Josh Harris Group Reaches Agreement to Buy Commanders
NFL Offseason - Our long national nightmare is over, especially the nightmare in our nation's capital, as a group led by billionaire businessman Josh Harris has reached agreement to purchase the Washington Commanders from Dan Snyder for $6 billion. Harris is currently the owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils and is estimated to have a net worth of $5.9 billion. His investment group includes Magic Johnson as well as Potomac businessman Mitchell Rales.
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Comments
128 comments, Last at 23 Apr 2023, 1:00pm
#1 by dmb // Apr 13, 2023 - 1:22pm
Best way for me to sum it up: this is easily in the top 10 moments of my 30-year Washington fandom, which is a statement that's every bit as pathetic as it sounds.
Tanier wrote awhile back that Washington fans shouldn't get too excited because any billionaire is likely to come with their own set of baggage. That's fair, but it would be hard to match Snyder's ability to be so awful in so many ways -- and if Harris et. al. somehow manage to do so, at least it will have come after this brief respite of hope.
#2 by theslothook // Apr 13, 2023 - 1:24pm
Hard to imagine a worse owner on and off the field in all of professional sports than Snyder.
I will admit, before I read the full story about the <insert appropriate adjective> culture of the team, I thought of Snyder as the classic fanboy turned meddling owner who wanted to do the right thing with regards to the team but couldn't see past his own fandom. And that person, I regarded as a tragic figure and someone I could sympathize with considering so many of us as fans think we know better than coaches, gms, and playcallers. If people on this site can fall prey to that line of thinking, it's no wonder that someone like Snyder did.
However, given the <insert appropriate adjective> culture that existed under his watch, I find him deserving of absolutely 0 sympathy and can't even begin to come up with any kind of rationale for what went on with the team under his authority. Frankly, this is hopefully the last I'll be hearing about Snyder.
#6 by Joey-Harringto… // Apr 13, 2023 - 2:26pm
Yea, without the problematic non-football stuff, he was just a garden-variety meddlesome owner. With the problematic non-football stuff, it's sad (but hardly surprising) that it took so long for the league to be rid of him.
#48 by bravehoptoad // Apr 14, 2023 - 12:27pm
I think he managed to be worse than garden-variety. For one, he made way more headlines. For two, he left behind way more bitter relationships than most. For three...aw, heck with it. I don't want to write about that guy.
#22 by IlluminatusUIUC // Apr 13, 2023 - 6:05pm
Woah now, Jim Haslam is still in the league too. Lest we forget, he drafted Johnny Football because a homeless guy told him to, his company was caught defrauding truckers for ten figures and got hammered by the feds, he oversaw the Hue Jackson debacle (including letting Sashi Brown perform his tank job and then firing him so Dorsey could make the picks), and then traded for Deshaun Watson and lied to claim Watson felt "remorseful" when Watson himself has denied that at every turn.
#24 by BigRichie // Apr 13, 2023 - 6:18pm
I suppose Haslam is the worst remaining owner in the NFL. But what you cite highlights just how historically awful Snyder was. Other than the DeShaun thing, the remainder of it is just your regular 'worst current owner in the NFL' stuff. And while Haslam signed (after outbidding a few other NFL owners) DeShaun Watson, Dan Snyder WAS! DeShaun Watson.
#68 by rpwong // Apr 14, 2023 - 5:02pm
Haslem must be doing something right, since the NBA just approved him buying into the Bucks. Just don't ask me what that something is.
Honestly, I don't feel a need to rank the worst owners. I'm content to group them together as "collectively the worst" and leave it at that.
The funny thing is that many fans think their favourite team's owners are terrible, but (relatively) few of those owners reach the Sarver/Snyder/Sterling level of actual crimes against humanity. At least, not publicly.
#21 by Vincent Verhei // Apr 13, 2023 - 5:12pm
Hard to imagine a worse owner on and off the field in all of professional sports than Snyder.
Given that he followed in the footsteps of George Preston Marshall, I'm not even sure Snyder is the worst owner in the history of this specific franchise.
#23 by BigRichie // Apr 13, 2023 - 6:06pm
Marshall was, say, maybe twice as bad as the average NFL owner of his time. Lotsa Americans were against racial integration in the 50s. Certainly a strong majority of the southeast quadrant (population-wise) of the nation. Or was Marshall a particular scoundrel in additional ways?
Dan Snyder was an absolute scourge. Whomever the 2nd-worst owner was during Snyder's tenure, next to Dan the guy looked almost saintly.
#27 by serutan // Apr 13, 2023 - 8:02pm
[nitpick] Strictly speaking, he followed in the footsteps of Jack Kent Cooke, which comparison really underscores how far he ran the franchise into the ground [/nitpick]
On the bright side, he inspired Tanier's brilliant Twilight Zone homage.
#95 by Mr Shush // Apr 15, 2023 - 1:43pm
"Hard to imagine a worse owner on and off the field in all of professional sports than Snyder."
I invite you to consider the case of former Doncaster Rovers chairman Ken Richardson, who sold all bar one of the club's professional players, leading to a season in which they were relegated out of the Football League for the first time in their history, in the process setting an all time loss record that is still yet to be beaten almost thirty years later, and payed an ex-SAS man £10,000 to burn down the stadium.
#5 by Joey-Harringto… // Apr 13, 2023 - 2:19pm
Same. I can't decide if he looks like the antagonist in the next Fast and Furious movie, or a Bond villain (he's eying James Harden like Blofeld eying one of his underlings and deciding whether or not to activate his electrocution chair).
#7 by guest from Europe // Apr 13, 2023 - 3:10pm
I have a question: how are these formally owned and purchase transactions made? Is it by various shareholders? Is it by some company where this guy is the president? Is he paying with his own money? It's written above that this person has $5.9B and the team is being bought for $6B.
I don't care about any particular case, i wonder in general how this is done.
#9 by apocalipstick // Apr 13, 2023 - 3:34pm
Finance it, just like you would a car. Snyder had nowhere near the purchase price (he probably flat-out lied about his finances) for the WFT when he bought them; the money was all borrowed. I'm sure there is some sort of corporate entity involved. It might even be incorporated for this transaction, or there might be a holding company that own the 76ers (for example) that will be used. One thing it will not be is a personal check signed 'Josh Harris'.
#12 by guest from Europe // Apr 13, 2023 - 3:58pm
If it so, than the team is owned by such company and not this person. Why endulge his ego to say he is the owner of these 3 teams, 76ers, Devils, Commies? It's just pedantry by me, but this is exactly what they want: call me an owner, but if anything goes wrong, it's the company, i have no responsibility.
I wonder how are these teams formally established? They want to avoid paying taxes so are they "normal" companies?
#14 by GwillyGecko // Apr 13, 2023 - 4:01pm
Even in situations where a group owns a team like this one, In the NFL when a team is acquired by new ownership, a single person has to be identified as the owner of 30% or more of the team (and has to own at least 30% of the equity of the team). And groups cannot have more than 24 people in them, nor can they be owned by a public entity(other than the packers who were grandfathered in).
Most likely the group of Harris, Magic Johnson, et al formed a holding company to own/operate the team and Harris owns 30% or more of the holding company and thus the team.
For your other questions, you'll have to look into the different types of corporations and partnerships allowable by law. But There's also no situation where these teams don't pay taxes(everything and everyone is taxed and if NFL teams weren't paying taxes on all the money that goes thru their hands the local government would put a padlock on the stadium lmao).
