Worst owners in Sports

[DnBronc]

4 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Actually Moorad never owned the team, the deal fell through before he got control. And technically Fowler doesn’t own them now either. Seidler, who was always the majority partner in the current ownership, is now controlling partner.

 

Regardless this is where I think we need to define what makes an owner “bad”. While the Pads have been a AAAA team in recent years, not for lack of trying to improve, off field the Moores, aborted Moorad, and Seidler ownerships have all been great (save one I’ll advised tribute to Bud Selig).

 

Fair enough. That video made it seem like they were always trading off star players, though.

[dfwabel]

On 10/26/2018 at 7:13 AM, AstroBull21 said:

 

I dont feel the Glazers are bad owners.  Malcolm was a great owner and turned the Bucs around pretty quick.  Once he passed along control to his sons is when the nosedive started.  Im not sure theyre as committed as Malcolm was, but they at least try.

The Glazer's family has been much better than the former owner Hugh Culverhouse.

 

Culverhouse...

1-put vending machines in the locker room.

2-charged a player for a jersey after trainers had to tear it to tend to his injury.

3-had Doug Williams as the 44th lowest paid QB in the league when they had three playoff appearances and his offer to Williams for a new contract would've kept him the lowest paid starter.  Later to somewhat apologize after his dad's death, Hugh Culverhouse, Jr. donated $1 million to Grambling.

4- threatened to move three games to Orlando if corporate support in Tampa didn't improve, meanwhile he was the league's second most profitable franchise.

[TBGKon]

7 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

The Glazer's family has been much better than the former owner Hugh Culverhouse.

 

Culverhouse...

1-put vending machines in the locker room.

2-charged a player for a jersey after trainers had to tear it to tend to his injury.

3-had Doug Williams as the 44th lowest paid QB in the league when they had three playoff appearances and his offer to Williams for a new contract would've kept him the lowest paid starter.  Later to somewhat apologize after his dad's death, Hugh Culverhouse, Jr. donated $1 million to Grambling.

Oh no, i agree and I wasnt even a fan when he owned the team.

[dfwabel]

Let's me not forget that following the retirement of John McKay after the 84-85 season, Culverhouse hired former Falcons HC Leeman Bennett. Bennett last coached in the NFL in the 82-83 and WAS SELLING CAMPERS AND RVS!

 

And we still haven't gotten to the whole Bo Jackson debacle as Culverhouse was a Bama guy and deliberately got Jackson ineligible for NCAA baseball and tried to derail hisbaseball career so he would only play football.

[Discrim]

Robert Irsay is probably in the top 10 for worst owners in NFL history.  What the York's have done to the Niners, he did to the Colts.  And that's not even mentioning the move.

I'll throw Herb Kohl into the ring, if only because before he bought the Bucks, they tended to be competitive.  Under him, they could never sustain success for very long.  Honestly, it was frustrating enough that at one point, I actually wanted them to move to Seattle.  

[chrispw12]

Ken Behring was a rather lousy owner for the Seahawks, the team went down hill quick, tried to move them to LA and caused ill will that took a while to recover from.

[Gothamite]

5 hours ago, Discrimihater said:

I'll throw Herb Kohl into the ring, if only because before he bought the Bucks, they tended to be competitive.  Under him, they could never sustain success for very long.  Honestly, it was frustrating enough that at one point, I actually wanted them to move to Seattle.  

 

How active an owner was Herb? 

 

I respect an owner who can hire professionals and stay out of their way, but sometimes that's a failing all its own.  Bud Selig was an incredibly active owner, demanding results and firing beloved managers who didn't produce regularly.  Harvey Kuenn's Brewers won 87 games in 1983, the year after they won a pennant, but that wasn't good enough to keep his job.  Then when Bud became the Commissioner, his daughter took over the Brew Crew and let the GM and manager run the team into the ground for eight years before she finally fired them.

