The 15 Worst Owners in Sports
Frackers, fuckers, racists and robbers – you don't need to be a bad person to own a pro franchise, but it certainly helps
By Jeb Lund
November 25, 2014
Sports arguments compensate for our powerlessness. We will never be permitted on the playing field, court or ice to change the outcome of the game – and even if we were, we'd be toast – so we soothe our nerves by preemptively doubting the efficacy of a play, screaming at it as it happens and second-guessing the whole thing when it's done. Then, because God is unfair, we lose anyway. The loser has even more reason to argue, if only because a verbal battle prosecuted on its behalf is the only thing his team can win anyway.
And if you lose – I mean, really lose – there is no argument more fulfilling than that of who has the worst owner. Because if you can make that one stick, then everything else explains itself: bad players, coaching, drafting, trades, talent evaluation, conditioning? Well, you know what, the owner picked those assholes, or he picked the asshole who picked those assholes. He is Lord High Asshole of His Asshole Realm.
Each asshole's sports kingdom doesn't exist in a vacuum, however. If sports were the only criterion, then the worst owner would be the one with the worst winning percentage every year. These people live in the real world, too. They bilk the public for tax breaks, exemptions and steep discounts on policing; they ignore impact and destroy surrounding infrastructure; they hold municipalities hostage; and they sit on their asses and reap millions annually in shared revenue while plundering young men (often of color and often from poor backgrounds) of their health and condemning them for wearing baggy pants, having tattoos, being "greedy" and "wrecking the game."
As such, the correct answer to who is the worst owner in sports is all of them. Unfortunately, pulling the ripcord here and floating out of the frame is not a practical response. This is not 'Nam; this is a listicle. There are rules. The following are the worst owners in American sports, in more or less increasing levels of boobery, mismanagement and personal/social vileness.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/lists/the-15-worst-owners-in-sports-20141125#ixzz3KIL4mZo5
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The usual suspects.
= new reply since forum marked as read
a hungover albino scrotum
You have to remember, it's a highly competitive field.
And that's about it off the top of my head for British pro sports leagues. What else do you have besides soccer, er, football? Professional cricket maybe? I'm only half teasing. I really have no clue.
Oh yeah, the Red Sox own a club over there, too, don't they? How are they viewed? Our fans are always whining about them losing focus.
You had me with the Celtics comparison - that hit too close to home.
I went back and reread the piece since you made such a strong argument, and you really only countered one item in a litany of charges. Given that they barely made the list (13th worst) I'm okay with it. As the preface said, almost any owner could be eligible. Some are just more eligible than others.
As for Brown, that defense is just indefensible. If pro football is the family business, then he really sucks at it, and ought to get out before he takes the whole city with him. It's like arguing the child of a neurosurgeon has a right to practice brain surgery because he inherited a successful surgical practice.
Ricketts: Screw everybody, I’m starting Wrigley renovations in July
Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts now says he’s going to break ground on planned renovations to Wrigley Field in July, no matter what the neighboring rooftop owners say with their “contracts” and “lawsuits.” The first stage will apparently be entirely underground — expanding the Cubs’ team clubhouse — but, assuming the city landmarks commission signs off on the plan next week, you can still probably expect the rooftop owners to seek some kind of court injunction, given that the latest plans would block even more of their views of the field.
The Cubs have also issued new renderings of what the latest renovation plan would look like if all the ad signs were replaced by the word “Cubs”:
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It all doesn’t look too awful, but then, it’s hard to guess how well these images will correspond with the reality — it’s unlikely, for example, that all the ad signs and video boards will stick to the understated white-and-green color scheme shown in the drawings. Part of the charm of Wrigley — okay, most of the charm of Wrigley — is that you’re not bombarded by flashing video and advertisements during the game, so any change to that should be very carefully considered, if not by Ricketts (who should be worrying about whether he’ll drive off fans in exchange for selling their eyeballs to advertisers) then by the landmarks commission, since it is their job, after all.
The Wrigley Field situation has developed into a strange one, since instead of the usual team owner demanding cash, you have a team owner demanding only that he be approved to spend his own money to do things to his stadium that the law — and possibly those rooftop contracts — doesn’t presently allow. It’s a mix of fan improvements (roomier concessions areas), behind-the-scenes items (that expanded clubhouse), some changes to the seating itself (there’s been one report that the “Steve Bartman” seat down the left-field line would be eliminated, though I’m unclear why), and the right to festoon everything in sight with ad signage, including things that aren’t even part of Wrigley Field. By lumping them all together, Ricketts has been trying to make the case that “Hey, all I’m trying to do is improve my stadium with my own money,” but it’s actually more a quid pro quo: If the city okays the ad boards, he’ll take the revenues from that and use them to build himself a more lavish, modern baseball palace, one that may or may not be better for Cubs fans, but which will undoubtedly be better for his bottom line.
http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2014/05/28/7371/ricketts-screw-everybody-im-starting-wrigley-renovations-in-july/
His stories are always well sourced you can read them without the editorial slant and make your own judgments.
An important fact - Wrigley is considered a landmark so the city has more control over changes than the owner does.
Rooftop owners finally sue Wrigley ad signs, but as landmarks violation, not contract breach
None of those things are illegal, though, so the rooftop owners actually sued the city for violating its own landmarks rules (specifically, the 2004 landmark designation that protected “the unenclosed, open-air character, the exposed structure system and generally uninterrupted ‘sweep’ and contour of the grandstand and bleachers”) and depriving them of property rights (since the Cubs, who aren’t a defendant in the suit, would be able to strong-arm them into giving up their rooftop businesses).
You can read the full complaint here. I’m not going to begin to guess what kind of shot this has in court, but it is interesting that the rooftop owners are suing over violations of the landmarks designation, not their contract with the Cubs, as they implied they would back in January. There’s certainly a good philosophical argument to be made that the landmarks commission shouldn’t be able to just change its mind about what a landmark is — I’ve made it myself — but that’s a long way from a legal argument.
At least it looks like this suit — and the ultimate verdict on the Wrigley redo — is going to be fought over something resembling issues of public policy, and not just contract law. That not only makes more sense, but potentially allows for rulings along the lines of “You can put up some ad signs, but only if they don’t change the character of Wrigley too drastically,” which I think most people who are conflicted over the renovation plan would consider a more meaningful compromise than “Do whatever you want, but pay the rooftop owners a pile of money for breaking their contract.”
http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2014/08/15/7701/rooftop-owners-finally-sue-over-wrigley-ad-signs-but-as-landmarks-violation-not-contract-breach/
It should be noted, the Commission was hand picked by Rahm Emmanuel 
In the last 10 years:
- Changed the name of the team to the laughably bad "Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim"
- Did nothing to combat increasingly escalating ticket prices (in the last 3 years field level ticket prices have nearly doubled from $65 to over $110 for regular season home games)
- Going about trying to find a new stadium for the team in the same way Wiley Coyote tries to catch the Road Runner
- Constantly threatening to move the team to the non existent Farmer's Field in Los Angeles for "better TV ratings"
- Signing Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton to ridiculously overbloated and overinflated contracts
I could go on and on.