#29 by guest from Europe // Apr 14, 2023 - 3:39am
Thank you for the information. 30% owner of a holding company that owns the team is different from "the owner" in my opinion.
I am no lawyer or economist so it would take me a lot of time to understand corporate law. There are commenters here of those professions, so i was hoping to get a quick, simplified explanation.
I mentioned taxes in a sense that teams try to avoid them as much as legally possible, not that they don't pay them. Maybe they can claim to be a fundation in order to pay lower taxes like some internet corporations do.
#35 by theslothook // Apr 14, 2023 - 10:45am
Legal tax avoidance falls under the perview of tax accountants and lawyers, not so much economists.
I will say, the usual means for tax avoidance usually involve charitable foundations or complex real estate investments. I don't think an NFL franchise qualifies, but again that's not my area of expertise.
#16 by IlluminatusUIUC // Apr 13, 2023 - 4:21pm
but this is exactly what they want: call me an owner, but if anything goes wrong, it's the company, i have no responsibility.
“Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary. 1911
#18 by carlosla // Apr 13, 2023 - 4:49pm
Ambrose Bierce was a world class wit (His Moby Dick review: “The covers of this book are too far apart.”)
And this isn’t really the place for it, but THANK THE GODS that the corporate form was created. Maybe the most important “legal innovation” with regard to economic growth… the same economic growth that enables me to watch football on Sundays as opposed to forage for food.
#25 by Lost Ti-Cats Fan // Apr 13, 2023 - 6:53pm
The origin of corporations is in the spice trade era of exploration and navigation. Outfitting a trading expedition was costly and high risk. Taking on shares allowed (a) investors who couldn't afford to fund a complete ship to participate and (b) investors who could afford to fund a complete ship to instead fund 10% of 10 different ships, spreading their risk.
This is also the origin for modern insurance (including the still not-quite-completely-modern Lloyds of London insurer).
It's also the origin of the phrase "his ship has come in". (A happy event in the days when the ship you outfitted might never make it safely back to home port.)
#86 by guest from Europe // Apr 15, 2023 - 10:56am
This appears innocuous. They were mostly brutal colonists doing monopoly and slave trade and destroying indigenous population in every sense. They also started first private armies, later forming a cartel together with English India company etc.
Such colonists were geographically very far away from every possible control and could do whatever they wanted. Later that caused internal corruption.
In my opinion such colonists in Asia, Latin America and Africa were the worst ih the history of human species. They were also very rich. Richer than European kings, but not as powerful. They were more brutal than slave owners in Roman times.
#88 by theslothook // Apr 15, 2023 - 11:22am
were the worst ih the history of human species.
Now I know we have wandered very far off from football, but frankly, there are so many contending moments for worst periods of the human species.
One can nominate the Khymer Rouge, the Japanese invasion of China(my personal nomination), the Nazis with Josef Mengle, the Spanish Inquisition, witchcraft in Tanzania, Los Zetas Drug Cartel, and on and on.
Tragically, there is no shortage of brutality littered across human history. There is a devil in all of us.
#96 by guest from Europe // Apr 15, 2023 - 2:20pm
i apologize. I just thought it had to be pointed out that was not just a company minting their own coins. Nor were those general war crimes that slothook mentioned above. Those were centuries-long genocides. Maybe someone doesn't know this. It is our European heritage.
I apologize again.
#114 by Raiderfan // Apr 17, 2023 - 1:19pm
Not even that.
The Khmer empire had 17 different categories of slaves, depending on who owned them, where they came from, and what they did.
The Varna system (caste) dates back to ancient India.
”Industrial strength slavery” existed in China at least as far back as the Qin dynasty to fuel their public works programs.
The powerful Saharan African states in the second millenia of the Christian Era existed on slavery, with the martial nomadic tribes living off the sedentary sub-sahalian tribes. This was paused by European colonialism, yet the conflicts exist to this day.
And, of course, the Mongols eschewed industrial strength slavery in favor of industrial strength slaughter.
So, I would not give the post-1500 European powers credit for inventing large scale “bad stuff.”
#100 by guest from Europe // Apr 16, 2023 - 4:09am
Notice that i wrote about colonizing and doing harm and looting all resources from basically all other continents. They literally treated all other people that they stumbled upon as lower beings, like animals in the zoo. Centuries of that. This wasn't some war conflict. Nor was it a civilization with slavery in its foundation, like Greek, Roman, Egyptian and some modern ones. This was just slave trading for profit of such merchants. Then later "civilizations" were built on the slave labour in some of the new colonies. In Africa no such civilizations were built.
There is not enough acknowledgement of this history. It is quite a tabu topic. That is why i wrote it.
As far as their business model, i also wrote that it was monopoly trading of exotic goods. If this applies to NFL owners, i don't know.
#105 by Aaron Brooks G… // Apr 17, 2023 - 9:25am
They also started first private armies
I very much doubt that, although -- as in the India Companies -- once you have an army, the line between "private" and "government" rapidly becomes blurry. A government is just the entity who has the monopoly on power. Feudal lords, or even sufficiently advanced nobility were often indistinguishable from private armies.
The success of the various trading empires was largely predicated on a private army basically encountering series of mutually-competing, equally-corrupt warlords, and simply being better at the game. Once India and China, and ultimately Malaysia and Indonesia, got their acts together and 'reunited' into at least only two or three competing nation-states, their overseers rapidly lost the ability to actually keep them down.
India largely gets a pass because they got put down by the British, but their own history as slaveholders and colonial oppressors is pretty ugly, too.
#112 by guest from Europe // Apr 17, 2023 - 12:18pm
I very much doubt that, although -- as in the India Companies -- once you have an army, the line between "private" and "government" rapidly becomes blurry. A government is just the entity who has the monopoly on power.
I haven't thought about it like that. Maybe you are right.
Feudal lords, or even sufficiently advanced nobility were often indistinguishable from private armies.
They were kind of private on a small scale, but were under a rule of some sovereign and/or the pope.
Once India and China, and ultimately Malaysia and Indonesia, got their acts together and 'reunited' into at least only two or three competing nation-states, their overseers rapidly lost the ability to actually keep them down.
When was this? 20th century? That's not rapid. This Dutch company ruled in 16th century, later English company, French colonialists, Opium wars,...
What you wrote above Belgian Congo is this same thing. Australia was colonized by British convicts and so on. North America colonized by ?
#113 by theslothook // Apr 17, 2023 - 12:37pm
Apologies for the longish post.
There's a great book called, "Why Nations Fail" by a soon to be nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu and his co-author James Robinson. I won't get into their main thesis, but they explain why certain regions follow the way they did.
Essentially, areas that were settled and had rural farming were largely captured by invaders and brutal regimes were established to extract resources from the land and labor. This includes actions by Cortez for the Aztecs and Pizarro for the Incas. There were more African slaves brought to Brazil than any other nation in history; largely because of all of that arable land.
India was colonized for its resources much the same, but it stayed that way for a long time because of how disparate the region's cultures are; making it hard to form a unified coalition to oppose the despots. People may regard India as one monolithic nation, but it more closely resembles Europe. As the son of Indian immigrants who was raised in America, I felt this rather acutely. Despite living in a part of the country with lots and lots of Indians, we only ever hung out with other Indians from the exact same background, culture, and origin state and also, if I am being honest, the same caste.