[MadmanLA]

On 10/24/2018 at 4:55 PM, insert name said:

James Dolan. You know you're pretty bad when you insult a longtime Knick fan. Fires Marv Albert after he (rightfully so) criticized the team. Probably cares more about his crappy band than the teams he owns. Isiah Thomas is the head coach in what I thought was the lowest point in franchise history (might still be). Then he's caught in a harassment scandal they tried covering up only for Dolan years later to make him the president of the Liberty? Are you serious?

The Knicks aren't respected, they're laughed at. Basketball is the most popular sport in this city and you can't competently run a team to at least compete? No, he makes instead has a fan favorite like Charles Oakley thrown out the building on national television.

How the Rangers managed some sort of success for nearly a decade until recently is nothing but a miracle. 

 

Bringing it back to Dolan...I noticed the other night on my NBC station during the Packers-Patriots game that he and his MSG Company are partly funding the campaign of Inglewood mayoral candidate Marc Little, who's running against incumbent mayor James Butts in today's midterm elections.  On the other side of it, Butts' campaign received a sizable contribution from Murphy's Bowl LLC, a company set-up by Steve Ballmer to oversee the building of the Clips' planned arena in Inglewood.  Considering the game of politics, it's not unusual at all seeing politicians get huge sums of money from corporation, but it's a little funny because it basically involves one NBA team owner (from a different city at that) trying to block the another from building their own new arena in their home city.  This trust fund baby has his own :censored:storm to worry about, in his own city.

[The_Admiral]

idk, seems pretty dumb to build a brand-new arena next door to a good-as-new arena. Dolan is an ass, but his company put a lot of money into the Forum and I understand that they might not like for it to be for nothing.

[ShutUpLutz!]

On 10/29/2018 at 2:01 PM, bosrs1 said:

 

Regardless this is where I think we need to define what makes an owner “bad”. While the Pads have been a AAAA team in recent years, not for lack of trying to improve, off field the Moores, aborted Moorad, and Seidler ownerships have all been great (save one I’ll advised tribute to Bud Selig).

Now that is a point worthy of discussion. I don't think it's as simple as saying that a bad owner is one who meddles in personnel decisions or doesn't meddle at all. For instance, was George Halas for everything he did for the NFL and the league, was he really THAT great of an owner. yes, he drafted Sayers and Butkus, but the quarterbacks Halas had on the team at that time were black hole of suckage. And it's ALWAYS been that way. The only legit claim to a franchise QB for the Bears was Sid Luckman and he retired 60 years ago. No, Jim McMahon is NOT and NEVER was a franchise QB. But the Bears were AWFUL for long stretches of Halas tenure as owner, but none of the blame gets put on him because of the mystique of "DA BEARS!!!!! MONSTERS OF THE MIDWAY!!!!" and how he help found the NFL.

 

George Steinbrenner on the other hand was infamous for meddling, if not directly then using the press and favored reporters to blast managers and players. He was the definition of mercurial. he decimated the Yankee farm system and it wasn't until he was suspended and unable to have any contact with the team that the farm system was finally able to let talent stay and grow and not get traded away. So , when he was reinstated the Spanks started winning again, with Jeter et all and of course everybody said Steinbrenner was responsible, when in fact he was responsible for not being able to f--k it up. And everyone has forgotten his involvement with the mob when he tried to blackmail Dave Winfield or that he was planning on moving the team to Tampa bay in the early 1990's.

 

Donald Sterling, simply didn't give a doodoo. Yes, he was a bigot and yes he was a racist, but you can say that about half the owners in the NFL. But he DID NOT CARE about whther the Clippers were the best team or the worst team in the league as long as he made some money off them every year. Aside from sitting courtside he  was about as hands off as it gets. And for everyone claiming that the NBA somehow won when it forced him to sell the team, seriously? that was a bigger fleecing than the owners of the Spirits of St. Louis getting perprual tv right money and not having a team anymore. Sterling made nearly $1,700,000,000 off the sale of the team to fat bald Microsoft guy.

 

Jack Kent Cooke was a semi outlandish, eccentric owner for the Redskins, but he kept out of the way and let the GM's Bobby Bethard and Charlie Casserly so their thing. He even kept quiet when the whole John Riggens retirement saga was going on. Of course he got into the spotlight when the team won Super Bowls and behind the scenes he would have his 'discussions' but he knew he didn't know anywhere near as much about football as the GM's and coaches did. the only time i can really recall him publicly getting on a player was when Mark Rypien held out for a new contract.

