Best owners in sports (past and present)

How about the good people of Green Bay, Wisconsin?

*taking off Packer fanboi hat*

That's really quite a weird arrangement there. But it seems to work.

 

Didn't Art Rooney buy the Steelers with horse-track winnings?

 

Not Rooneys, plural, but Dan Rooney as the team sucked ass for years and years and years under Art Sr. until Dan started running the show.

 

"Let the hate flow through you."

Bob Cook is correct. There really isn't much to investigate regarding Art Rooney. The man was a professional gambler when he founded the Steelers.

This is one reason I specifically mentioned Dan Rooney and not his father. Art Rooney is a beloved figure in Pittsburgh, but he wasn't a particularly good owner and he was a gambler. His other sons are also very openly involved in gambling, which is why the team was put up for sale recently.

All of this has been above board. If you've got evidence that Dan Rooney himself is involved in gambling, please share. Right now, all you have is guilt by association and your own hate for the organization.

 

I'm more of a roguish Tusken Raider sort, and I take good care of zee skin.

Bob is right. Follow that line of thought. Without the old man's questionable purchase of the team, Danny Boy gets nowhere near the Pittsburgh Steelers. Just because Junior wants to buy out his family members in the last few years doesn't mean some shady stuff hasn't been happening there for the last 20 or 30.

 

Great. Offer up some proof. Right now all you've got is the source of the franchise fee in the 1930s.

 

Not my errand. You go write about it.

As a family, the Rooneys have been deeply entrenched in gambling. This is a fact. It sucks that facts can disappoint or even scare us, but pulling up our pants and accepting it is part of growing up.

 

The Rooney family owns racetracks with slots and poker rooms at some of the locations. Last time I checked, that was legal. Art Sr.'s parley at Saratoga on the other hand...

Leonard Tose laughes at these accusations.

 

It's not legal if you very much want to own a professional football team, not according to the constitution and by-laws, nohow.

You guys want to throw Art out of the equation. He is the patriarch of the family and the organization, for fuck's sake.

It won't do.

 

He has also been dead for over 20 years. Nobody is thowing him out. But we are drawing a distinction between him and Dan Rooney as owners. Art was a beloved figure who had some serious flaws as an owner. Dan is one of the best owners in professional sports by every measure.

And you are dead wrong saying it is my errand. You are the one making accusations that you can't back up. Utter and complete fail on your part. I have no problem looking at the man's flaws. But I do have a problem with assuming the worst about him based on things his father did over 75 years ago.

 

Listen up, because I'm starting to lose my patience and I'm just not going to tangle with you all day: Because Art is the source, and all flowed through him in almost every real sense for 55 years, and the Steelers built an historic dynasty under Art and not under his pinhead son, what sonny has done is not material. The organization might have been stained for over a half-century and just cleaned up either very recently or after Art's death in the late '80s. But it is stained. And I think Dan has received some heavy criticism -- and I don't have time to look this up for you, sorry -- for property taxes not paid or deferred on Heinz Field.

 

Oh, I'm sorry. It bothers you when I challenge the accusations you don't bother to back up? Maybe because you can't?

I found three or four stories with references to the tax issue in about two minutes on Google, but I'm not going to do your research for you. If you are going to attack the guy, show your work. Otherwise, it's just more hateful rants from somebody who still hasn't gotten over Super Bowl XL.

Dan Rooney was running the organization in the '70s, not his father. The old man was still the face of the franchise, but he wasn't the one making the day-to-day decisions any more. I'm sorry if that is too complex for you to understand, but that is the reality.

I know you desperately want everything the Steelers have ever done to be tainted. And believe me, there are some issues. I know them well, but you don't. You're just tossing any crap you can find at the wall. Do better or don't waste our time any more.