Worst Owners in Sports

[andrew8798]

Kind of hard to beat Snyder from last Month with the RG 3 Mess, the GM's wife going after a ESPN Reporter and Now It was discovered today that DC charges fans $50 to leave tickets at will call.

They are the only team to charge a fee

[Lupin the Third]

And, you know, the whole "racist nickname" for a team thing going for them, and doesn't want to change it, even though he'd make a TON of cash on rebranding the team.

[Nickybojelais]

There has been an epidemic of terrible owners in British football over the past few years.

Rangers, Birmingham City, Cardiff City and Leeds United have seen their rather shady owners face accusations, arrests and convictions of fraud.

Blackpool and Blackburn Rovers have suffered from terrible mismanagement, the owner of Blackpool has been accused of stripping the club of all its assets and Blackburn has been turned into a joke by some Indian business men who don't seem to have any idea about how to run a football club.

[HMARK Center]

This begins and ends with three words.

Jeffrey. @#$%ing. Loria.

[Mochi Lone Wolf]

David Somers, Dave King, and Dan Snyder.

[karl100589]

[Jeff Mangum PI]

This begins and ends with James Dolan. I'm not even a Knicks fan, but I just feel bad for all the bullshit they have to go through on a yearly basis because of him.

[Hulkshi Tanahashi]

I'm amazed at how well the Kansas City Royals have done recently despite David Glass. They've only had 4 winning seasons with him, and his cheap-ass ways lead the Royals to be laughing stocks in the American League. I mean, this guy was the CEO of Wal-Mart. He could easily afford to put together a good team during the 2000s. He just didn't.

[Push R Truth]

Does Dixie Carter count?

She probably doesn't technically own it, but it's close enough for me.

[ICBM]

I'll ghave ve your u Dixie Carter dude. On behalf of FAN, I gladly accept your mention. Dixie's sins:

- Stomper
- Running off the Jarret's...your u know the guys who started it?
- Hogan gamble starts to wear off, double down, bottom falls out, tries like hell to re-sign him
- Russo
- Ignoring warnings by network not to employ Russo
- Emails going public
- Pay issues
- losing two network deals in one year
- dressing down you r roster on TV to launch an episode
- Signing ex-WWE guys who weren't going to work (Test, Rikishi, Bashams)
- losing universal studios filming location and having to come crawling back...gets an over sized garage for new taping
- failed rebranding
- Let Ric Flair, CM Punk, Christian, AJ Styles, Daniels, Kazarian, Samoa Joe, James Storm go
- Pacman Jones
- pissing away a tremendous two year run 08-10

I give her credit for her on screen efforts. She got heat by using reality. She took that bump thru the table. She went away when she got the wrong heat. Passed that though she dropped the ball into the Grand Canyon.

[Mr. Medium Shot]

Vince Naimoli, the original owner of the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays. Among his transgressions:

-Refusing to let anyone in the group that brought the team to St. Petersburg throw out the first pitch because he refused to share credit with them
-Having a New York Mets scout banned for life from Tropicana Field for using "his" restroom
-Sending security into the seats to have food taken away from a diabetic fan who needed it; the fan had to leave the ballpark
-Being the last MLB owner to bring Internet access to the ballpark because he believed email was "just a fad"
-Only doing business with companies if they bought season tickets
-Ordered his team to stay away from a fundraiser for the needy because it was not held at Tropicana Field
-Told a high school band they had to pay to get in if they wanted to play the National Anthem
-Repeatedly ordered general manager Chuck Lamar to cut payroll, resulting in an inferior team on the field
-Lying to Lou Piniella about raising the payroll so he could keep him as manager
-Pulling the "I'm the owner of the Devil Rays" card during a traffic stop in 2004

There's more where that came from. As toxic a team owner as Jeffrey Loria is, even he might not hold a candle to Vincent Joseph Naimoli. But at least the Rays have moved on, and current owner Stuart Sternberg is about 100 times better in every facet of ownership.

[HMARK Center]

That's a tough one: I hold Loria in lower regard largely over his constant lying, his outright killing of the Montreal Expos, and the fact that he went into a shareholders meeting to crow, for all to hear (since it was reported), how he had bilked the city of Miami out of $1 billion for his garish new stadium.

Naimoli was a true scumbag, no doubt, but I guess it also boils down to what types of parameters we're using to measure what counts as "worst". Like, even though they're in a salary cap league, I think the Dolans do deserve an enormous amount of flack for how they deal with the Knicks, who have no reason not to be one of the NBA's premier franchises.

[Confused Mark Wahlberg]

Jerry Jones and Peter Angelos are the owners of my favorite teams.

Now beat that.

[Hit Girl]

Hicks and Gillett at Liverpool.

Ridsdale at Leeds (I think he was chairman). Nearly killed the club.

That nutter who owned Hearts.

[karl100589]

Sept 4, 2015 12:50:21 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

Hicks and Gillett at Liverpool.

Ridsdale at Leeds (I think he was chairman). Nearly killed the club.

That nutter who owned Hearts.

I think Romanov was the Hearts owner, sacked George Burley when his team were top of the league.

Other names (aside from Mike Ashley):
-Massimo Cellino (Leeds)- regularly sacks 3-4 managers a season
-Ken Richardson (Doncaster)- Tried to burn down the stadium to claim compensation money
-George Reynolds (Darlington)- Built a 25,000 seater stadium named after himself that the club could never fill/ maintain and ended up going out of business
 

[fw91]

well the Wilpons gave money to Bernie Madoff, and despite their recent turnaround, are no longer financially what you'd call a big market team. And they've never been upfront about it, kinda insulting their fans' intelligence

[fw91]

Sept 4, 2015 9:21:04 GMT -5 Jeff Mangum PI said:

This begins and ends with James Dolan. I'm not even a Knicks fan, but I just feel bad for all the bullshit they have to go through on a yearly basis because of him.

It's like Glen Sather has naked pictures of him or something. He never fired Sather at times where it may have been warranted, (even though he has since earned his keep before retiring this year) but he more or less leaves the Rangers alone. Why can't he do the same with the Knicks?

[Hit Girl]

The Oyston family at Blackpool right now.

[Mr. Medium Shot]

Sept 4, 2015 11:32:00 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

That's a tough one: I hold Loria in lower regard largely over his constant lying, his outright killing of the Montreal Expos, and the fact that he went into a shareholders meeting to crow, for all to hear (since it was reported), how he had bilked the city of Miami out of $1 billion for his garish new stadium.

Naimoli was a true scumbag, no doubt, but I guess it also boils down to what types of parameters we're using to measure what counts as "worst". Like, even though they're in a salary cap league, I think the Dolans do deserve an enormous amount of flack for how they deal with the Knicks, who have no reason not to be one of the NBA's premier franchises.

Fair point about Loria's role in killing the Expos. That guy has done major long-term damage to two franchises. Who else has done that?

Also agreed on James Dolan being bad for the Knicks and for the NBA. Only Donald Sterling could match him from his tenure as Clippers owner.

[tigermaskxxxvii]

I highly suggest the book "Bad Sports" by David Zirin, which is all about this sort of thing.

Sept 3, 2015 21:44:38 GMT -5 andrew8798 said:

Kind of hard to beat Snyder from last Month with the RG 3 Mess, the GM's wife going after a ESPN Reporter and Now It was discovered today that DC charges fans $50 to leave tickets at will call.

They are the only team to charge a fee

And I think for a while they served beer in their stadium's bathrooms. I mean, yeah it's efficient. But, eww!