Craig on The Sports Fix – WHK 1420
August 5, 2012Box Score: Tigers 10, Indians 8 (10 inn.)
August 5, 2012Why do we care so much about owners in Cleveland? That was the question posed in a Twitter discussion involving yours truly earlier this week1, and it got me thinking. Do Clevelanders put too much of the onus on the guy writing the checks? Is this mindset different in other cities? Are Dan Gilbert, Larry Dolan, and, now, Jimmy Haslam III the three most important people in the city of Cleveland when it comes to our sports hopes and dreams as fans? Let’s discuss.
First, I believe we focus on owners so much because of the things we’ve seen as Cleveland fans. All three teams have changed ownership in the last 13 years. The NBA has a rule named after one of our former owners to protect an organization from itself. Our former NFL owner moved our beloved Browns to Baltimore in the ultimate cloak and dagger move. Two of the owners had their names on venues in the Gateway complex in the mid-90’s. This font will forever be associated with our current Cavaliers owner. Yes, we’ve seen a little bit of everything from Cleveland owners over the years.
The ownership talk of recent days combined with the contention window talk from yesterday got me thinking about just how much influence owners indirectly have on our fan behavior. I’ll turn 24 next week, and in my time as a fan I’ve seen ONE Browns playoff game. In that same time as a fan, I’ve seen seven different Indians ventures into the postseason and just as many or more from the Cavaliers2
It also had me reflecting on the pre-teen and early teenage Tribe fans right now. They’ve seen exactly ONE playoff appearances from the Indians. Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore, C.C. Sabathia, and Jhonny Peralta are to them as Kelly Holcomb, Dennis Northcutt, William Green, Dwayne Rudd, and Anthony Henry were for me in that lone playoff appearance in 2002. A snapshot in time for more seasoned sports fans but the only one in our respective albums. Along those same lines, for these young Tribe fans, Lofton, Vizquel, Baerga, Belle, Thome, Ramirez, Alomar, and Nagy are as far off in the history books as Kosar, Mack, Slaughter, Minnifield, Dixon, and Newsome are for me. With the Tribe’s mid-90’s run, being a youngster, I wasn’t able to fully understand the magnitude of how great those teams were and how unprecedented their run of success was for folks my dad’s age. He was there to communicate that to me, but it didn’t fully sink in until several years later. With the Browns, there’s this great history for which I have to rely on artifacts to try and relate it.
Then, it got me thinking about the Cavaliers. Will the future Cavaliers fans currently in diapers or kindergarten grow up without their own special era? Will LeBron James and those battles with the Pistons, Boston’s Big Three, and the Dwight Howard-led Magic be told to them second hand to relay success just as those Browns games of years past are now? Or will Dan Gilbert be able to deliver on his promise and put some configuration of Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters, Tyler Zeller, Tristan Thompson, and other to-be-determined pieces into another legitimate title contender and/or winner?
It’s everything Dan Gilbert’s tried to do since taking over in 2005. Upgrade practice facilities, improve in-game entertainment, and make financial commitments to support a winning team. More than that though, it’s establishing a way of doing things, hiring the right people to carry out a vision and definite way of doing things, and showing that you’re in it for the long haul while not being too involved in the daily operations. Gilbert is far from perfect. But, I don’t understand how so many don’t feel that he is one of the greatest assets the Cavaliers have. His financial backing3 netted them Kyrie Irving. He has put his trust in Chris Grant who has diligently been on an assets-gathering safari for draft picks and young players. His front office has hired a high-profile head coach in Byron Scott. They’re attempting to learn from the mistakes of the past4
That’s the task that Jimmy Haslam has staring him down – learning from the incalculable number of mistakes this team has made since 1999. He’s got a starved fan base of a franchise for which he just paid $1 billion. Fans in recent years have seen a revolving door of coaches, team presidents, general managers, quarterbacks, and so on. If he does somehow pull it off, he’ll usher in a renaissance of Browns pride.5
It’s also the task that the Dolans have been undergoing for 12 years now with limited success. The Dolans make us feel bad like we’re the kids asking to have nice things when the family income just isn’t there. Fans come off as the ungrateful children who have a roof over their head6 and food7 on the table. As I said yesterday, it’s unfair because the Dolans have to deal with economic disadvantages that the Browns and Cavaliers do not, but it shouldn’t prevent us from questioning their tactics and demanding better.
I think that’s why we care so much about the owners. We want the late 80’s Browns, the mid-90’s Tribe, and the LeBron-era Cavs. We want them all with a different twist. If each of those eras was a DVD box set, it would be the alternate ending on the DVD menu. We want a title, we want a parade, we want that unprecedented euphoria. These titans of industry seem like larger than life figures sometimes when you think about how much power and wealth they wield. We want the success of Cablevision, Quicken Loans, and now Pilot/Flying J to emanate into the respective franchises.
Hopefully, going forward, I’ll be able to see a Browns product on the field that we all can take pride in watching. If that happenes, the artifacts for me will come to life. The NFL Championships pre-Super Bowl, the original Dawg Pound, the Kardiac kids won’t feel as much like precious relics of a forgotten era.
(Photos: Tony Dejak/AP, Chuck Crow/The Plain Dealer, and Steelers.com)
- H/T @Nominataur [↩]
- It’s tough to pinpoint the number of appearances I actually saw from the Fratello era. I do vividly remember the Z-Kemp squad losing to Reggie Miller, Rik Smits, and the Pacers in 1998. [↩]
- Along with luck [↩]
- Neglecting the draft, putting annual band-aids on a roster that probably needed a bigger overhaul. You know, the stuff that many of our great Cavalier writers on this site have discussed many times. [↩]
- Sure, he may do it in Pilot Stadium with his players wearing some altered version of our current uniform, but that’s besides the point. [↩]
- Even though it leaks. [↩]
- Even if it’s off-brand, bland tasting, and there isn’t enough of it. [↩]
16 Comments
“We want the success of Cablevision, Quicken Loans, and now Pilot/Flying J to emanate into the respective franchises.”