As to North America. Interestingly, the British tried to set up the same extractive institutions as the Spanish. They were late comers to the colonial game, so they got stuck with the lowest quality land - namely the cold north which was sparsely settled by the Native Americans. And of course, they wanted to set up the same kind of slave system but the natives kept running away. They were never tied to the land as the Incas and Aztecs; so setting up that system didn't work. It was through this bit of superficial misfortune that began prosperity in America. Because they could not set up a slave system, they had to grow labor through inclusive institutions. They attracted domestic labor in England; promising the prospect of land ownership. And of course, once you have inclusive institutions; you get innovation and higher quality labor. It is why the North surged ahead economically while the US South and most of Latin America languished despite so much "free labor"
#120 by guest from Europe // Apr 18, 2023 - 4:04am
Thanks for this info. I know nothing of 16th and 17th century North America history. If you can write a paragraph or two more, please do so.
What colonists did in Latin America was primarily search for resources of gold and silver, i presume. They found a large silver mine in Cerro rico hill, Oruro, present Bolivia and employed slave indigenous labour there to become richer than Spanish kings. I think i read somewhere that only 10% of found silver reached Spain by ships, the rest was kept by colonists. Oruro at some point grew to the size of London... similar Ouro Preto in Brazil. There was farming of corn, potato, tomato, chocolate and so on in agriculture business in other areas of Latin America. However, i think that the biggest source of income were those precious metals.
People may regard India as one monolithic nation, but it more closely resembles Europe.
I now know this. I was surprised when i travelled there in 2014 that there are so many languages, cultures, tribes who remain in their states, regions...
#122 by theslothook // Apr 20, 2023 - 1:17pm
Thanks for this info. I know nothing of 16th and 17th century North America history. If you can write a paragraph or two more, please do so.
Sorry for the delay.
A lot of my knowledge is framed through economics. Admittedly, that is only one perspective and largely omits a lot of the more gruesome aspects of North American history. I mentioned above that the cold climate and pastoral nature of the natives meant traditional slavery wasn't going to work in the North. That's a good thing. Unfortunately, it also meant the natives were largely expendable and thus what followed is one of the more tragic periods of history that has been shamefully romanticized with things like Thanksgiving, the story of Pocahontas, and Sacagawea with the Lewis and Clark expedition.
But returning to the economic history. I will probably repeat this lesson to every ear that is willing. I trace much of America's prosperity to the actions of Alexander Hamilton. A lot of this is regurgitating what Tom Sargent explains in a luncheon available on youtube. But the gist of it goes like this. After the war, America was basically like Europe - a bunch of sovereign states with no federal power and a bunch of debt outstanding that they accrued to fight the war. From estimates, the country was among the very poorest in the world at that time and their primary revenue source was through tariffs. Unfortunately, if Rhode Island issued a tariff to raise revenue, then trade would shift to Virginia. And thus came a seminal moment in US history. Hamilton and Washington wanted a stronger Federal government with the power to tax across all sovereign states to pay back the revolutionary war debt. Jefferson and Madison were on the other side; wanting to stay separated and not pay the debt back. Also note, the original purchasers of the debt were soldiers. When they got wind that the debt was unlikely to be paid back, they sold for a fraction of its face value to rich speculators who took a gamble that it would be paid back.
Why pay debt back to rich people was the argument? But Hamilton saw something powerful. Something very much in modern macroeconomics that have only recently begun to be modeled. But he knew it then for reasons that are both remarkable and fortunate for us all. He paid the debt back, in full and in the process; two things happened. America became a united country and it established financial responsibility. And thus; with that one action; America was on course for prosperity. Also the fact that it was a country founded by immigrants meant we've been mostly very open to immigration. And thank god we have.
#123 by guest from Europe // Apr 22, 2023 - 1:39am
So ,the colonizers in 16th and 17th century were mostly immigrants who were promised land ownership? Poor peasants from Ireland and England?
He paid the debt back, in full and in the process; two things happened. America became a united country and it established financial responsibility. And thus; with that one action; America was on course for prosperity.
A modern macroeconomy question: does above mean that a country has to have very low debts in order to prosper? Is there some threshold of GDP% when debt becomes suffocating for a country?
#125 by theslothook // Apr 22, 2023 - 7:45pm
So ,the colonizers in 16th and 17th century were mostly immigrants who were promised land ownership? Poor peasants from Ireland and England?
The colonizers were elites with a heavy hand by the crown. But the labor was made up of indentured servants who were paid ultimately with the opportunity of land ownership. This stands in sharp contrast to a labor force made up of slaves and serfs.
As to the key to prosperity, no explicit debt as a percentage of gdp is not a factor. It's all about institutions and the expectations of future fiscal solvency that are the key. America had a massive debt to gdp but the institutions were strong enough to bolster confidence in future fiscal solvency. We are still benefitting from that institutional prominence today.
#126 by guest from Europe // Apr 23, 2023 - 4:12am
The colonizers were elites with a heavy hand by the crown. But the labor was made up of indentured servants
I read now a little about 17th century colonization of North America on Wikipedia. Some 70-80% of colonizers were servants. The leaders were mostly soldiers such as John Smith and William Penn. I don't see many nobility, elites, aristocrats. I guess they just financed everything. Maybe the were lower nobility, not famous and formed the last 10-15% of colonizing population (not servants, not soldiers).
The Dutch had this Dutch East India Company by merchants, the English had London Company and Plymouth Company that were chartered by the crown to colonize... later there were wars between them. The French had their soldiers, "explorers"...
It's all about institutions and the expectations of future fiscal solvency that are the key.
So, what will happen to southern European countries? Greece, Portugal, Spain had a massive debt crisis recently. They did what the IMF wanted and they still have more or less the same amount of debt... France and Italy might have such a problem soon. Will there be a big financial crisis again? There is some talk that european banks are now better prepared, better governed, that the euro currency is more stable.
#127 by theslothook // Apr 23, 2023 - 11:27am
They did what the IMF wanted and they still have more or less the same amount of debt.
Full disclosure, I am not familiar with the specifics about Europe to give a confident answer. I will say, last I checked, southern Europe continues to have serious issues with respect to youth unemployment and heavy restrictions on firm size and other wedges that interfere with freer markets. I also don't know how they behave when it comes to trade policy and capital controls.
I will say, Greece has been in a depression for a while. Whether the rest of Southern Europe does as well depends heavily on whether the rest of the Europe continues to bail them out. The US does that in a sense with lots and lots of internal transfers from wealthy tax payers in high earning states sending social security and Medicare to citizens across the entire country.
Perhaps you can speak better to how likely that is. Otherwise, I think Spain and Portugal and Italy are headed for a Greek style disaster. Luigi Zingales was asked to make a prediction on this many years ago. He somberly guessed that Italy was not going to pay the debt.
#128 by guest from Europe // Apr 23, 2023 - 1:00pm
i have no idea, am no economist. I can say that they all have huge debth, over 100% GDP, so they had to cut social services, pensions, healthcare a decade ago, especially Greece and Portugal. They couldn't reduce the debth, but got financial "injections", new credits from IMF. Their problem is that they don't have enough industry, euro is too strong a currency for those countries, there is widespread state spending, especially in Greece and Spain... large unemployment. They don't speak foreign languages well in order to move to northern EU... Population is aging. There is a lot of tourism and agriculture in those countries.
They were poorer countries prior to joining the EU. Then there was rapid development using money from EU developmental funds, so there was a lot of real estate construction... in Spain there are some empty unused new small towns.
France is kind of on this course now.
