Monday, February 04, 2008

The Virtues Low Key Ownership

"Hey, Great game! "Can you you believe it??!?" "What an upset!" "....Spectacle .... suspense .... and that Eli Manning....!" Blah blah blah ya-da ya-da. In all honesty, even for this philistine who believes that steroid-pumped behemoths slamming into to each other and scrumming toogether in tights and armour for 60 minutes bounded by anal-retentive letter-of-the-rules interpretation and eagle-eyed camera enforcement is rather absurd, the second half admittedly was exciting, though I make no apologies for my cynical opinion regarding the game, the sport, the game of the sport, or is it the sport of the game?

Foul and curmudgeonly critic that I may be, what I found curiously emblematic amidst the post-joust celebration and triumphalism of the presentation of the Vince Lombardi trophy was the peculiar comfort everyone seems to have with the oxymoron represented by the concept: "Owner of The Team". This seems such a long way from my youth soccer club, or the PAL baseball and basketball leagues with which I grew up, as well as foreign to the university teams and sporting clubs with which I played. I never, in fact, recall being "owned" as such, and rebel that I am, wonder aloud about what it might have meant.

I can tell you I don't know the Mara's (the NY Giant's "owners"). They might be fabulous people. "Ma' Mara, looked a bit uptight on the podium, but its hard to look warm and matronly in Gucci on TV, right?? They might even have had something "hands-on" and endearing to do with enabling the victory (though I harbour my doubts - for many "owners" of professional sports resemble "lucky squatting" monopolists). But like throes of nationalism, and the often-dubious benfits accruing to the median-citizen from its pursuit, there remains a veil between The Team and its fans, and the business interests of The Owner. Some Owners, like perhaps a few enlightened corporations, or benign Lords or Viziers of old, understand the tenousness of the relationship between owners and owned, and the potential for backlash when said relationship is deemed too exploitative. Others are already well-beyond any reasonable indication of their intention.

This tension is always there. The "Game" (however absurd) IS a game of the common man, and the benefits derived by owners therefrom requires buy-in in the form of passion, enthusiasm, and the willingness to either fork over huge sums of money for tickets, parking and memorobilia OR large chunks of time in front of the big-screen TV devouring the finest Madison Ave has to offer. The People's continued buy-in requires - at the least - lip-service and the appearance of sensitivity to issues of capital-labour relations (insuring the Fan doesn't feel similarly exploited in the process). It's hard to be "one of the lads" from The Super Box, emerging to bask in others' glory and collect the spoils. The danger that lurks here is that "The Owners" - or at least those that are not hands-on, salt of the earth-types (like Jeff Lurie of Phila) or rabid charitable enthusiasts, should NOT be center-stage, EVER. Certainly not in public jubiliant celebration. And I suggest this not out of a preference for self-effacing behaviour over racuous triumphalism (though I am more sympathetic to the former), but as a detached observer looking at it from the vantage point of their long-term interests. For while it may remain deterministic that complexity, media, spectacle and finance in modernity are ever more central to professional "Sport" generally, money, monopoly, greed, exploitation of taxpayers for private gain, makes farce of this same "sport" (if this is even possible at this point), exposing The Game itself precisely for what it is (and isn't). So my advice to the "Owners": watch from a distance. Always take a backseat to Club and Team and managers, for it is welll-nigh impossible to appear genuine when you're not.

11 comments:

Macro Man said...

In fairness, the Maras are descended from the founder of the NY Giant franchise, Tim Mara. Indeed, there are 2 Maras enshrined in Canton, just as there are two Rooneys. So one might justifiably allow the current branch of the family to share in family business's success.

Carpetbaggers like Art Modell deserve(d) little benefit of the doubt, while last year's victor was, by all accounts, a moral quandary; the Irsays are by all accounts fine residents of Indianapolis and contribute greatly to the community, yet can one forgive them for upping sticks from Baltimore a quarter century ago? What's the statute of limitations on treason?

