Can We Really Believe Owners Put Winning Above Everything?

One of the true joys of being a kid is that for the most part, things are pretty simple – or at least you see things in pretty simple terms. Sports are the perfect example. Think about your earliest sports memories. Almost certainly, you didn’t pick your teams, as they were probably passed down in your family like an old pocket watch or high blood pressure. (Consider how many teams wouldn’t have any fans otherwise; Browns, I’m looking in your direction.)

You’d then put on the team shirt or jersey you got for your birthday and go to a game or watch one on TV and root your heart out. If they won, great. If they didn’t? Oh, well, they’ll get ‘em next time. What’s for dinner?  

While you knew the players and possibly the coach or manager, you probably had no idea who the owner was. And why would you? They’re not the important ones; it’s the guys out there playing who matter. You also didn’t know about things like revenue sharing or salary caps or luxury taxes. The amount of money anybody was making most likely never crossed your mind. After all, they were doing things you’d go out in your driveway or backyard and do just for fun.

But when you grow up and that pesky cynicism starts creeping in, it’s impossible to be a fan and not think about the less-than-fun stuff with sports, and this of course includes money. This is especially true when you see teams constantly bought and sold and for astronomical sums. And you learn about massive new projects for complexes – not just arenas or stadiums – that will be built with taxpayer money. And you hear about teams moving out of their long-time cities because they’re not getting enough of that taxpayer money to fund new complexes. And you realize that even after one of those we’ll-get-’em-next-year seasons, someone worth billions will make a decision to both reduce payroll and raise ticket prices.

This is why something new Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein said recently about his fellow billionaires caused a lot of ears to perk up. Although he says he bought the Orioles for philanthropic reasons to give back to his native city, originally, he was looking to buy a franchise as an investment because he saw that owners were making a lot of money from their teams, even more than he was making in private equity. But that’s not the most interesting thing he said. This is:

“The owners care more about winning than making money. They’re not against making money. Of course, they don’t want to lose money. The obsession with winning and beating your competitors is really what drives these people who own these teams. There’s nothing as satisfying as winning a championship.”

Cue a collective eye-roll. While it would be nice to believe this, evidence doesn’t really support it. Look at John Fisher, owner of the Oakland Athletics who acted as though he used the movie Major League as a guide for how to run a team. He continually gutted payroll and wouldn’t even pay to fix up his own stadium (or even get rid of the possums living in the broadcast booth), so he could move the team to Vegas.

Look at Arte Moreno, who never seemed too concerned with winning, and justified that by saying the team putting more games into the W column wasn’t actually a big priority of Angels fans. (Moreno has since sold the team, only making about $3.5 billion in the process.)

While Rubenstein may only be speaking about MLB, there are many examples of owners from around the sports world who aren’t exactly obsessed with winning. James Dolan, for instance, didn’t even wait until all of the confetti from the Knicks’ championship parade was cleaned up before saying he refused to go into the second apron with payroll. This resulted in free agent Mitchell Robinson – a key part of their title run – signing with the Celtics.

Tom Dundon, owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, started pinching pennies from the moment he took over, even telling staff to leave hotels early to avoid late checkout fees. The contract he gave new head coach Micah Nori has been lambasted for being well below market value and including just one guaranteed year. But even worse is that he’s now involved in a dispute with the city over the lease of the Moda Center, and there’s speculation that he may try to move the team.

Then there are the new owners of the Los Angeles Lakers, Josh Kushner and Bob Iger. Pablo Torre speculates that they didn’t buy the team for more than $12 billion to bring the Larry O’Brien trophy back to LA, but for the cache of owning one of just 30 NBA teams. He also thinks there’s another big factor at play: AI. They want a piece of something that machines won’t (at least for now) be able to take over. And if the only human thing left standing is sports, then it doesn’t matter if the team wins or loses; people will still pay to watch.

While money and sports will always be inextricably linked, it’s frustrating that this connection is often so front and center. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could once again have that child-like mentality when rooting for our teams, to just enjoy the competition and excitement? To really believe that everybody involved cared about winning as much as we do?