Originally posted by CatchMaster80:
There are some billionaires that view a sports franchise as an investment with the goal of making more money. Others just view it as a toy. Its an ego trip for them to be around athletes and build a winner. Eddie D just wanted to win. Same with the current Warriors owners. I'm not sure that's the case with the Giants owners.
You hit on something here.
First, I want to make the correction. They do want to win, otherwise they could have pocketed much more money. They are spenders. We have to ask to what degree and where the restriction lines are. You made a good reference to Eddie D and the Warriors owners. Who are they and who the Giants owners are. That is why I keep referring to the ownership structure. Giants have I think 31 or 32 pieces of ownership pie. Half if not more of that group on the back end are pure investors, as you pointed out. I am familiar with several "small" investors (if you want to term them small compared to others.) Some of the investors in that group are behemoths like KNBR, which in turn is owned and under umbrella of Cumulus Media Partners. You think Cumulus Media Partners give a hoot about Giants baseball and will be happy about KNBR losing money or not making profits on its investment, as long as the Giants win championships. Sure, the Dodgers exorbitant revenue stream helps to provide much larger profits, but those profits go to single ownership conglomerate. Just like Lacob whose ego wanted to parade his dream team in front of the world at the expense of part of his profit, the Dodgers ownership does the same. They in turn are shrewd businessmen and know their brand is on the level of high entertainment, watched by millions around the world. And that justifies the billions in media contract they get. What goes around comes around. How many times have we watched the Giants the last few years and figuratively fell asleep.