#17 by carlosla // Apr 13, 2023 - 4:43pm
Happy happy day for the ever shrinking pool of WFT fans everywhere. I grew up spoiled in the Joe Gibbs first era — amazing times! Snyder was so bad, he eventually drove me away from rooting for the team.
Pretty remarkable price, given the Broncos price and the current interest rate environment.
AKAIK, Snyder put up $350M in cash and $450M in debt to buy the Redskins in 1999, with his bid submitted in March ‘99.
Maybe he still chooses to carry some debt on the club — which would have been a great decision in the zero/neg interest rate environment of the past decade — but that would have been a choice, not a “must do.”
So he turned his $350M into north of $6B. Wow. Total US stock mkt returns would have netted him about $2.3B, fwiw.
Good riddance, Danny Boy.
#20 by dmb // Apr 13, 2023 - 5:09pm
In this context, it's worth noting that Snyder didn't purchase 100% of the franchise in 1999; there were minority partners / owners up until 2020, when Snyder bought them out. That said ... I'm not sure if the price of those final shares was ever reported, but whatever it was, I'm sure it doesn't change the overall conclusion that this has (unfortunately) been a very lucrative venture for Snyder.
#26 by Lost Ti-Cats Fan // Apr 13, 2023 - 7:11pm
NFL franchises are probably the only ones who have out-paced broader stock-market returns over the past 24 years across the entire league. Maybe Premiership clubs, too? Other professional sports leagues no doubt have specific franchises that have beaten the market, but not sure any of them have seen the across-the-board value creation the NFL has seen.
The NFL is almost the sporting-equivalent of Amazon in the 21st century. ($350M in Amazon in March 1999 would be worth about $8.3B today. Snyder is almost as successful as Jeff Bezos! Not quite, though, as Amazon in 1999 was hyper-valued due to the dot.com hype. Go back to March 1998 and $350M in Amazon (if the company was actually even worth that much then) would have turned into $100.5B today. Go forward to March 2001 and $350M in Amazon would have turned into $70.3B today. Markets are rational!
#50 by theslothook // Apr 14, 2023 - 12:50pm
NFL franchises have a very weird valuations. In traditional finance, the price of an asset = the expected future returns. The actual profits rolled back to the owner are pretty small especially in comparison to the price. That means, by traditional asset pricing; the expectation for future profits is going to be enormous.
But here's where some background domain knowledge comes in. This asset is unlikely to ever produce a profit stream commensurate with its sticker price. To me, the real driver of the price is because of the fetish of owning a team. In other words, a kind of status symbol for the uber elite; although its fair to wonder just how much gravitas being the owner of the Raiders gives Mark Davis especially when he's so cash poor. Maybe to the guy down the street its a lot, but I bet the other owners pay him no mind at governor meetings.
#53 by carlosla // Apr 14, 2023 - 1:23pm
Eh, I don’t know. A few quibbles/refinements… I don’t think the valuations are weird.
The price of a perceived-to-be-unique business asset = the expected future returns *of the most optimistic* bidder.
I think you’re underselling the scarcity element. This isn’t a multi family rental building we’re talking about. There’s 2 US sports leagues that seem to be on an unstoppable revenue growth run: the NFL and NBA. Add to them the 6-ish “top 4” teams of the Premier League, and you’ve got less than 70 assets like this on the ENTIRE planet.
There’s been a massive valuation shift from pipes to content over the last 20 years. Cf, DirectTV acquired for $67B and then spun out at $16B just 6 years later. Compare that the 20th Century Fox sale to Disney. Those assets cost Murdoch about $1B to acquire, mostly in the mid-80s, so admittedly a long time ago. He sold for $71B in 2019, after originally accepting a $52B offer just the year before (and then Comcast tried to get in there). Content, baby.
Live sports are the last bastion of the traditional broadcast TV advertising model (whether carried on “broadcast” or AMZN)… there are more marketing dollars to be spent than ever, but not that many places to deploy it.
Content + scarcity + advertising capture + negative interest rates… Real live financially motivated owners haven’t had a hard time talking themselves into team ownership.
Plus, as you note, there’s no doubt a big fun factor involved for many of these owners. Like, what’s the point of being a billionaire if you can’t have a super yacht and sports team?
Hence, it’s the apparent lack of impact of interest rates that is the biggest surprise to me. Presumably these buyers are expecting rates to get back closer to zero, insert winner’s curse etc.
#54 by theslothook // Apr 14, 2023 - 1:39pm
I think the scarcity part is directly tied into the fun. Yachts are so last week because a yacht company could churn out as many as there is demand. Sports franchises are artificially limited; hence the fun. But their scarce supply does not, in this case, translate to higher profitability to justify the asset price.
Really, the question we need to ask - "Is the price high because the owners expect future profitability to continue to grow exponentially or is it the fun factor?
In traditional finance, there's no such thing as "fun factor" and thus its all related to expected future earnings*. In this case, I think less from the expected future earnings and much more from fun.
* I left out the discount rate for this discussion for the sake of brevity and simplicity, even though its a very weighty factor in all of this.
#79 by jackiel // Apr 14, 2023 - 10:38pm
You're overthinking it. For the latest vintage of owners (Kroenke, Harris, Haslam, Khan, etc.), the value comes in a few key areas aside from how owning a team can enhance an owner's public profile and sense of importance. 1) As you note, teams are often not very profitable on a yearly basis. In fact, if the team is structured as a partnership, you may actually want to run the team at a loss in order to offset your personal income taxes on your other investments. 2) You can use the team to make money on non-football investments like real estate. Think Kroenke developing the area around Sofi Stadium and hosting non-NFL events at the stadium and Khan developing parts of Jacksonville. Having the team makes it easier to get projects approved and the value of the other local investments is enhanced by the team. 3) Certainty. Most NFL revenue comes from long-term TV contracts and the biggest cost line item (player salaries) is capped. Therefore, they are relatively predictable businesses. 4) Scarcity as you note. There is not much competition since new franchises require owners' approval and new professional leagues aren't really threats. This is a good thing if you ever want to sell. 5) Finally as the Snyder example indicates very clearly, the real financial benefit comes from selling the team.
Overall, I view the value of professional sports teams through the prism of legal tax reduction, tax deferred growth regarding the equity value of the team, and the value of non-football investments that benefit from the owner's interest in the team that should be sustainable even after the owner decides to sell the team.
#60 by mansteel // Apr 14, 2023 - 2:28pm
I don't know offhand about the huge 1/2 dozen of Premier League clubs, but for the rest of them the value of the club is highly dependent on how well they do on the field (erm...pitch). E.g. Southampton FC was bought by Swiss businessman Markus Liebherr for 14 million pounds round about 2009 and sold by his daughter Katrina for 200ish million pounds a decade later. The huge valuation jump occurred largely because the club was in the third tier of English football in 2009 and the Premier League in when it was resold. The opposite can happen too, of course.
Relatedly, the playoff final that determines the last promotion spot up into the Premier League each year is often referred to as "the richest match in football", with promotion said to be worth about 250 million pounds all told currently.
#73 by guest from Europe // Apr 14, 2023 - 6:34pm
Relatedly, the playoff final that determines the last promotion spot up into the Premier League each year is often referred to as "the richest match in football", with promotion said to be worth about 250 million pounds all told currently.
This is because of the share of the profit from TV -rights that each Premier League team gets. That league gets by far the highest TV money in Europe.
What you wrote about Southampton is valid for Machester City, as well. They were bought relatively cheaply.