 

Al Davis WAS the Raiders. His last decade or so of ownership was bad, but that doesn't wipe out or erase what he and the Raiders did before that, although you'd never know that watching ESPN. He was into EVERY aspect of the team because football was his entire life. He literally used his will to power the raiders to excellence.

 

Paul Allen was  apparently VERY hands off, for him pwning the Trailblazers and Seahawks was like having a couple of unique toys that he could show off to other people. 

 

On 11/6/2018 at 3:14 PM, the admiral said:

idk, seems pretty dumb to build a brand-new arena next door to a good-as-new arena. Dolan is an ass, but his company put a lot of money into the Forum and I understand that they might not like for it to be for nothing.

They did it in Houston. Granted the Astrodome had been around for over 30 years, but it wasn't a dump. If it was, why haven't they torn it down?

[The_Admiral]

Because it's a state landmark. They're not allowed to tear it down.

[ShutUpLutz!]

3 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Because it's a state landmark. They're not allowed to tear it down.

 

I forgot about that.  Okay fine it's a state landmark. then why haven't they kept it in even semi decent shape. There was a website that had some photos and video taken by some guys who broke/snuck into the Dome and it looked AWFUL inside. Why the hell doesn't the state or whoever or some rich asshat oilman spend a couple million to clean the place up then charge people $50 to take a tour.

 

Also on your earlier post about the Great Western Forum, I thought it had been repurposed/refitted and was strictly a concert venue now

[The_Admiral]

It is a concert-only venue now (though maybe they do the occasional boxing match? at any rate it's not a basketball/hockey joint), but the Ballmerena next door would obviously be in the concert business as well. This is generally a recipe for disaster: Columbus had to bail out Nationwide Arena because it was down the street from Ohio State's near-identical 19,000-seat arena and they were undercutting each other out of business, and a big part of the Coyotes' ongoing struggle has been that they can't book enough arena dates outside of hockey because Greater Phoenix has so many other/better places to run concerts and trade shows and whatever else, further exacerbated by Phoenix's climate allowing for more outdoor concerts. So could the refurbished Forum co-exist with a brand-new one-tenant venue next door? I dunno, maybe, but I can't blame MSG for not wanting to find out for themselves. 

[ShutUpLutz!]

Hmm, that's another interesting point which is getting off the track of this thread. NYC has MSG, Barclay's Center, Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, The Met, Radio City Music Hall and Carnegie Hall and what the hell Met Life Stadium, all of which are used for concerts as well as numerous clubs and they are all in relative proximity to each other and don't seem to have a problem with one venue stealing business from another, though they aren't literally next door, but subway stops away. Except for Met Life.

 

In LA/Anaheim, you have Dodger Stadium, Edison Field, the Coliseum, Staples center, Honda Center, Great Western Forum, the Hollywood Bowl and if you really want to stretch it, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, as well as the various clubs on Sunset Strip (or have most of those closed in favor of condos? I thought I read something about that a few years ago.

 

So, in LA  you have more venues with more seats to fill than NY, but much more spread out, plus a number of other entertainment/vacation options like Disneyland which probably takes $ away from some of the sports teams. New Yoprk you kind of but not really have the same thing happening with Broadway/theater stuff and sightseeing; statue of Liberty etc, which you don't really have in LA. But traffic in LA/Anaheim is an ongoing abortion, while in NYC you have the subway, although that is it's own ongoing disaster. And of course it's turning out that NOONE in LA wanted the Chargers to move there and a hell of a lot fewer people wanted the Rams there either. The Raiders on the other hand would probably do a little better than the Rams.

 

I just love how we are talking about how bazillionaires are being big crybabies because they aren't making a few million MORE $'s. My heart bleeds truly.

[WJMorris3]

We have Jay Sugarman in charge of the Union, but the way he puts money into the club he might as well be Jay Splendaman.