BAD OWNERS

 

 

               That life is unfair is a sad truth, easily confirmed if one’s favorite sports teams have seemed doomed for long periods. The saving grace is that just about every fan group has had the experience at one time or another. About the only exception has been backers of the baseball New York Yankees, but even that team has had occasional bad patches, and those among them who also root for the basketball Knicks or football Jets know prolonged misery. Losing is democratic, one might conclude.  

               But if sports’ normal vicissitudes can be rough, another factor can make them rougher. That would be the presence of a bad owner, one whose actions, or lack thereof, exacerbate the on-field failures. Most of us form our sports allegiances in youth and are pretty much stuck with them for life. The owner is the person in best position to make a team’s fans happy, and when he or she persistently falls short fan enmity can run high. And unlike bad politicians, who can be voted out, the bad owner is there for as long as he or she wishes to stay. Democratic, it ain’t.

               Team owners in big-time American sports come mostly from two sources-- success in another business or a happy accident of birth. People who have made a bundle oft times believe that anything they touch will turn to gold. Beneficiaries of inherited wealth and position tend to be like it was said of George W. Bush, a baseball team owner (the Texas Rangers) before becoming the capital “P” President-- born on third base thinking they’d hit triples. Neither path is any guarantee of sports success.

             The list of bad ownership situations in American sports is a long one, too long to be treated in a brief essay such as this, but football season is starting so I’ll deal here only with the National Football League. When the criterion is the performance of a team on the field, the best example is the Detroit Lions, whose ongoing record of ineptitude stands alone in any game.

               Interestingly, the Lions’ ownership combines both of the two origin paths laid out above. Since 1961 they’ve been the property of the Ford family, which made its fortune in… well, you know what… but whose present top officer meets any silver-spoon definition. Ironically, the family’s signal role in the last century’s industrial revolution belies its on-field failure in the football biz.

 The Lions have been NFL members since 1930 but have won only four league titles, the last in 1957. Since then—a span of 65 years-- they’ve won just one playoff game, in 1991. They are one of four teams never to have been in the Super Bowl, the others being the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans. In this century they’ve had but five plus-.500 years and three post-season appearances. With a 2021 won-lost record of 3-14, that isn’t expected to change much this season.   

               Ford ownership began with William Clay Ford Sr., grandson of Henry and son of Edsel. William was in the family business for a spell, mostly as a designer; his claim to fame there was his role in fashioning the 1956 Lincoln Continental Mark II. By all accounts he was a nice man who let others handle the Lions’ day-to-day doings. As an executive he was “too patient, too forgiving,” according to one associate quoted in the Los Angeles Times’ obituary following his death at age 89 in 2014.

               William’s patience seemingly waned in the later years of his 53-year reign because the team has run through 12 different head coaches and six general managers since 2000. In 2014 the team’s chairmanship passed to his widow, Martha Firestone Ford. Six years later, at age 93, she passed it to her daughter, Sheila Hamp Ford. Now 71 years old, Mrs. Hamp’s academic degree is in early-childhood education. Her husband, Steve Hamp, is a former Ford exec, keeping everything in the family, as it were.

 The Lions’ gridiron travails haven’t hurt the Fords’ net worth; thanks mostly to the nation’s thirst for media content the team is valued at about $3 billion now, quite a bump from the $4.5 million William paid for it. The Fords may be crying all the way to the bank but Lions’ fans are just crying.

Just as the Lions’ ownership was an easy worst in the performance department, the worst-behaving-owner category also has a clear winner. He’s Daniel Snyder, boss of the Washington Commanders. Snyder made his money in what’s called “mass marketing,” a category that includes the all-ads TV screens that hang in doctors’ offices and office-building lobbies. He bought the team in 1999. He’s since been accused by team cheerleaders and other female employees of tolerating rampant sexual harassment in the work place, and reportedly has settled a $1.6 million lawsuit for that against him personally.

 He clung to the team’s odious “Redskins” nickname for 21 years before giving way and changing it (to the innocuous “Commanders”). He’s been accused of short-changing other NFL teams of visitors’ gate revenues and keeping two sets of books to hide it, allowing the team’s Fedex Field home to run down, attempting to intimidate witnesses in league proceedings against him and stiffing a Congressional inquiry by fleeing to the Mediterranean Sea in his yacht.  On the field his teams have had a sub-.500 won-lost record during his tenure and have had five straight losing seasons. He’s said to be the least-popular man in the nation’s capital, no small distinction.

One easily can conclude that Snyder also is less than beloved by his fellow owners. He could be ordered to sell the team by a three-fourths vote of those 31, but they have been loath to move against him except for a $10 million fine. That’s probably because they know he could do what they might in his situation, which is invoke the Donald Trump Defense by claiming victimhood and suing everyone in sight, tying up the matter for years.  Thus they, like the folks in D.C., are stuck with him. As my mother would have said, they should have been more careful.