The highest valued clubs in Europe are usually Real Madrid and Barcelona. Officially they are non-profit organizations owned by members (hundreds of thousands of them). It's a socialist model. They do get subsidies.
#30 by guest from Europe // Apr 14, 2023 - 4:04am
Another question: why do people care about who owns the team? This Snyder is a bad person, so people despise him.
Why not ignore them? They are just some business executives. Why accept this "yes, sir" mentality? They don't play, don't do anything to contribute, but can be bad for team success. When they appear at Super Bowl post-game trophy presentation, i immediately turn the TV off. If people would do this, TV networks would notice. And there would be less money for them or they would have to dissapear from the public eye.
Why do people want to know what some "owner" said or did or held a press conference?
#31 by Aaron Brooks G… // Apr 14, 2023 - 9:07am
There are two different points:
- He's a criminal using what little goodwill remains in his franchise as cover for his actions.
- Plenty of Europeans despise their ownership in a way that would scandalize Americans. The Glazers basically can't safely attend Manchester United games without a large police escort (and occasionally riot troops). There's nothing like that in American sports. We basically don't have Ultras.
#38 by guest from Europe // Apr 14, 2023 - 11:13am
I don't understand your response to my question. Do you know and care who owns the Lions? Why?
Some points about what you wrote:
Plenty of Europeans despise their ownership in a way that would scandalize Americans.
This applies only to some English clubs. As far as i can tell, in other countries noone cares much about stakeholders of the club and the clubs are usually not sold and never move to another city. English fans hate American owners because these new owners went up with ticket prices, wanted as much profit from fans as possible etc. Other new owners such as Abramovič didn't do this, but invested their money in the club and fans loved him for it.
We basically don't have Ultras.
This is true. Keep in mind, those are general working class fans of Man. United that hate the owners and protest, not real Ultras. Ultras are more like maniacs. They like to fight with other such people etc.
#42 by Aaron Brooks G… // Apr 14, 2023 - 12:06pm
Do you know and care who owns the Lions? Why?
Yes, of course. And yes, of course. Because they were like the modern Steelers before Ford purchased them and turned them into a copy of the Cardinals. The Fords aren't bad people; just terrible administrators.
It would be something else entirely if the were also personally execrable, like a Snyder or Sterling or Haslem.
It's not just English clubs. German fans hate RB Leipzig. French fans mostly hate PSG. Barcelona and the Madrid clubs hate each other, but that has more to do with Spain's slow-boil civil war.
There is a common element in fans taking ownership of a franchise and desiring to oust the sugar-daddy who nominally owns it, for a variety of reasons.
#72 by guest from Europe // Apr 14, 2023 - 6:20pm
As far as Lions, i think you are more unlucky to be in the same division with great Packers or 80's Bears or 70's Vikings teams. Recently, when there are problems with Packers usually Vikings use the opportunity to win, not the Lions.
It's not just English clubs. German fans hate RB Leipzig. French fans mostly hate PSG. Barcelona and the Madrid clubs hate each other, but that has more to do with Spain's slow-boil civil war.
These don't apply to ownership argument. In England, only a few teams' fans hate the owners, mostly because of raising prices. In Germany you probably meant that other fans hate Bayern Muenchen, not Leipzig. It is so because Bayern buys all the best players in Germany and they always win the title. This applies to PSG recently. Before PSG wasn't the best French team. These are rivalries, the fans don't think about ownership. In Germany there is no single owner of a team, it's similar to the Packers. Similar with Spanish clubs. English and Italian clubs are privately owned, sold, but never moved.
There is a common element in fans taking ownership of a franchise and desiring to oust the sugar-daddy who nominally owns it, for a variety of reasons.
So, you would like to be like Packers? I think that's a good model.
#81 by guest from Europe // Apr 15, 2023 - 3:46am
Well, before this Austrian businessman bought the club, Leipzig wasn't very good. They were struggling to reach 1. Bundesliga status. He, the Red Bull company invested into that club and Salzburg before that. Some other businessman invested into Hoffenheim. Abramovič into Chelsea... they put a lot of their own money into clubs, making player transfers.
Some fans don't like that, that money can buy quality. But many more fans in Germany complain about Bayern Muenchen.
#83 by Theo // Apr 15, 2023 - 7:33am
If you win too much, of course the other teams are going to 'hate' you.
RB Leipzich was one of the teams that Red Bull had in its portfolio, but German football rules made it Verboten for teams to have corporate logos and names, so they had to butcher the Red Bull name and logo to fubar proportions to be accepted.
Fans hate it, because footballsoccer fans are notoriously conservative.
In England, there was even a group of Manchester United supporters who founded their own club, FC United of Manchester, when the Glazers bought ManU. They hated the commercialism so much that they incorporated non-commercialism rules into the articles of association of the club.
#90 by guest from Europe // Apr 15, 2023 - 11:41am
If you win too much, of course the other teams are going to 'hate' you.
Other fans and teams don't like Bayern because they literally buy off the best players from their competitiors. There is no salary cap. Totally free market. They offer a lot more money to players. The irony is that the same applies when Real Madrid does this to Bayern and its players. Then Bayern' fans complain.
I guess the equivalent in USA would be N.Y. Yankees.
#94 by guest from Europe // Apr 15, 2023 - 12:29pm
Notice the word "Bayern" in the name of the club. That means that the whole state of Bavaria, currently the richest in Germany, kind of stands behind this club. They are owned by many small stakeholders. Other clubs have local rivalries with nearby cities, Frankfurt doesn't care that much etc. For some reason there is a dominant team in every European league: Bayern in Germany, Juventus in Italy, Madrid and Barca in Spain, now PSG in France, in England there is usually a competition between 2-3 clubs, which do change every decade or so. Man. City is now in their elite and Man. United isn't.
Why this is? I don't know. I mean it's just money and salaries. But as far as their business models go, i don't know. The player salaries and transfer fees are so high that none of them make huge profit year-to-year. In 2020 they were all in trouble.
#71 by guest from Europe // Apr 14, 2023 - 6:01pm
And where will all those teams go to? There are not that many large cities in USA left... some teams moved to L.A. recently and fans don't care about them. At many games in their new stadium there are more visiting fans! Is it good for the Chargers that they moved? They are now like an orphan team. Why do they exist? Is it so bad for San Diego that they left? That is still a good California city.
The same with Oakland and Raiders.
#52 by theslothook // Apr 14, 2023 - 1:07pm
I don't think they get subsidies entirely due to the threat of moving because after all, the new city also usually is subsidizing the franchise. I think it happens for the same reasons lots of bad economic policies get passed - by popular demand. Farm subsidies, tariffs, mortgage interest deductions - these are all very popular among the broader public even though the net effect is not what they think it is.
To quote Tom Sargent; "Stop me if you have heard this before. But the argument is these subsidies will create jobs that will pay for themselves." People buy this line of argument hook, line, and sinker without a spec of evidence to back it up. Why? Because it makes them feel good.
Its economic ignorance that is to blame. But again, I don't want to sound patronizing. I am largely and willfully ignorant about astronomy, physics, and chemistry. Life comes with finite amounts of time and people have finite amounts of interest.
#34 by theslothook // Apr 14, 2023 - 10:33am
Perhaps contrary to most people, I don't hate the owners. Most of the time, I think they are largely irrelevant.
Also contrary to most people, I don't despise the uber wealthy. Most of them got wealthy being entrepreneurs who started companies and grew the economy.
