Best/Worst Sports Owners

There seems to be different schools of thought for what a professional sports owner (or majority owner) should be. Should he/she simply see the team as another financial asset and should be only fiscally managed as much? Or is it a passionate advocacy for a fan willing to write a blank check to win championships for your team?

Should he stroke his ego and become the team's face, or lurk in the shadows, let the players/owners take up air-time for him? Should he get involved directly, or let others who know what they're doing do it instead? So yes, yet another Best/Worst column, this time on sports owners. Let's start off with...

Best: Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks

Yes he can be a fucking annoying git, but can't that be said of most fanatics? Like a certain guy in NYC, he isn't ashamed to say he'll spend anything and everything to win rings for his beloved team. Except unlike that certain guy, Cuban doesn't sulk in the luxury box, he's is down in the front rows, willing to come off as an ass in openly heckling opposing players and refs. And let's admit it, it's nice there is someone who is willing to call out on Commissioner David Stern's bullshit without giving a fuck of the consequences. Which is why he's got a NBA owner record for league fines.

You certainly can't trash his track record. In the 20 years before Cuban bought the team, the Mavs had a winning percentage of 40%, and playoff record of 21–32. In the ten years following, the team won 69% of their regular season games and reached the playoffs in each of those seasons. The Mavs playoff record with Cuban is 49 wins and 57 losses, including their first trip to the NBA Finals in 2006.

No titles yet, but he's turned a dog of a franchise into a consistent winner built around a future Hall of Famer in Dirk Nowitzki. Also remember the Dairy Queen thing? I respect that he was willing to put money where his mouth is over that flap.


Worst: Donald Sterling, Los Angeles Clippers

He's got to be the most hated owner by a fanbase in the league. He makes Art Modell come off as Elvis. Sterling bought the San Diego Clippers when they were sucking (what else is new?) and has run them as a business, and it's shown. He doesn't care about winning or losing, as long as he penny pinches and makes even more money. The creep has been indicted by the Federal government over being a landlord of slum tennements and other such wonderful achievements.

To say the least, Clipper fans would hold a parade if Sterlin croaked tomorrow. It would be well-attended by Clipper Nation, all 10 of them.

My vote goes to James Dolan. Since inheriting the Knicks and Rangers from his father, he's run both teams into the ground.

NY Rangers

The Rangers saw a decline in performance in the wake of Dolan's increased role in managing the team and failed to make the playoffs from the 1997-1998 season until the 2004–05 NHL lockout, despite leading the league in payroll in most of those years. This was the longest playoff drought in franchise history. Despite fan and media calls for the team's general manager Glen Sather to be fired for the organization's shortcomings, Sather was retained, and even though the Rangers have made the playoffs every year since the lockout ended until 2010 (thanks to the performance of Olympics-Gold-Medalist goal-tender Henrik Lundqvist), they still have yet to become a legit championship contender since their downfall.

NY Knicks

Like the Rangers, the Knicks performed abysmally in the early 2000s, and have yet to recover, mostly thanks to Dolan. Since the 2000-2001 NBA season, the franchise has currently not posted a winning season, nor have they won a playoff game since, and have not made the playoffs since 2004. Dolan has come under fire from many Knicks' fans for the Knicks' run of consecutive losing seasons. Numerous media and informal fan polls, including a recent Sports Illustrated poll have ranked Dolan the worst owner in the NBA. In 2007, NBA Commissioner David Stern criticized Dolan's management of the Knicks, saying "they're not a model of intelligent management." One widely criticized decision was to give shooting guard Allan Houston a 6-year, $100 million maximum contract in 2001, when no other team had offered Houston more than $75 million. Houston retired due to injury after just four seasons and over $40 million remaining on his contract.

In 2003, Dolan hired Isiah Thomas as Team President of Basketball Operations and General Manager to replace embattled executive Scott Layden. Thomas made aggressive moves to re-tool and upgrade the Knicks roster through trades, the NBA Draft, and free agency. Despite the talent Thomas imported, the team underperformed and Thomas was mired in turmoil; Dolan subsequently received the ire of the New York media and Knicks' fans for his commitment to Thomas, who kept on making questionable moves, which never got the Knicks anywhere.

After the 2004-2005 season, the Knicks signed head coach Larry Brown to a 5 year, $50 million contract. After just one (losing) season, Brown was fired and the team bought-out Brown's contract for $18 million. Brown walked away with a total of $28 million for coaching the Knicks for just one year.

After firing Larry Brown, Isiah Thomas assumed duties as head coach of the Knicks. During a staged interview on MSG Network, which has marked the last time Dolan answered questions from any media, Dolan gave Thomas an ultimatum to show "evident progress" or potentially be fired. In the latter half of the 2006-2007 season, with the Knicks within reach of a playoff spot Dolan signed Thomas to a multi-year contract extension. The team subsequently fell out of contention and Dolan has received further criticism for this move. A mere season later, Dolan stripped Thomas of his front office duties, having taken the Knicks to the playoffs just once during his tenure. New team President Donnie Walsh removed Thomas as head coach upon the conclusion of the season.

Other coaches that also had short Knicks tenures include Don Chaney (2001-2003) and Lenny Wilkens (2003-2005). Like Thomas and Brown, they also remained on the Knicks' payroll following their departure from the bench due to their receiving multi-year contracts (and in Chaney's case 2 separate contract extensions).

In 2007, Dolan was named as a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought forth by a former Knicks executive, Anucha Browne-Sanders. Browne-Sanders accused Dolan of firing her out of spite after she complained about sexual harassment from Isiah Thomas. The court ruled in favor of Brown-Sanders and Dolan had to pay $3 million of the $11 million settlement with MSG being responsible for the remainder of the settlement.

Dolan, the reason why Lebron said no to the Knicks.

Lou you forgot to add how Dolan (allegedly) forces his employees to attend his jazz band's weekly concerts.

And Larry Brown, you slick rich mother fucker.

..and the fact he keeps MSG's HD broadcasts from the satellite companies and Verizon.

best might be jerry reinsdolf for the reasons of having six nba championships (he somehow has 1 world series trophy...i have no idea where ) and along with that he takes care of his players (i.e scottie pippen, jay williams, and eddy curry).

worst is toss up between the virginia halas mccaskey and bill wirtz. the reasons are cheapness and just making a quick buck. its sad to say that the best thing to happen for the blackhawks was the death of bill wirtz.

Best: Rooney's
Worst: Al davis

I can get behind both of these picks. Davis for obvious reasons.

Rooney, because they're just a great family to work for. My Dad worked as a business agent for the union up at Yonkers Raceway (Rooney owned since the early '70s) for over thirty years. He always said that the contracts with the Rooneys practically wrote themselves.

Maybe it's just the whole New York City/Irish Catholic mindset, but the Rooneys have always been staunchly pro-union. Very rare for management.

Again, great people to work for.

Worst is Mike Brown, Cincinnati Bengals. Period.

Worst than the people who own the Lions?

I would have to say the owners of the LA Clippers, Detroit Lions, and Pittsburgh Pirates are among the worst. It's all about winning and losing, and none of these organizations have come close to winning a title in almost 20 years.

While I do not disagree that Al Davis is a lunatic, he cannot be on the worst owners list because he has won Super Bowls and was among the league's best within the past decade. He had the Raiders on the cusp of the Super Bowl in 2000 & 2001, while then reaching the big game in '02. That said, he does need to step aside.

The Lions have the worst. Unfortunately by all accounts the Old Man is really a nice guy who is loyal to a fault. A pretty LARGE fault-just ask Matt Millen...

i would love to laugh at you, but i am afraid of suh hunting me down.