Best owners in sports (past and present)

I have a lot of family in the OC and they are rabid Angels fans. Been to a few games at the Big A and it's a great spot. My cousin was telling me one of the first things Moreno did after buying the team was lower the price of parking and beer. That's a great way to get the fans on your side right out of the gate.

 

Pat Bowlen should get more kudos, Care Bear (Yeah ... I know. A couple of Broncos fans are going to send me their ER bills if they survive the heart attacks).

Jerry Richardson deserves some kudos in Charlotte. Brought that area an NFL franchise, then found a way to build quite a nice stadium using entirely private funds. (Mizzou, this reason is enough to disqualify Eddie DeBartolo from consideration ... the man tried to count votes from the deceased to weasel a new stadium out of the city of San Francisco, yet he had money to throw around? Screw that.)

The Hunt family in Kansas City should also be considered for more kudos around here. I mean the Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs and the AFL as a whole, not to mention the way he always handled himself (similar to Wellington Mara)? C'mon.

 

Can't even get a decent free agent for that any more.

 

The "Los Angeles" thing still pisses me off to no end, but he's been such a great owner on every other level that I will cut him a ton of slack.

 

Moreno can call his team the Los Angeles Angels all he wants, and the media can go along.

They still play in Anaheim.

I'd have to agree with Buck ... and besides, there are still plenty of fans to be had outside L.A. SoCal is a big place... especially with the Padres tanking.

 

Past division: Lamar Hunt, Wellington Mara, Art Rooney, Walter Brown, William K. Wrigley, Walter/Peter O'Malley (even though he's Satan in New York)
Recent/present division: Mel/Herb Simon, Jerry Buss, Arte Moreno, Peter Magowan, the Busch family w/the Cards.

 

William K. Wrigley as best? Am I missing something?

 

William invested very, very heavily in the Cubs when he was an owner, and they were an elite franchise in the NL when he ran the show. He invested heavily into Wrigley Field, instituted the idea of "Ladies' Day," thereby creating the Cubs as a neighborhood brand, owned one of the premier PCL teams when it was a minor league, and owned Catalina Island. He and William Veeck were very instrumental in building the Cubs' brand in the 1920s and 1930s.

When he died and son Phil took over, things went downhill VERY fast. When grandson Bill took over, Bruce Sutter was given to the Cardinals for a bag of baseballs. But William was a great owner -- the Wrigleys are the anti-Irsays. As much as things got better when Bob Irsay died & Jim took over for the Colts, things got worse when William died and Phil took over with the Cubs.

 

My brain-fart -- I was confusing William with awful, awful Phil, who is the spiritual forebear of Dan Snyder's current College of Coaches.

 

Art Rooney Sr. was a lovable man, but a terrible owner.

His son, Dan, probably is the best.

 

Can't give you this one. He was great for the Lakers, but allowed the Kings to wallow around in mediocrity at best for the length of his ownership.

 

There's this little gambling bugaboo surrounding the Rooneys. Oh, I hate to be the poopy pants while all the Steeler fans spurt their joy juice all over the place once again, but it is out there -- and has been for a long time.

Of the course, never thoroughly investigated.