My dislike for Snyder in particular began way before it became clear just what kind of sick horror show he was running. FO has detailed in lengthy fashion all of the ways his influence has ruined the team, including decisions to leap head first into free agency every year. Trading away draft picks for veterans; chasing after broken down players because of name value and then undermining his coaches at every chance because he thinks he knows better than the people in charge. As I wrote above, all of that I can understand being a fan myself even though its incredibly destructive to the on the field product he cares deeply about.
#51 by theslothook // Apr 14, 2023 - 12:55pm
I just don't like how much influence they have, how that influence can be anonymous, I think they should pay more taxes than the average person, etc.
I am going to assume; perhaps incorrectly, that you are saying that taxing the uber wealthy would curb some of their power. I rather think the opposite - the uber wealthy now have a stronger incentive to pervert the tax system. But even so; I would put the blame on our institutions such that elites can pervert the system in the first place. I have long been in favor of massively overhauling our campaign finance system. Its catnip to cronyism as evidenced by just who is donating to whom in these political races.
Beyond that; I also don't like taxing people as some kind of inequality leveler. Taxes, at least by economic theory, are there to pay for public goods and other market failures with the least amount of distortion possible. I don't think most people view the tax system that way, but that's where I start.
Finally; even if we instituted a total flat tax system; the rich would be paying more in absolute terms than the average person. To give away even more of my political views; I personally think rather than argue about rates being too high or too low or not progressive enough; I would rather overhaul the entire tax code itself and redesign it based on efficiency and leave the rates to someone else to decide what is appropriate. The goal really should be about maximizing economic growth - the very thing that benefits our future generations.
#61 by Aaron Brooks G… // Apr 14, 2023 - 2:28pm
I also don't like taxing people as some kind of inequality leveler. Taxes, at least by economic theory, are there to pay for public goods and other market failures with the least amount of distortion possible.
That is one of the purposes of taxes. Taxes increase the velocity of currency through the economy. Monopolies and monopsonies are characterized by stagnant current velocity.
Basically, currency has gravity; it tends to pool in one place. Pools don't have much current. If you want to increase the speed of currency through your economy, you need to keep it from pooling. Taxes are one way of doing that.
#66 by theslothook // Apr 14, 2023 - 2:48pm
I am not familiar with this mechanism. Taxes don't destroy monopolies or monopsonies. By textbook theory, onr can tax just enough to offset the rents they earn; but that doesn't actually break them. You need anti-trust laws for that.
Taxes are, almost universally by economists anyway, a negative effect on economic growth. That doesn't mean their existence is unjustified. They are needed to raise revenue for the market failure reasons I listed above. All of those are purely economic reasons.
Above and beyond that; I think it becomes a matter of personal philosophy what else we need to tax for. Lest people misunderstand; I do think there are reasons for taxes besides economic one's.
#67 by Aaron Brooks G… // Apr 14, 2023 - 4:52pm
In an extremely simple explanation -- poor people spent a larger percentage of their income than rich people spend of theirs. The economy therefore spends more when the same amount of wealth is spent by poor people than by rich people. To the extent you can siphon some surplus wealth from the rich and divert it to the poor, net purchasing increases.
In the Depression, the wealth hadn't disappeared -- the spending disappeared. There was just as much stuff as before, it was just that no one was buying it. And if no one buys, everything else collapses.
I suspect the mechanism here is like shot efficiency in basketball, or play selection in football. You need to run the occasional non-efficient play (taxes), because occasionally doing so increases the efficiency of everything else (more spending). But if you only ever run the most efficient play, the defense will take that away, because they know what you are going to do.
You don't want to go crazy with taxes for the same reason you don't run a QB sneak on 3rd-long from your own goal line.
\Also, don't let Joe Judge and Matt Patricia run your economy.
#75 by theslothook // Apr 14, 2023 - 7:04pm
I don't think this view is held by most mainstream economists. Even the classical Keynesians advocated for borrowing and spending as opposed to taxation. And even then, the evidence for this multiplier is pretty murky at best.
Your description of the dynamics references an older period in economic thinking; namely this sort of hydraulic view of the economy as if it were an engine at a point in time. Modern macro has moved on and thinks in terms of inter-temporal decision making and future planning. It would be almost impossible to publish a paper in economics nowadays with this sort of hydraulic model in mind.
#117 by theslothook // Apr 17, 2023 - 2:32pm
Actually, per Robert Barro and the Ricardian Equivalence theorem; there is no difference between borrowing and spending vs taxing and spending. This + the empirical results along with the Lucas Critique effectively destroyed classical Keynesian theory. The simple proposition that spending money could solve short term aggregate demand management.
#119 by theslothook // Apr 17, 2023 - 3:43pm
No, it's a theorem. Meaning, if the following assumptions are true; then the following is logically correct.
I think most economists agree, the assumptions do not always hold but it does force you to recognize which of the assumptions do not hold, what the implications are for it, and then come up with alternatives. However, the theorem + the evidence basically shot down the very simple Keynesian theory about stimulus spending; something almost all economics departments have accepted. Unfortunately, successive administrations, both Republican and Democrat; continue to peddle this theory even as most economists don't believe it themselves.
#77 by ChrisS // Apr 14, 2023 - 8:37pm
I think using taxes to limit great wealth is a valid option. Great wealth can be/is used for capture of the the political elite and results in policies that benefit the extremely wealthy. Back in the 50's - 60's when income & wealth distribution was much narrower, politics were not a fight to the death and compromise was the norm resulting generally better legislation and progress. Extremes in wealth do not generally result in healthy societies.
#78 by theslothook // Apr 14, 2023 - 8:50pm
I appreciate this response. History is a bit checkered about the causal nature of corruption and wealth.
Back in the 50's - 60's when income & wealth distribution was much narrower, politics were not a fight to the death and compromise was the norm resulting generally better legislation and progress. Extremes in wealth do not generally result in healthy societies.
I think its important to recognize that in the 50s and 60s, while the stated tax rates were indeed very high; there were so many loopholes that no one actually paid those taxes. If you look at the tax revenue paid by the top 1 percent or top 10 percent, it has been remarkably stable over time. Basically the percentages have not budged whether you were in the high tax periods of the 50s and 60s or the lower tax periods under Reagan and Bush. Basically, no one was actually paying those taxes.
But even beyond that, I am less bothered about wealth, especially since a lot of the wealth that these rich have is in the form of stock valuations. Basically, a lot of money held in Tesla or Amazon. Much less of it is in liquid cash or easy to value at assets. I am not sure how keeping wealth in this form implies a perversion of the system. But even so, I'd be much happier instead of taking away money to prevent the corruption of the system that we instead focus on not allowing our systems to be corrupted in the first place.
As one example, the tax code is made deliberately complicated in an effort to avoid paying taxes. If instead we made it much simpler and transparent; naked attempts to corrupt it would be more obvious.
I guess this is probably where my world view is in the minority. Fairly won wealth does not offend me and I don't think it has to imply corruption of our institutions. Lots of extremely poor countries have horrible institutions without corrupting forces by the wealthy.
Anyways, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
#80 by guest from Europe // Apr 15, 2023 - 3:37am
Lots of extremely poor countries have horrible institutions without corrupting forces by the wealthy.
Usually in such countries the same small group of people are the wealthy and running the institutions. In such cases to get wealthy you need to have political or criminal power first. Not necessarily have to run the institutions, but "have their approval". I know of such cases.
The greatest tool in human history to get rich and powerfull was and is to fight wars, big or small.
