Peter Golenbock is an important author. Just ask him and he will tell you just how important he is.
(I once shared a pre-game meal with Mr. Golenbock in media dining. The next day, when I said hello to him, he said “oh, you probably recognize me from ESPN Classic.” Seriously. I just ate with him 24 hours earlier.)
Mr. Golenbock has descended from whichever ivory tower he is currently hanging out in to compare the Rays to the Brooklyn Dodgers in the most recent issue of Creative Loafing. (Note to CL. Publishing poorly researched stories in a desperate attempt to make some waves is what landed you in Chapter 11 earlier this year. Maybe it is time for a different editorial philosophy…no?).
Golenbock’s comparison is based on the fact that Brooklyn Dodgers played in Brooklyn and Stu Sternberg grew up in Brooklyn and, well, not much else.
Attention Rays fans. Do. Not. Drink. The. Kool-Aid.
This is not a repeat of the Dodgers’ story for two GIGANTIC reasons:
- The markets the Rays are rumored to be heading to are not Los Angeles; and
- Bill Foster is not Robert Moses.
According to Golenbock the Rays have considered a move to “Charlotte, San Antonio, Sacramento, Las Vegas, or if [Sternberg] could, northern New Jersey, or in a perfect world, Brooklyn.” That, somehow, is akin to the Dodgers decision to be the first Major League Baseball team in the nation’s second-biggest city and the first Major League Baseball team in ALL OF CALIFORNIA. Sounds about the same right? I mean, Charlotte has never had a team.
Tell me why local leaders should be scared of Charlotte, San Antonio, Sacramento or Vegas? Those are all markets that are similar to the Tampa Bay. They are named as potential locations for the Rays because the Rays can’t credibly threaten to move without identifying some place they could, in theory, go. When O’Malley threatened to move, he could hold Los Angeles over New York’s head. Stu is stuck with the bustling metropolis of San Antonio or forclosure-ridden Vegas. Those are not threats that strike fear in the hearts of men.
More importantly, the struggle between Walter O’Malley and Robert Moses was a clash of the titans. O’Malley was one of baseball’s most powerful and wealthy owners. Moses, in case you have never heard of him, is one of the top-5 most powerful political leaders in the history of this country (excluding Presidents). If you don’t believe me, read Robert Caro’s 1200-page tome on Moses titled The Power Broker. O’Malley and Moses shaped the City of New York and were not accustomed to opposition. There was simply no way that either O’Malley or Moses was going to compromise simply because neither of them ever compromised. They both had to win because their entire future in the City of New York was built upon their unbending power. Plus, both O’Malley and Moses were holding guns. Moses had full authority over O’Malley’s request for a stadium and O’Malley had a real option to re-locate in Los Angeles. That deal could not happen without one man blinking. And neither man had eyelids.
Stu Sternberg is a finance-geek and Bill Foster is the mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida. Hardly a confrontation that will be remembered in the annals of history. (Why else do you think Creative Loafing is the only paper willing to print this?) Sternberg is, by his very nature, a dealmaker. Foster, has no leverage. You don’t have to be a professional mediator to see that this is a situation full of bluster that will ultimately end in compromise. Neither guy can afford to call the other’s bluff because they have no alternatives.
Peter Golenbock, however, sees beyond our obvious read on the situation. And, if you don’t see it, that only proves you aren’t as smart as Peter Golenbock. I mean, just ask him, he’ll tell you just as soon as he is finished with ESPN Classic.
*By the way, I think Peter Golenbock is the most distinguished inductee in the Blow-it.com fraternity…
Excellent take on Golenbock.
Thanks. His next story will be a cover story in Creative Loafing comparing the recently failed transit referendum to the roads in Ancient Rome.
Note to self: Don’t get into pissing contest with Mark.
Well done, sir.
Thanks Jason. I just think it is such a lazy comparison for Golenbock to make. But, in November, what else are you going to do if you are a struggling tabloid paper, fresh out of re-organizing in bankruptcy, and without a viable economic model? You are going to print a lazy story in the hopes that it stirs up some controversy…
Mark, as you know we’re discussing the Golenbock article over at IIATMS. http://bit.ly/ch4Num.
I’ve commented there, but I’ll comment here as well. Getting a new stadium built is an ugly business. So long as baseball is determined to get state and local governments to finance the construction of new ballparks, we fans are going to have to put up with this ugliness. It happened in NY too — to get the City to help finance the new Yankee Stadium, the Yankees threatened to pack up and take the team to New Jersey. You have an in-state example of how ugly this can get, with the Marlins (allegedly) lying to local leaders about the team’s profitability in order to get more public financing for their new ballpark.