Yet it turns out that it’s much harder to cheat at Major League baseball, NBA basketball and NFL football than it is at so many other things in life.
We care so much about the owners because they’re the ones in charge, right? Did I miss that part?
No owners were never as talked about as they are now but alot of it stems from the horrible teams being fielded. If any of these teams were playing well people/fans wouldn’t care.
I completely disagree that Gilbert’s financial backing netted Kyrie Irving, it had absolutely nothing to do with Irving losing and a little luck netted Irving. Now when it comes to resigning Irving that’ll be a different story.
I know one thing if I was an owner of any of the three major sports teams in Cleveland I’d probably have had at least one heart attack by now from all of the losing. The Indians in particular whether it’s the horrible decisions by the front office or the subpar play on the field would have me demanding answers. Lets hope the Dolans wake up and realize the people they hired to run this team need to do some ‘splainin!
“The success of Cablevision?”
It is exactly the utter collapse of Cablevision economically in the years immediately after Dolan took over that more or less correlates exactly with the collapse of this franchise. CVC stock was in the 80’s when Dolan took over. It has rarely been over 20 since the end of 2001.
It is pretty well-known in financial circles that Cablevision stock makes up the overwhelming majority of the assets of the Dolan Family Trust (i.e. Larry Dolan).
Gilbert’s financial backing allowed them to make the trade and absorb Baron Davis’s contract while taking the Clippers’ first round pick. That pick turned out to be Kyrie Irving. The losing netted them Tristan Thompson, not Irving.
Yea, should’ve probably qualified that and put “initial” success of Cablevision.
Cavs took on a bad contract to get the #1 overall pick. Seems like money had more than nothing to do with it…
fans seem to care about the Krafts, Rooneys, Steinbrenners, Cubans, etc. from winning teams too.
we are just in a day and age when it’s easier to have more info about lots of things (including owners). so, they are discussed more now.
Money had all of 2.8% to do with it. The rest was luck. And it was appalling that the author would switch that order around in his article. Winning on 2.8% odds doesn’t make you brilliant.
and downplaying that he took on $9mil+ in extra salary for 2.8% odds is appalling too. He spent $3mil per % in order to give the team an extra chance/asset.
How many owners in the NBA do that?
(and he did it again by taking on Luke Walton’s contract to get the Lakers 1st + ability to swap next year’s. Grant made the trade and came up with the offers, but Gilbert’s willingness to sign-off on extra $$ coming in gives him many more options)
I am not in the least bit impressed that Gilbert turned Lebron-assumed revenues into one of the lowest payrolls in the league, and then was able to find a bit of money to buy a lottery pick. We don’t know how many owners would do that, because we few owners get to pre-sell season tickets on the assumption that Lebron would be around, but when he didn’t come back, cut payroll drastically, while still keeping that season ticket and tv contract money around to fund a casino.
And Walton’s contract is nothing that any NBA owner outside of Charlotte wouldn’t do. That’s ho-hum business right there.
And the author says that Gilbert’s financial backing got us Irving. No, his financial backing still got us a 2.8% chance. We have to recognize the difference. If we end up with Williams and Knight, Gilbert looks like a fool.
he looks like a fool because we have 2 young players instead of 1? that makes no sense. it wouldn’t look nearly as nice, no. but, a fool? anytime you can acquire more assets, it’s a good thing for the team.
I get it. The money that LeBron brought the team fueled alot of those expenditures when he was here. Not all owners would put that money back into the team though.
Once LeBron left, we tore the team down, which included salary/payroll. And again, we had 1 season worth of LeBron ticket sales due to the pre-sale. But, again, Gilbert gave Grant the ability to make moves without worrying about the money side. That is HUGE in the NBA and where we differ in opinion.
Creating a team that has the financial and roster flexibility in order to be able to add key assets to the team is exactly how you are supposed to build a team. Couple that with good drafting (and yes, we still need to see if TT, Waiters, Zeller pan out in the long-run) and you have a quick-reboot on the team.
He looks like a fool spending that money on 2 guys who look quite mediocre, giving us little hope for the future. Fine, more assets, whatever. If any other player but Irving in that draft was here, the arena would have been empty.
Sure, we had to tear the team down, I’m not ignoring that. But when he’s sitting on Lebron-driven revenue, and a low payroll, he better be doing things like buying lottery picks. That’s bare minimum stuff, not praiseworthy stuff.
Same with financial and roster flexibility. It would have taken an Isaiah Thomas-level screwup for this team to not have those things right now. Bare minimum, not praiseworthy.
ok, then why didn’t anyone else take Baron Davis’ contract from the Clippers? it’s not like noone knew they wanted to dump him (though kudos to Grant for getting that pick unprotected – likely the last pure unprotected pick traded).
and tell that bare minimum stuff to Detroit, Philly, GS, Washington, Milwaukee, NO, Charlotte, Toronto, and Phoenix all who have no room under the cap nor are teams that can conceivably compete for a championship with their current structure.
being able to balance grabbing terrible contracts to gain more assets while not killing your long-term financial and roster flexibility is a tough balancing act. that praise goes to Grant, but, again, Gilbert deserves some too for making his job easier (note: our $48mil payroll for 2012/13 doesn’t include the $15mil we are paying Baron. With him, it puts us top10 in salary, but there’s likely a couple other teams in between with amnesty players too).
not sure why the Cavs FO doing a good job on those fronts means it’s the bare minimum.