Who Is The "Worst Owner in Sports"?
Searching for the most worthy recipient of an ignominious title...
Who is the worst owner in sports?
For the longest time, Dan Snyder had a seemingly iron grip on the title of “worst owner in sports.”
It was hard to argue — his sins were high in both number and magnitude. But then last year, as readers may remember, he was forced to sell the Washington Commanders. Exciting times!
But this opened the race for “worst owner” back up. Immediately, some contenders jumped to the top of the list. There’s Michael Bidwill:
But just two months ago, Slate gave the title to David Tepper, the new owner of the Carolina Panthers:
Except then, just last week, the NFLPA said actually it was the owner of the Super Bowl-winning Kansas Chiefs:
But wait, we haven’t even left the NFL yet. There must be contenders in other leagues. Surely the White Sox’s Jerry Reinsdorf has a shot at the title…
…Or Arte Moreno…
Certainly the Angelos family would be in the running if they hadn’t just sold the Orioles. But if we’re going to pick an owner from baseball, it seems like it would have to be John Fisher.
After all, Fisher is trying to move the Oakland A’s to a city that doesn’t even want them. As his former employee, Trevor May, put it recently: “Sell the team, dude… Just sell it, man. Let someone who actually takes pride in the things they own own something. There’s actually people who give a shit about the game; let them do it.”
But wait, we haven’t even gotten to the NBA yet. The home of New York Knicks owner James Dolan, an owner so bad there are multiple prestige podcasts exploring just how it is possible for one man to be so bad…
And, wait, we haven’t even gotten to teams that are owned by Saudi dictators or Russian oligarchs or Mark Davis, who has this haircut:
You know, after all this, I’m starting to wonder if the media’s obsession with finding the “worst owner” is even worthwhile. Clearly, there are dozens of contenders in practically every league; you can’t throw a dart in professional sports without hitting a terrible owner. Crowning the “worst” is almost besides the point. It’s not even clear what criteria we should be using. Personal moral failings? Team success? Treatment of players? Relationships with the community and the media? There are dozens of ways for owners to screw things up.
But the truth is, it’s not their fault. When so many owners have plausible cases for the being the worst, you really have to conclude that the problem is with the position itself. See, there really is no way for an owner to be “good” because an owner’s role is purely exploitive. They exist only to extract money and wealth created by the players. If you’re a fan, the best you can hope for is indifference. It’s like having a tumor: You can hope it’s benign, and maybe it is, but you’re always a little worried about it.
Recently sports has seen a trend of forcing “bad owners” to sell their teams. Donald Sterling, Jerry Richardson, and Dan Snyder — all previous contenders for the “worst owner” title — have all been forced to sell in the last decade. And yet the quality of ownership has not markedly improved. The way to get better ownership is not to engage in an endless search for the “worst owner” and force them all to sell; it’s to change the nature of ownership itself. In other words, we have to socialize the means of production…