The world according to Jim:
• Given what the planet’s most diverse sports market has dealt with over the past week or so, particularly where the futures of its flagship franchises are concerned, this was an interesting take earlier in the week from Tom Ziller, who publishes the “Good Morning It’s Basketball” Substack column.
His suggestion: Owners, particularly in the NBA, don’t matter and are in fact irrelevant to a franchise’s success or failure. (I’ll offer a contrasting view here shortly.) …
• His position is that owners “are the weak link. As has been argued ahead of every potential labor stoppage, no one shows up to see the owners. It’s all about the athletes and the brands. And the owners have almost nothing to do with the brands, at least not now.”
From an NBA standpoint, I guess the New York Knicks’ James Dolan is Exhibit A, although you could probably make the case that his team won a championship largely because he hired good people to oversee the basketball operation and then stayed out of the way. That can be an overt act, too. …
• And it’s probably true that NBA owners – and this varies from sport to sport – now have less to do with wins or losses than whoever the franchise superstar might be. The contrast from the 1980s, when Jerry Buss first took over the Lakers and oversaw the birth of Showtime, to the current squabbling among his progeny and the fact that a franchise accustomed to championships has won once since his death in 2013 probably speaks volumes.
But there’s this: Someone still has to decide to sign – and keep – that franchise superstar. …
• How true is the “owners don’t matter” theory in baseball? A better question: Do we now find ourselves reevaluating the last 13 seasons of Guggenheim Baseball’s stewardship of the Dodgers, given the current financial stew and potential legal jeopardy in which Mark Walter finds himself?
Could we, in fact, be seeing a rerun of the Frank McCourt era? McCourt took the Dodgers into bankruptcy and created the circumstances that allowed Walter’s group to pay a then-record $2.15 billion for the club in 2012 largely because McCourt and ex-wife Jamie used the club as their own personal ATM. Eventually, then-commissioner Bud Selig stepped in and forced a sale. …
• The circumstances are different, as are the number of commas after the dollar signs, but consider: During the bankruptcy, McCourt wanted to sign a $3 billion renewal of the team’s TV contract with Fox in order to save his ownership. Selig’s response, in essence: “No, you can’t do that.”
And now consider that according to Puck’s John Ourand, Walter, whose team still has 12 seasons and close to $5 billion in annual payouts left on its TV deal with Charter Communications/Spectrum, had asked about a lump sum buyout of both the Dodgers’ and Lakers’ TV contracts. Charter declined. …
• Walter’s sudden sale of the Lakers to Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner for $12.5 billion last week brought attention to his urgency to raise enough money to pay off the loans his insurance companies made to his other companies. According to the Wall Street Journal, that involves some $20 billion in “affiliated loans that hadn’t been properly disclosed.” …
• With that obligation, and the more we think about it and the longer this saga continues, it seems more likely that the Dodgers might be in play. That makes this hauntingly familiar to the McCourt era, the only difference being that Frank and Jamie never rode in a championship parade. …
• Or here’s another haunting comparison: The Kings’ Bruce McNall. He acquired Wayne Gretzky. He also wound up in prison. …
• So, again, are owners irrelevant? Again, it depends on the sport, but if your favorite team’s owner stays out of the headlines – and funds his organization sufficiently to give your team a chance to at least compete for championships – you are among the lucky ones.
In SoCal, especially with the region’s flagship franchises – and in interest and popularity the Dodgers and Lakers still remain well ahead of the rest – I wonder if luck might have run out. …
• No, this column will not be retiring No. 5 in recognition of Jayden Daniels. …
• Seriously, this was an unforced error, Washington Commanders quarterback Daniels speaking out because the number he thought would be retired has instead been re-issued. And it’s hard to tell whether to blame Daniels, who won a Heisman Trophy at LSU, or former coach Brian Kelly if he had promised to retire Daniels’ number, or new coach Lane Kiffin for issuing the number anyway whether he was aware of the situation or not.
Then again, it’s always easy to blame Kiffin. …
• And even though objecting to his number being re-issued certainly seems an unnecessary ego flex, with the way Daniels has continued to support his hometown of San Bernardino and alma mater Cajon High School, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. …
• The first game of the college football season next Saturday will be in Dublin, Ireland, between North Carolina and TCU, and that brought this idea to mind: Since USC and Notre Dame will now play at the start of the season when they resume their series in 2030, why not play that game in Dublin as college football’s opener?
A team called the Fighting Irish – and you’d better believe they would wear green for that one – against a team coached by a guy named Riley? It’s a natural – as long as Lincoln Riley wins enough games to still be coaching the Trojans by 2030. …
• Pat McAfee adds to his ESPN workload by joining “Monday Night Countdown.” Good. One more show I don’t have to watch. …
• Has anyone else noticed that relations between baseball’s players and umpires seem to have improved dramatically since the ABS challenge system was instituted? Those ball-strike calls that used to be such an irritant no longer lead to sustained griping – and maybe it’s because if the umpire misses one egregiously but you’ve already used your challenges, that’s your fault.
And the sight of plate umpire Adam Hamari helping Mookie Betts back to his feet the other night in Denver was not only unusual but actually kind of cool. …
• News item: The company that put on the Enhanced Games, opened wide to competitors using performance-enhancing drugs, lost nearly $62 million in the second fiscal quarter, according to Front Office Sports.
Comment: See? We told you steroids are bad for you.
jalexander@scng.com