#103 by LionInAZ // Apr 16, 2023 - 11:36pm
Taxation is not the biggest problem. It's the overrepresentation in lobbying, combined with the multiplied influence in campaign funding -- not just personal contributions, but also the unlimited corporate funding OK'd by our wonderful "citizen"-first Supreme Court.
#116 by bravehoptoad // Apr 17, 2023 - 2:22pm
It explained a lot to me when I realized the US was a place where the strongest lobby usually wins.
My favorite example is the Fat vs. Sugar wars in the 70s and 80s, and the fight over which of them would be "blamed" for heart disease & obesity. Sugar won that war for decades because they had a strong lobby. There was no "Big Fat" to counteract "Big Sugar," and the science of it was pretty irrelevant.
#56 by BigRichie // Apr 14, 2023 - 2:13pm
It's a pretty basic aspect of human nature to see those with a lot more stuff than I have as just plain lucky, and those with a lot less as not working as hard and as smart as I do. But in reality, some 80% or so of us choose to specialize in one or the other of those perspectives, while patting ourselves on the back that we don't do any of the other, unlike so many others.
#45 by carlosla // Apr 14, 2023 - 12:20pm
I struggle understand how your first question (“why do people care about who owns the team?”) is a question you could have.
All ‘hiring’ — in the broadest sense: hiring of staff, drafting and signing players — flows from the hires that the owner makes at the top of the pyramid.
Ownership is literally the highest leverage position in professional sports. Effective owners will win more over time than ineffective ones… tho ofc the NFL has relatively few “events” and luck can play a big role.
The principle problem most *fans* have with Snyder is that he has been a colossally ineffective owner. Never won more than 10 games. 2 playoff wins in *24* years. This after buying a team that had been one of the 4-ish best teams of the prior 25 years.
The secondary problem most fans have with Snyder is that while the quality of the product has drifted down (both the on-field product and the fan experience in stadium, etc.), he has continued to gouge fans thru a lot of, effectively, junk fee pricing. There’s probably nothing unusual about this, but when your product sucks, it irks fans all the more.
Then there are other reasons his fellow owners probably hate him. He’s almost certainly stolen from them. His corrupt, disgusting and embarrassing regime has become public many times over and hence in a market that should lend itself to a windfall stadium build (due to DC, VA and MD competing for the stadium under normal circumstances), even *politicians* won’t stick their necks out for ownership the way the NFL would expect. He’s costing his fellow owners money!
#62 by Aaron Brooks G… // Apr 14, 2023 - 2:30pm
He's also bringing federal investigation into overall team ownership and embroiling them all in (expensive!) related litigation.
Snyder had become such an anchor around the neck of the NFL I was starting to question whether or not there was a serious chance another owner would have him assassinated.
#69 by guest from Europe // Apr 14, 2023 - 5:35pm
All ‘hiring’ — in the broadest sense: hiring of staff, drafting and signing players — flows from the hires that the owner makes at the top of the pyramid.
Ownership is literally the highest leverage position in professional sports. Effective owners will win more over time than ineffective ones… tho ofc the NFL has relatively few “events” and luck can play a big role.
Do you really think that one old person who is a businessman and not a sports person can decide in advance when hiring someone who will be a great coach, who can draft well, who will do good in the world of sports competition? In another words Rams' owner knew that McVay would be a great coach? Wasn't it the same Rams' owner when they were really bad a decade prior? And the same owner when they were GSOT Rams? Did the Patriots' owner order his staff to cheat no matter what? Did the Saints' owner do the same for Saints cheating to the title?
Theslothook can give you a lot of data and he has written an article here that basically states that no team can draft better players than the rest of the league. It can't be done. No GM or front office is that good.
It's sports. Players play, coaches coach them and call plays. Owners can just do bad things by interfering. I don't see how they can help.
The rest what you wrote is about bad business, money and so on. Not sports.
#85 by carlosla // Apr 15, 2023 - 10:43am
Apparently you are a guest from Europe, so I will be polite to the guest.
Your question is not the right one: whether someone can “decide in advance.” Generally not, though clearly some are better at hiring than others.
But you can have a proper performance mgt culture and correct mistakes in hiring, drafting etc… or you can fail to do that.
Fwiw, I hypothesize, but cannot prove, that *player development* is a set of processes that can be honed and lead to long term sustainable advantage. I would posit that this is MUCH more important than drafting and FA signings.
Soccer — football to our European guest — is full of anecdotal evidence of this. Arteta’s Arsenal right now. Wenger’s early Arsenal. The RB clubs. The Belgian golden generation after the Belgian football association completely remade the national player dev system. San Antonio Spurs and GS Warriors. I’d argue the Steelers are an NFL example.
#87 by theslothook // Apr 15, 2023 - 11:15am
Sorry to wade into this, but he referenced my name above and he's right, I have touched on this topic in the past.
It's interesting you named the Spurs and the warriors. A cynic might observe their recent track record and conclude the day Duncan and Curry got drafted was the day suddenly the culture turned for them. And the day Duncan aged out and Kawhi forced a trade, the Spurs overnight became irrelevant.
Let me be clear though. I do think coaching and player development and hiring and culture matter in broader organizations. I myself have worked for extremely toxic companies in the past. But, and here's where my general viewpoint comes in, I think talent trumps all of that. The day Peyton Manning steps into your organization, your offense is going to be really good no matter bad your culture is.
The Redskins/Commanders, despite Dan being an awful owner, have actually had a decent amount of success. They've also managed to draft pretty well when they haven't thrown their picks away on horrible trades.
There are some very very small exceptions. Andy Reid and Belichick can elevate beyond their roster quality and the Ravens have shown a persistent ability to draft and develop defense. And the Miami Heat have done a good job developing useful role players out of the g league. But those are all very rare examples.
#93 by guest from Europe // Apr 15, 2023 - 12:15pm
I think Popovic can't do it alone for Spurs because basketball is a much simpler sport where player talent is crucial and because he can't call every play schematically like in football, it flows more.
There are some very very small exceptions. Andy Reid and Belichick can elevate beyond their roster quality
Also, Joe Gibbs was probably the best coach of the 80's and the Redskins had a lot of success during his tenure despite players at important positions being replaced. They have less success now, but are not bad under Rivera.
#89 by guest from Europe // Apr 15, 2023 - 11:29am
Well, i agree with all of this.
Fwiw, I hypothesize, but cannot prove, that *player development* is a set of processes that can be honed and lead to long term sustainable advantage. I would posit that this is MUCH more important than drafting and FA signings.
To me this is coaching and coaches are the most important people in the club, long term more important than any player. The European examples you wrote are based on coaching up young players.
But you can have a proper performance mgt culture and correct mistakes in hiring, drafting etc… or you can fail to do that.
This is team management and should be done properly. I don't think a team owner or any one person should do this, but the whole front office should do this. This is too complex for any one owner to be able to micromanage it successfully.
Where is the disagreement? Is it because i think that coaching and player talent is much more important than team management? (The Redskins were quite good in the RGIII year) Or do you think that good owners are involved in hiring of coaches and drafting and they decide which players to keep? I wrote the Rams example because their success and failure at various times doesn't have anything to do with the owner, the same guy.
I wrote that a team owner can do a lot of bad by bad management interference with employees like in any company. I don't see at the moment how some owner can contribute a lot positively. If there was no salary cap, than yes. He would do so by giving larger salaries to players and thus attracting free agents.
