The Lowest Bar To Clear
Had subs on my mind this week. Hard to imagine why!
So the sale of the Commanders is still technically pending even though nobody sees any sort of reason why it won’t be officially granted at the upcoming owners meeting on July 20th. I refuse to pop the champagne yet, but we can at the very least take a look at the new guy, Josh Harris. What kind of owner are we getting?
Harris, from basic research, appears to be an owner in the mold of Stan Kroenke. Pure businessman who sees his sports teams as assets for his portfolio. Really, that’s no surprise. Most sports owners these days fit this mold and I think the days of teams being bought by very rich fans are dying out because the prices are simply unreachable for anyone else but the most ruthless businessmen types. Dan Snyder was actually one of the final types of these owners, a guy who actually loved the team he eventually bought and drove into the Mariana Trench. Jerry Jones is another fan of his own team, as he owns no others and clearly cares about the Cowboys. Most other owners are either the current nepotism head of the family business like the Maras, Rooneys, Halas’, Fords, or these gross business ghouls.
Harris has no real love for the Commanders as a team. He owns two other sports teams, the Philadephia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils, both teams in rival markets with each other, even if they lie in different leagues. He currently owns a minority share in the Steelers (he will sell it for the Commanders). He has attempted to buy Chelsea, the Denver Broncos, and the New York Mets, but was unsuccessful. He just wants his assets.
What did he do before he threw all his money into the sports team-owning business? He was a private equity guy! I could stop there. Anyone who knows anything about private equity already knows what Josh Harris likely is. He helped found a private equity group called Apollo, a firm that once had one of the other founders resign because he was caught up in the Epstein scandal. He attended Harvard Business School, which appears to be like the alien pod hatching cave for every business ghoul in the country. He regularly donates to republican causes, which, you know, expected.
Outside knowing he’s a private equity goon, he seems like your generic sports businessman owner. No serious red flags or scandals outside the typical billionare red flags. I couldn’t find any sort of gross scandals directly related to him while I was looking into him. 76ers fans seem to not care for him that much, and he was the owner who supported “The Process” era. No matter how poorly you view these types of guys, it’s impossible to deny he remains an improvement on Snyder. I would be an improvement on Snyder. You would be an improvement on Snyder. The unibomber would have been an improvement on Snyder. Stockton Rush, the absolute dumbass who built a shitty deathsub that imploded himself and several other people on the way to do death tourism at the Titanic…might not actually have been an improvement on Snyder but I’d hear an argument for him. At least Rush had the good sense to die due to his own hubris.
Can we expect any meaningful changes after Harris takes over? That’s the real question. One of the biggest issues facing the team is the question of Stadium. FedEx is a pile of shit. Does he fix the stadium at all? Does he build a new one? Where? Will the team return to DC? Will he have the good sense to change the name back to Football Team, the only good decision Dan Snyder ever made (which he basically made by accident at gunpoint). Will he do fucking…anything? Or will he sit by and hire some people to do whatever. A new era is dawning in DC, and it’s such a weird feeling.
Hope Ross is next.
Not sure if this actually is an argument for Stockton Rush or not, but it’s an interesting perspective. Mike Reiss (Simpsons writer/showrunner from the classic era) was on Larry Wilmore recently talking about his adventures with this company and their makeshift submarines – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-simpsons-writer-mike-reiss-on-the-titan-tragedy/id1234429850?i=1000618207937
I don’t think anything that’s come out has been an argument for Stockton Rush. The more info gets dug up the worse it gets. I have sympathy for the passengers, who probably thought they were going to be okay, but absolutely none for this saftey skipping asshole
Had South Park on your mind as well
Credit to Bob Kraft for both being a fan AND a business ghoul. He was a fan who used his business ghoulishness to buy Foxboro Stadium out from under the prior owners of the team, and then leveraged that to buy the team itself.
Someone recently gave me a copy of The Dynasty as a parting gift from my old job and it crazy reading about the whole controversy surrounding Foxboro Stadium and the Patriots during that time. I had somewhat of an idea about the history but I didn’t realize how utterly convoluted that situation was and I suddenly found a much deeper respect for Bob Kraft in the process. Dude might be a fan but he’s a damn good tactician.
The Draw Play has sunk to new depths
ZING!
Stockton Rush didn’t sexually harass his employees (that we know of) so he’s definitely an improvement over Snyder.
Or he would have been if not for the… you know…. whole hubris/implosion thing.
There are some delicious, low hanging fruits to be had if the Titans start off strong, and their season falls apart nearing the end. I hope. I really hope.