-62 against Gaumbinus at the Euroleague Women's Final Four basketball match in Vidnoe, outside Moscow, April 1 2007.   (Getty Images)
Billionaire owner of the Russian women's basketball team, Spartak, Shabtai von Kalmanovic.   (digitalheadbutt.wordpress.com)
Houston Comets' Tina Thompson, left, drives to the basket as Detroit Shock's Cheryl Ford, right, tries to defend during the first half of a WNBA basketball game Saturday, June 2, 2007, in Houston.   (AP Photo/The Chronicle, Jessica Kourkounis)
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basketball • Russia • women's basketball • WNBA • Diana Taurasi • Sue Bird


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