Last week, Arte Moreno decided to give up ownership of his beloved Los Angeles Angels and Steve Ballmer was suspended for a year after the Los Angeles Clippers were canceled by the NBA. Pablo Torre-inspired Kawhi Leonard salary-cap circumvention scandal.
Dodgers owner Mark Walters blames shocking sale of Lakers. and the business problems associated with itit’s been a tumultuous few weeks for Los Angeles sports owners.
No one knows. Bruce McNeal Do they still own the Kings?
Moreno’s run with the Angels started well in 2011. In 2003, the year the Angels won the World Series. He cut beer prices and started spending money on free agents. When the Angels signed Mike Trout, Moreno signed him to an exciting extension. When the franchise signed Shohei Otani, they allowed him to become a two-way star.
But he spent a lot of bad money and didn’t make the right kind of investments in the organization, and over the past decade, his decisions have led to the franchise’s decline.
In the end, Moreno was as despised by his fans as any baseball owner. I’m surprised there wasn’t a parade down Disneyland’s Main Street to celebrate the release.
Mourinho’s reign ends at 11 consecutive seasons. He’s been a punching bag for years and he deserves it.
Ballmer does a lot right and makes a lot of money, but he hasn’t yet figured out that money and unbridled enthusiasm don’t automatically equal success.
Kawhi Leonard’s contract and the financial mess that came with it crippled his explosive career. Ballmer once bragged about how many restrooms there were in the Intuit Dome, and that feels like a metaphor for the Clippers’ situation.
Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has been suspended for one year following the Kawhi Leonard salary cap circumvention scandal. (Wally Scully/Getty Images)
Every fan wants their team owner to be competitive and willing to spend money. No owner wants to make the fan experience worse.
If there was a Bad Owner Hall of Fame – let’s say it’s in Cleveland, home to some of the worst – would Moreno and Ballmer be inducted today?
It’s an easy yes for Moreno, and we’ll wait and see at Balmer.
Why Angels fans should be happy after the team is sold
Andy McCullough
But what makes a bad owner? To paraphrase a famous line from Tolstoy: All good owners are alike; Every bad owner is bad in his own way.
Some are morally bad: racists, sexists, and cheaters.
Some are uncaring 1-percenters, cheap, mean, greedy, any word you can find in the thesaurus. They buy a group that should be seen as a civic institution and act as a birthright and a piggy bank.
Some are heartless and move teams to own up to their losses.
Some were just born with the popular surname Dida.
Others think they succeed in a business and it translates to sports.
Some are just egomaniacs.
Most are a combination of some of the above.
Where do Moreno and Ballmer fit in with their peers? To understand this, I created a ranking system for our Hall of Fame. Of course it’s not complete and fans with biases will have more names to add. That’s what the comments section is for.
Since I cover Chicago and regularly bash and belittle Jerry Reinsdorf, it’s probably disappointing that he didn’t make the list. Given how he’s mismanaged two franchises over the years, he’s certainly worthy of discussion. But it misses the cut when compared to its peers. He is beloved by many of his employees (he once fought the owners to keep him). Pension for non-uniform employees), but despite decades of practice, he was not always a good steward of strategic moves. Although he’s made a lot of indefensible and dumb decisions over the years, he’s not as bad as some of these bozos.
On the field (and off the field, if you include extended stadium deterioration), Bears’ George McCaskey (and McCaskey in general) was saved by the hiring of Ben Johnson as chairman of the family business. George is a better youth baseball umpire than an NFL owner.
And a special shout out to Jade York, who was in the news recently after being arrested for allegedly trying to pay 49ers owner $160. An undercover officer disguised as a prostitute.
Their own wings
Dan Snyder and Donald Sterling: They were unanimously elected after years of pushing their respective leagues to sell their teams. The NFL and NBA just needed the right time for this to happen.
Snyder began spending heavily in Washington, but it soon became clear that he had no idea what he was doing. It was his worst behavior. There are many stories of his contempt. He ran the franchise into the ground, and things looked so dire that he already changed the name of the franchise’s offensive team to save face. It didn’t work.
Sterling is the Michael Jordan of bad owners; He was very good at the bad. he was. Raunt, Cheap And Terrible (He used to bring his friends into the Clippers locker room to watch players shower). He was selfish, meddlesome and incompetent.
