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The once-proud franchise, best known for their meteoric rise from also-ran to four-time Stanley Cup champions, had missed the playoffs in five of the previous eight years.

Pickett and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman thought that Spano would be a lifesaver for the Islanders.

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He claimed to own his University Park house free and clear the house was supposedly worth $3 million. He claimed to be worth $230 million largely based on money inherited from his wealthy grandfather Angelo. Spano billed himself as the owner of a leasing operation that he'd built from one company with four employees to a group of 10 companies with 6,000 employees worldwide in just six years. He later agreed to buy the remaining 10 percent of the team held by the management group that had been running the Islanders' day-to-day operations since 1989. In October 1996, Spano agreed to buy the Islanders from longtime owner John Pickett for $165 million: $80 million for Pickett's 90 percent stake in the team and $85 million for its lucrative cable television contract with SportsChannel New York, which at the time earned the Islanders $13 million a year. Spano also made an abortive bid for the Florida Panthers that year. Lites also said that Spano insisted that Lites pick up the tab for their dinners-something Lites said he'd never seen in all of his years as a sports executive. Among the 'laughable' excuses Spano offered were that he needed a copy of a written agreement with the team's top minor league affiliate, the Kalamazoo Wings and to have his South African partners meet with Stars officials. Despite Spano's claimed wealth, Lites said the house was unfurnished. Years later, Jim Lites, the Stars' president at the time, recalled visiting Spano's mansion in the Dallas suburb of University Park. Green backed out of the deal in November, eventually selling the team to Tom Hicks.

In September 1995, he reached a tentative agreement to buy a 50 percent interest in the Dallas Stars, but the date for the closing was pushed back several times, during which Spano began making what owner Norman Green called unreasonable demands. It was a Dallas-based company that primarily leased aircraft. After working several sales jobs in Pittsburgh and Dallas, he founded the Bison Group in 1990. He graduated from Duquesne University with a degree in business administration in 1986.

Spano was originally from Greenwich Village (Manhattan, in New York City), but spent most of his life in Madison, Ohio, and graduated from Ashtabula St.

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