What is the main reason people buy professional sports franchises? The simple answer seems to be money. Buying a team in a major league means you are ridiculously rich and you will be ridiculously richer if you decide to sell it.
According to Forbes, the Rams are worth $6.2 billion, double what they were five years ago. The world’s 50 most valuable sports franchises are collectively worth 30% more than last year, the magazine reports.
So money right? People buy teams to grow bigger piles of cash?
nope The reason so many wealthy people are itching to own a big sports franchise is because of their ego. Buy a team and you’re officially a big deal. You are in an exclusive club. You’re living every fantasy team owner’s dream. Previously, you were the owner of a multi-billion dollar widget company. Now you recognize people who wouldn’t tell a widget from a wedgie in public.
The irony, however, is that from the moment someone first sits in the owner’s chair, their ego is assaulted by fans and the media. Who does he think he is that owns our team? By year 2 or 3 that ego should be beaten to a pulp, but thanks to a phenomenon I’ll get to in a moment, it’s only bruised.
Put aside the huge amounts of money that comes with owning a team. (I get it: hard to do.) Would you like to be one of the owners of Chicago’s Big Five franchises? Few people in town get ridiculed as regularly as she does. This mockery is a sport in itself, on par with games on the field.
If you could sum up ownership in one word, it would probably be “boo”.
Fans booed Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts at the team meeting four years ago. A 2016 World Series title might have given him the impression that he was loved, if not loved, but two years later, fans were there at the convention to tell him they weren’t happy about the fees that connected to the franchise’s new TV network.
Ricketts and other members of his family will be answering questions from fans at this year’s convention on Saturday, and if history is any guide, there will be more blood. Another revamp means the ownership has so far exposed the fan base to two seasons of enthusiastic losses without much diminishing of the daily cash from fans’ pockets.
How does a person like Ricketts manage to keep going in the face of all this abuse?
With a good dose of ignorance, I think. He seemed genuinely confused by the boos at the convention four years ago, as if it had never occurred to him that anyone would be upset about an idea as great as Marquee Sports Network. In his eyes, and in the minds of other people who own pro teams, charging fans for the privilege of watching games at home is obvious. It’s like breathing. it is what you do
Eventually, this oblivion will become your protector and constant companion.
Why did White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf even think hiring 76-year-old Tony La Russa as his manager two years ago was a good idea? Because for years he protected himself from the storm of abuse that swept over him as the owner of the Sox and the Bulls. He has withdrawn into himself. It’s difficult to get hold of someone who wears earplugs during leadership candidate meetings. Reinsdorf rarely gives media interviews, and if he does, then mostly with hand-picked reporters. That didn’t stop the howling of paying customers.
The way things are going, Ricketts could very well build a similar bunker.
Bears Chairman George McCaskey is The Accidental Owner, as is everyone in his family. His mother, Virginia, is the daughter of team founder George Halas. However, the football gene hasn’t been passed on and the franchise hasn’t done much to win games. That doesn’t sit well with the fans, who regularly screw him over on radio talk shows. To his credit, McCaskey walks around the Soldier Field parking lot and talks to the tailgaters before games. I attribute his ability to survive these encounters unscathed to either fan politeness in the presence of celebrities or a remarkable talent for severed limb regeneration.
Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz was transformed into a hero when it was revealed he wasn’t his father Bill, whose frugality made him public enemy No. 1 to fans. The Hawks won three Stanley Cups under Rocky Wirtz, but much of the goodwill he had built evaporated when it became clear his organization had tried to cover up a player’s allegations of sexual assault against a team member.
All of these people have money, some through their own efforts and talents, most through the efforts and talents of a successful parent. They came to professional sports looking for something other than more wealth: ego stretching. Then reality set in. Then they switched off.
There’s a reason team owners rarely take to the field, court, or ice to present an award or address the crowd. You’ll probably get booed. A politician would get better reception. So would an announcement of the tax audit.
So you want to own a professional sports franchise.
Are you sure?
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