Less of a gray area is, of course, the oligarchical cartpetbagging ownership of Premiership teams, where the Glazers, sugar-daddy extraordinaire Ambramopvich, and of course the PE lads in Liverpool, all of whom have bbeen the subject of fans' vitriol over the years.

The flip side is the foreign owners of the two claret and blue teams, each of whom replaced a longstanding and much-reviled former owner and has been accepted close to whol;eheartedly buy the fans.

Macro Man said...

Damn, now you know how MM looks before I edit...

Anonymous said...

Can we locate Harold Ballard on this curve?

"Cassandra" said...

It's nothing personal against the Mara's, who as you suggest, are to the game of football, what Krispy Kreme is to Salvation Army Soup Kitchens.

Nor should I say, do I particularly sympathize with "Labour", who have been co-opted by The Owners down Perdition Avenue. It's the Customer who's being abused by a combination of mononpoly, collusion, insincereity, and near-larceny as everything associated with Professional "Sports" has inflated and compounded (from the Customer's point of view) at many multiples of ordinary inflation rates. Ahhh, the beauty of the sort-of-but-not- quite-really-free market at work! The customer, should, withold custom on the grounds that it is a specious argument that because Mr Owner has dimwittedly paid $143million (+Balco bill) for 6 years of Pitching Services, that Mr Owner MUST recoup his investment (plus reasonable rates of return), so Mr Public must therefore shell out > $500 bucks a night to take his kids out to the "ballgame". JUST SAY "NO!"

Anon - ...or for that matter, The Dolans, or Marge Schott!

Macro Man said...

CB, there's no point trying to be "anonymous" when you wear your Leafery on your sleeve!

As far as I can make out, Ballard and Bill Wirtz occupy a special level of hell. Surely Howard Baldwin deserves a mention too, insofar as he bought into mthe Pens with $1k of his own, gloried in a Stanley Cup, and left with the franchise buggererd senseless financially for a decade...

Macro Man said...

C, I wholeheartedly agree on the customer experience. I quit following baseball in a decade, such was that sprot's blatant disregard for the customer experience, and the habitual mugging of the the public for new stadia.

Anonymous said...

I'm not attempting to dissimulate, it's that Blogger is having difficulty with my password.

In the case of the Leafs, the fans get what they deserve. How can one understand the fact that they are, year in year out, the most profitable franchise in hockey - even if they end up in the AHL next season? The shame of it all is that Harold got it right!

CB

Macro Man said...

CB, your Leafs remind me of the Pittsburgh Pirates, my team when I can be bothered to follow baseball. Highly profitable ownership and fifteen consecutive losing seasons...and they are just starting yet another "blow up the team and rebuild" project.

The shame of it is they successfully bilked the city into building a tremendous ballpark, perhaps the nicest in baseball. I suppose the PNC experience must be like going to a posh restaurant with superb service and nice wine and ending up with a Big Mac for a main course...

Anonymous said...

Cassandra,

When you are pondering things in a foul mood on a dark night, you might contemplate that gambling is one of the keys to many sports. I know a man from a mafia-affiliated family who used to work in the sportsbook business in Vegas. He claims he knew the results (from a point spread perspective) of most games before they were played. All I can vouch for is his otherwise high standards of corruption and exploiting our evil world.

"Cassandra" said...

This wouldn't surprise me. Statistically, The Market appears to know the results of most earnings reports before they "happen", are at least before they are released. This could simply reflect the wisdom of crowds. It could also reflect the acquisition of material non-public information information, and its amplification above threshold levels by feedback traders. But I cannot speak for Vinny...

Anonymous said...

Cassandra,

I get surprised when something isn't a scam, at least in the US. I would expect "random" events, such as the currency or gambling markets, to tend upward in the money flow department. Consider it part of our kakusa world. It doesn't help instill confidence when the so-called Free World's intelligence services are full of financier-related guys at or near the top.