I take it you all hope that the Trop can be replaced with something suitable without all this ugliness. I hope you’re right and good luck.
I agree with you on a number of key points. First, there is no city that is a good candidate for the Rays’ possible location. Maury Brown and Rob Neyer have both written about this. Next, Sternberg is no O’Malley. It appears that Sternberg is an ideal owner, who has done nearly everything right since taking over the Rays’ ownership.
My main beef with Golenbock is that he never looked at the Rays’ financial situation, to see if the Rays could continue to afford a $70 million payroll. He has the leaked Rays’ 2007 and 2008 financial statements available to him at deadspin.com. From these statements, it’s pretty obvious that the Rays lost money in 2009 and 2010. It make business sense for Sternberg to absorb those losses, to give the Rays time to establish themselves as a terrific young team, and to see if this would drive local revenues higher. It does not appear that the Rays’ local revenues in 2009 or 2010 were any higher than they were in 2008. I do not blame the Rays’ fan base for this; you guys are stuck with a subpar stadium that does not attract the casual fan. But Sternberg cannot be expected to absorb losses forever.
I spend a lot of time at IIATMS thinking about revenue sharing, and various means for small market clubs to become successful and sustain that success. No small market club can succeed for long without maximizing its ability to earn revenue from ticket sales. The Rays will never do this at the Trop.
So, Mark, the ball is back in your court (to mix in a metaphor from a different sport). You guys need a new ballpark. You need to follow the model for all small market teams, the Minnesota Twins, who hit the market perfectly with a new stadium and a terrific team simultaneously, and who have transformed themselves into a mid-market team that can afford the price for sustained success. How are you guys in Tampa-St. Pete going to pull off the same trick?
You are right. No one would expect Stu to run a business at a loss every year. At least I certainly don’t. The only thing is, I don’t think the decision to roll back payroll was really made in August. Look at my post from this morning. The Rays were planning on this roll back for at least two or three seasons.
So, I don’t know where that leaves us. But, I think there is the money and will-power for a new stadium. Just not this year.
Mark, I read your earlier post and thought it was excellent. I think some people like me forget that the guys who run baseball teams (at least, the ones that do it well) think of stuff relevant to the team before it occurs to people like me. For example, it’s likely that the guys who run the Yankees figured out a long time ago how much they want to pay for Derek Jeter.
Smart guys like Sternberg can have multiple reasons for business decisions. He might have decided to let payroll move to $70 million in 2010, to see if the team would win and attract a larger fan base. If the fan base did not increase (and I don’t think it did), but the team’s TV ratings improved, that might also be worth the $70 million investment. A strong 2010 might give the team some additional political clout, and a cut in 2011 payroll (in addition to making business sense) might also increase pressure for a new stadium.
Personally, I wish that MLB would pay for its own stadiums, and let state and local governments get back to the business of paying for roads and schools. Call me a crazy dreamer …
Mark may think I’m a jerk, but that doesn’t make me wrong. Peter G.
I don’t think you are a jerk Peter. I think your comparison is lazy. If you’d like to respond to my critique that a standoff between Sternberg and Foster has nothing in common with the standoff between O’Malley and Moses I will happily publish it.
Did I mention yet that Blow-it.com is the best tag in the entire blogging network? Yes, I believe I did.
Well done, and AWESOME replies from all involved…even the schtick from “Peter G”.
Is it Spring Training yet?
Thanks. I appreciate it.
94 days until pitchers and catchers. Hold tight.
yeah why would you let the house go to fuerclosore if you had that much equity??Well you would probably get back any balance after all the fees were paid.I found some fuerclosores here that were steals
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People tend to get paranoid when guys keep criticizing the baseball market. But I don’t think when you drill down on the released baseball documents you can fairly conclude the ownership group is reall losing money. When you are counting $10M in things like interest expense on the expense side, that is telling you that they are heavily leveraged and I think most people evaluating whether a business was profitable would exclude interest expense (as that is a placeholder for your own cash). In a low interest rate environment like we are in now, $10M interest expense is an awful lot of money.
That is a great point Gus. To quote the great Mark Twain “Figures don’t lie but liars often figure.”
Whether or not they are losing money, we can agree that they are in the business of making more money so, it isn’t unreasonable for them to make a move to add new revenue streams.