#97 by carlosla // Apr 15, 2023 - 2:56pm
Maybe we mostly agree!
I think the comment abt whether an owner can get there via micromgt is a straw person.
Ownership, like CEO-ship in publicly traded companies, matters a ton. That person makes the key hire at the top of the pyramid and is ultimately accountable for culture and resource allocation. That’s different than asserting the *owner* is the one deciding every resource allocation decision, but the owner is the one accountable (and empowered) to create the framework within which all that happens.
Snyder is actually a pretty interesting example, b/c he was — especially in the early years — very willing to spend a ton of money. He just spent it really poorly, hired rotating cast of bozos and clearly did not create a positive culture in any sense. I know that fits your model where owners can do harm… I do think there are plenty of owners who do better than “not causing harm.” The Rooneys, Bob Kraft, Lurie, Paul Allen seemed good…
#101 by guest from Europe // Apr 16, 2023 - 4:49am
Yes, the owner and front office create the framework. As I wrote in my original response to you, players play and coaches coach them. This is what matters. They do it within this team framework and within NFL rules.
If you look at a painting, the painting itself, the art matters, not the frame that holds it.
I don't see how this Kraft owner matters that much. For example, the problem the Patriots had last year was caused by Patricia's coaching, not something that Kraft did. Their defense was great again because of Belichick's coaching, not because of Kraft or facilities or management. It can be argued that Belichick is a bad GM. He is so great a coach that he overcomes even that.
Maybe Bienemy will be your mcvay and everything will be better. If that happens, keep in mind that it's because of such a coach (who was hired by this horrible owner Snyder) and not because of the new owner in the photo above. Then again, maybe Bienemy will be your adam gase.
Sidenote: Joe Gibbs was a great, great coach. Those 80's Redskins were very flexible and great because of his scheme and coaching, not because of some owner. They could beat the Bears at the peak of their power, such as in 1986. The 1991 Redskins were the best team ever. 17-2 and a slightly better DVOA than 18-1 2007 Patriots. You know this better than me. This is a very high, unsustainable level. Last decades aren't that good, but aren't horrible like Browns. It's similar to Giants or Broncos or Raiders nowadays, not as good as in the glory days. Giants have the same owner and framework and it doesn't mean much success on the field.
"Team culture" and PR stuff and appearances and racist behaviour is a bad frame to the current team. I fully acknowledge this.
What Steelers' owners do is let the coaches coach for a very long time and not interfere, as much as i can tell... There is an owner where he is all over the team and he changes coaches and players and team is constantly above average, solid, good. That would be Jerry Jones. I don't think that is a good framework either, but emphirical data are in his favour.
#46 by Never Surrender // Apr 14, 2023 - 12:25pm
Another question: why do people care about who owns the team? This Snyder is a bad person, so people despise him.
As a long-time Redskins fan, I cared a lot that Snyder owned the team, and not just because he's a bad person.
Many decisions made by ownership directly affect the team's ability to succeed on the field. Team cohesiveness is often a fragile thing: if a coach's authority is undermined, or if players suspect someone is getting unfair treatment, they are no longer all-in and there's a real snowball effect that ends in failure.
Snyder's ownership was so toxic that many coaches and players would not seriously consider coming to DC to coach/play. He overrode what his coaches and personnel managers wanted to draft particular players (who of course turned out to be flops). We never had the roster we could or should have had.
For decades we've had a lot of players that came to the team and milked it for what they could, making "business decisions" that protected them personally but harmed the team's chances for success. I was rooting for players that were looking out for themselves above all. That gets real old.
I care who owns the team because an incompetent and greedy owner translates to a terrible experience for fans on gameday. I've been to a half-dozen games and have only once or twice enjoyed the experience overall. I have more than once turned down free tickets in favor of watching at home.
A good owner runs his franchise in a way that maximizes his team's chances for success and makes being a fan enjoyable. That's why I care who owns the Commanders. It was fun to be a Redskins fan about 1/20th of the time, for brief stretches where things were going well and you could start to believe. The rest of the time was futile, disappointing, unpleasant, and frustrating. And because we knew that the problems were beginning and always coming from the top, the fact that Snyder seemed dead-set on owning the Skins forever made being a fan an exercise in pain and despair.
#70 by guest from Europe // Apr 14, 2023 - 5:54pm
So he was a bad team president who interfered with and abused employees a lot. Such behaviour in another business would ruin the company, it would at least lose some money. Maybe that's why it would be good if teams who perform badly would be relegated to a lower league or would lose money in some manner. Or you, the fans of such teams run a public protest against such an owner or something.
Edit:
The rest of the time was futile, disappointing, unpleasant, and frustrating. And because we knew that the problems were beginning and always coming from the top,
If you fans (plural) were so unhappy, you should make it unpleasant for the owner. You can go to the stadium and sing something to him like
snyder go away,
we don't want you here
if 50 000-60 000 fans would do this every game for 2 hours, it would be very bad for him and no TV network could tone it down all the time. You could organize and put very large written messages in the stands against the owner...
that might make you feel better. That you chose not to take free tickets, but still watch it on TV and feel frustrated, i don't understand.
#64 by dryheat // Apr 14, 2023 - 2:35pm
Why do people want to know what some "owner" said or did or held a press conference?
Why do a whole lot of people care about a Kardashian, Hilton, or <insert social influencer> that they'll never talk to or get within 100 yards of and likely wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire? People are strange.
At least there's a non-trivial trickle-down elements of a football team's success that tie back to the owner, many of which have already been mentioned.
#74 by guest from Europe // Apr 14, 2023 - 6:54pm
Some other thoughts about NFL owners:
Dolphins' owner was found recently trying to sign a player while he was under a contract with another team. He was basically trying to cheat other teams off the field. Punishment for this is that he can't appear in team's facilities for a year. Why isn't he punished for a lifetime?
When Saints were found to be cheating by unsportsmanlike behaviour on the field why were coaches punished and not the owner? Why didn't the owner take responsibility?
The same with Patriots multiple times. Patriots' owner is considered to be a "great owner" because they win. Where was he in all of things that they did? He had no responsibility? Would fans want such an owner of their team? If he knew nothing of cheating, why is he a great owner?
#111 by guest from Europe // Apr 17, 2023 - 11:48am
What worked? Cheating to win? Did these owners knew and endorse this or not? If they create "the team culture" and they are at the top of responsibility, why aren't they punished, banned, forced to sold, after found to be cheaters? Why are only coaches punished? (I think that owners don't contribute much and didn't know this. Shouldn't be punished for something they didn't do, but shouldn't be handed the Super Bowl trophy that they didn't achieve.)
Why are you then condemning Snyder for cheating other owners for money?
In Italy the most popular club, Juventus was found to be cheating. They were stripped of their titles and banished from 1st league to 4th league. Their players left.
As for Maradona's fans, that is something completely different. Totally irrational. Highest of high emotions. Delirium for years. Higher than love. Nobody was ever adored like that. Very unhealthy. People who love him, love him more than their family, than their parents, have tattoos of him, grafitti of him all over cities etc. Nobody comes close. I don't exacurate. That ruined him to a slow and long decay.
#121 by guest from Europe // Apr 18, 2023 - 1:38pm
I just realized that this J. Harris was the owner of 76ers when they did multi-year tanking in the NBA and he comes from Wall Street.
It will be interesting if he does such "the process" with Commandrs. Or will he do what D. Morey does for him now (trade for stars at all costs) in 76ers? That would mean they trade for Rodgers..