Former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling (above) and former Washington Chiefs owner Daniel Snyder are on their own. (Robin Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
Hall of Famers (in alphabetical order)
Harold Ballard: I don’t know how many non-hockey fans know the former Maple Leafs owner, but in 2022 the legendary journalist Brandon Walsh (okay, actor/director Jason Priestley) He made a documentary about him. He went to jail for fraud and ruined the Maple Leafs for decades. One of my favorite lines from the documentary’s 2022 story: “He hires his favorite boat mechanic as a team coach.”
Norman Braman: The famous cheap miami art dealer owns eagles and RSending He charged the players for socks and equipment.. At one point, he fired Buddy Ryan and hired Rich Cote as coach. After selling the franchise to Jeffrey Lurie, he said, “I live in Miami, and I’m traveling 16 weeks in the fall — well, there’s more to life than the National Football League.” Maybe he had a point.
Harry Frazee: The legendary Red Sox owner sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. What else do you need to know?
Robert Irsay: Of course, his biggest sin was moving the Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis in the middle of the night, but that’s not the only reason he’s on this list. He was perhaps the most tyrannical owner in league history – brutal and vindictive, punchy and tyrannical; The athleticsZak Keefer wrote. His son Jim had his own demons, but he learned from his father how not to act in general.
Jeffrey Loria: What can you say about Louth, who bought and ruined the Montreal Expos, traded to the Florida Marlins, got crowdfunding for a new stadium in Miami and stopped spending. His favorite character in “Major League” is Rachel Phelps.
George Preston Marshall: The owner of a known separation They were forced by the federal government signing black players for the Washington football team; The last to separate. “When the world is on the brink of another war, I wonder why a Negro can’t play for the Redskins,” he said. Marshall inspired legendary Washington Post columnist Shirley Povich to write his famous lead: “Jim Brown, born ineligible to play for the Redskins, fumbled the end zone three times yesterday.”
Frank McCourt: It wasn’t long before the Dodgers became a laughing stock in bankruptcy. McCourt, like many bad owners, got paid well to leave sports.
Art model: The good he did was more than just getting the Browns out of Cleveland: The NFL, so disgusted by the decision, immediately gave the city an expansion team.
Marge Schott: The previous owner of the Cincinnati Reds can be described as: Cheap, racist and anti-Semitic Without fear of exaggeration. Baseball finally had an excuse to exile her Rick Reilly profiled her for Sports Illustrated..
Ted Stephenson: he was. Too bad in Cleveland The NBA created the “Ted Stepien Rule” which prevents teams from trading their own first round picks in consecutive drafts.
Bill Wirtz: “Dollar Bill” refused to air the Blackhawks’ home games on TV because he believed it devalued season tickets. This was still a thing when he died in 2007, although he still owned the Chicago RSN. His son Rocky immediately corrected this injustice, and the Blackhawks rose after his death.
Harold Ballard has haunted the Toronto Maple Leafs for decades. (John Mahler/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
New York wing
Everything is bigger in New York, including the owners’ egos.
James Dolan: For decades, Dolan has done everything wrong as he turned the NBA’s marquee franchise into a laughing stock. But he’s walking away from a historic NBA title after letting former superstar Leon Rose run the show. But he’s just using it to make sure he’s not washed up like a bad owner. Facial recognition technology to block people from Madison Square Garden.
George Steinbrenner (1980s version) The “Decade of Me” was a black mark in Steinbrenner’s impressive tenure leading the Yankees. After the Bronx Zoo of the 1970s, the Yankees started the 80s strong, but interference turned it into a bust. It deserves to be chewed out by Frank Costanza. In the year The 1990s were more successful for “The Boss”.
Fred Wilpon: The Mets were largely a laughing stock during his tenure, especially in recent years before he and his son eventually sold the team to Steve Cohen. They didn’t have the Wilpons. The money or the brains to run the New York teamEven before the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scam He stopped the payment of their salaries..
Woody Johnson: Frustrated Jets fans have to hope Woody’s son is crushing hard on Brick Madden. To prepare to take a day. In Johnson’s first decade, the team made the playoffs six times. Over the past 15 seasons, he has 11 double-digit losing seasons, including six in a row.
New York Jets owner Woody Johnson has led a frustrating run of futility. (Ed Mulholland/Getty Images)
On their way
These two active owners are hiding their resumes, but they will be show-ins.
Jimmy Haslam: Deshaun Watson’s contract alone would eventually make Haslam a first-choice Hall of Famer.
John Fisher: His lack of foresight in moving the Athletics out of Oakland left them playing in a minor league park in Sacramento until the Las Vegas stadium was completed. An era of cheap, retrograde MLB owners.