Free Agent Owners

From Fair Pay, Fair Play pages 52-75.

Red McCombs owned the Minnesota Vikings for 6 years. The team’s performance dropped dramatically over that period. One reason was McCombs’ severe cost-cutting: spending well below the salary cap and cutting coaches and front office staff. After he sold the team for a hefty profit, he noted that serving his team’s customers by winning a championship wasn’t on his list of top-ten goals:: “I had ten goals when I bought the Vikings, and I accomplished all of the goals except for one,” McCombs said. “That was to get a new stadium built.”

When Tracy McGrady admitted he didn’t play hard every night in his last season with the Orlando Magic, Orlando-Sentinel commentator Mike Bianchi wrote about that admission and noted what fans want—and have a right to expect from their team. He was talking about a player, but it’s true of every fan’s expectation of every player and every team owner:

“Magic fans don’t ask all that much. Their demands are really quite reasonable. They don’t expect the team to win every night. They don’t expect the team to win the championship every year. They don’t even expect to make the playoffs all the time. But what they do expect for their good money is a good effort.”

We love our My Team, but for many of us, its ownership gets in the way of us getting the highest level of performance we all deserve. As you speak out here, speak to your frustrations with team ownership.

It’s time for you to join the team and get into the game. Share with the team your concerns/frustrations on this issue. Do you have a current example? Share it. Below the comment box you can see what the team is saying on this issue.