Spartak Moscow Region's Owner Profiled in SI

Sports Illustrated's Alex Wolff profiles Shabtai von Kalmanovic, a multimillionaire Russian oligarch who owns, among other things, the Spartak Moscow Region team that includes USA Olympic gold medalists Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles and Diana Taurasi, as well as Australia's Lauren Jackson. Shabtai showers his players with gifts, shopping sprees and three-figure contracts, not to mention a private villa, first-class air travel, an on-call cook ... "Imagine Mark Cuban with three times as many teams and five times as much money. He'd still be a piker compared with the Russian zillionaires who offer a life of luxury to lure world-class athletes and are bankrolling a new national sports machine."