If You Want to be a Sports Owner, Try Not to be in a Rush to Judge

(Photo by Marc Feldman/Getty Images)

I will start by saying this, unlike many of the columns you have read online, I actually listen to the Rush Limbaugh show. Am I a fan of everything says? No, and I do not really like it when he brings up race. Do I agree with some of the things he says? Yes, and I would wager that some of you who do not like him would agree to some of his comments if it came from someone not named Rush.

The group that was led by Dave Checketts, whom by the way is the one of the people who started the downfall of the events that have taken place at Madison Square Garden over the last decade, made two mistakes. The first mistake was making it public that Rush Limbaugh was one of the investors interested in buying the Rams. Checketts should have insisted that Limbaugh and everyone stay quiet. The second mistake was not letting this play out to conclusion.

My disappointment is that Rush did not even get a chance to get voted down by the NFL owners.

Limbaugh was not going to be the majority owner of the St. Louis Rams. He was never going to have ultimate control over the team and its decisions. I also doubt that the Rams would have a tough time attracting the best talent in the NFL to play for the team. By the looks of the Rams in their present state they are having enough trouble in that area.

Has Limbaugh ever said that he hates a certain race? Do you think if Rush had complete control of the Rams’ personnel that he would want his team to look like Nazi Germany instead of the best available talent that you could find regardless of race?

I would think Rush would want to be part of the Rams because he would want a team that would be a winner financially and on the playing field. If Limbaugh played fantasy football do you think his starting running backs would be Heath Evans and Brian Leonard?

The beauty of sports is that you cheer for a color, not black or white, but what color your team is wearing. When your team wins you high-five everybody, and when you lose, you console each other.

It does not matter who produced you, it matters what you produce.

People like Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson were accepted in American society before even the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964.

When someone is about to hand you a check that can change your entire family’s life for the better, it is tough to say no thank you. Limbaugh would not even be signing those checks.

Meanwhile, you have many owners in the NFL who run their teams cheaply and use the excuse, "well the city did not want to fork over the money so either I am going to move my team or you are going to have raise every citizen’s taxes to get me a new stadium."

Classic examples of owner frugality are the Irsays, the Modells, the Bidwills, the Brown family, etc.

In the NBA, my home state team, the New Jersey Nets are co-owned by rap artist Jay-Z. There is no way I could ever get an article published if I wrote some of Jay-Z’s lyrics .

I like some of Jay-Z’s music and I am totally content with him living out one of his dreams and being a partial owner of the Nets. My question is what if Jay-Z’s real name was not Shawn Carter, but Rush Limbaugh? Would he have any chance at all?

In baseball, you had Marge Schott using about every racial epithet in the book. She would use some of those terms on her own players. Yet, she was able to keep her team and was only suspended years later for her words. 

Look at the NHL, with the case of Jim Balsillie wanting to completely overpay for the Phoenix Coyotes. Balsillie lost in court and lost to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman whose destiny to keep Balsillie from moving a floundering team to a more prosperous area will never happen under his watch. 

The NFL and all other major sports want owners who will not be a public spectacle. Why do you think baseball rejected Mark Cuban’s bid for the Cubs? The problem is in the publicity. The professional sports leagues do not want people like Al Czervik in their club. They fear people like that will expose the league for some its hypocrisies. In the NBA, I am sure if David Stern had it to do over again he would have tried to stop Cuban from buying the Mavericks. 

These leagues want their owners to trust them implicitly in the same way some brokers told investors to hold on their shares of Lehman Brothers or Washington Mutual. The code is keep your mouth shut as long as the checks are still clearing.

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