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San Diego
August, 2004
Franklin picked up the phone and dialed the number to Jacob Atherton, the attorney in New York who represented Bruno Triveri. "Good morning, Mr. Atherton."
"Good morning, Mr. Brown. What can I do for you?"
"Can you connect me to Mr. Triveri, please?"
"Will do - might take a few minutes. Do you mind holding on?"
"No problem," Franklin replied. All his calls to Triveri were routed through his lawyer's office, as Atherton had won a court order stating that no calls in or out of his office could be monitored by any government agency.
A few moments passed, and Triveri was on the line. "Well, well, Mr. Brown. We've had a busy off-season, haven't we?"
Franklin replied. "Not as busy as I'd like. I'm still sitting on a ton of cap money that I can't spend, and it doesn't look like the season tickets sold too well. We kickoff the pre-season tonight, and we've sold 41,800 seats out of 71,600."
"Hmm... and you're worried that you won't have the $30 million at the end of the season? Didn't you raise ticket prices?"
"Yes, but only marginally. If we don't win some ball games, it's going to get very ugly around here."
"Well, you have a line of credit from the bank - I'm sure you'll manage to make the payment." Triveri didn't seem about to budge. He knew Franklin was hunting for a little slack, and he wasn't going to give it to him.
"Alright. I hope this Wallace kid works out... I'll be in touch, Mr. Triveri." Franklin hung up, and sighed. This could well be his last season as owner of the Chargers.
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