Has their ever ben a more inept/poor owner in pro sports than Katz?

[Moose Coleman]

Yes , it was & is hyperbole, but he's no champ. And far from the saviour that so many thought he would be.
I just have a bit of an issue with the guy pretending to come in as some sort of philanthropist & saviour, where its clear to me that he just wants to !@#$ & pillage the City & taxpayer & ticket buyer as much as he can.
Plus his clear threats to move the team don't really endear him to me.

I don't know how any of that makes him a bad sports owner. It pretty much comes with the territory.

 

[Gord]

Holy over dramatization. You can really tell the age of this forum when the kids don't know a simple history lesson nor even bother to look outside the world of hockey. He's a great owner, fighting for the future of this franchise in Edmonton. It's a business folks.

bullcrap. he's not fighting for the future of the Oilers in Edmonton. it's about the $$$
I believe even Katz has said that.

 

[fuswald]

Holy over dramatization. You can really tell the age of this forum when the kids don't know a simple history lesson nor even bother to look outside the world of hockey. He's a great owner, fighting for the future of this franchise in Edmonton. It's a business folks.

As a business he is doing good (taking other peoples money) and will fill his pockets but as for creating a winning team or dynasty not so much. Not the worst though obviously.

 

[McJadeddog]

well, i'm not getting back the 2 minutes it took me to read this thread, that's for sure

ridiculous thread, simply ridiculous... it's threads like this that lately that have been making me want to quit HFboards altogether... just, wow

 

[Joe Hallenback]

For the love of god Oiler fans are getting as bad as Toronto/Ottawa/Vancouver fans for hyperbole


Get out of your box and look at teams with a much longer legacy of no success then your 6 years

 

[Draiskull]

Pocklington?

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Jeff Loria(Florida Marlins/Montreal Expos) - Tanked the Expos, threatened his way to a 650 million dollar arena, promptly gutted the team before he had to pay anyone.
Pocklington(Oilers) - Sold the greatest hockey player ever to keep his house of cards empire alive, blackmailed the city many times, sold the Oilers to Houston, and is now nothing more than a common con-artist who was recently on trial for fraud.
Charles Wang(Islanders) - One of the worst run franchises in pro-sports
Mike Brown(Cincinnati Bengals) - terrible team, rarely makes the playoffs, Owner insists he runs the franchise himself and refuses to hire a GM
Art Modell(Baltimore Raven) - up and decided he didn't like Cleveland anymore, broke contract and moved the team to Baltimore.
Marge Schott(Cinncinati Reds) - Big time racist, hated her own players, once refused to pay for ambulance transportation for one of her players injured on the field.
Harold Ballard(leafs) - Legendary in how awful he was.
Peter Karmanos(Carolina) - Intentionally tanked the team after he purchased it, to justify moving it out of Hartford.

Those are just off the top of my head.

Tons of owners out there were blackmailing cities during the arena mass builds between 1980 - > 2000, inspiration for the old Simpson monorail episode. Many of those teams in other leagues did in fact move.

There are many owners out there that never made the playoffs, let alone championships. Still more owners out there who were flat out frauds and charlatans, ending up in prison in several case. The NHL has had quite a few of those around due to lax background checks.

Sports history is long, and there were some truly horrible owners out there, and that doesn't even touch on the European sports/soccer leagues which I don't know much about. Katz isn't doing a good job, but he's not in the realm of "worst ever".

Don't forget about the Aquillinis(sp), getting liquored and spouting off post Nucks Finals loss.

If the question is, have their been worst Pro Sport Owners, the simple answer is Absolutely YES.

Edit: Katz may leave something to be desire (like you wish you owned the team), but atleast he isn't a crook, FFS

 

[Mr Forever]

Holy over dramatization. You can really tell the age of this forum when the kids don't know a simple history lesson nor even bother to look outside the world of hockey. He's a great owner, fighting for the future of this franchise in Edmonton. It's a business folks.

Holy ****. People still believe this.

 

[shoop]

bullcrap. he's not fighting for the future of the Oilers in Edmonton. it's about the $$$
I believe even Katz has said that.

I think Katz' motivation is being the big man on campus as if his primary motivation is cash he will be cashing out within a couple years of the rink opening.

As the owner of the Oilers he is the man in town. He loses all public profile when he sells the team.

His return on investment has been pretty negligible so far. There are a lot of areas where he could make more cash.

Given that he isn't making a ton of cash annually his best chance to cash in on this team is to sell after the rink is completed and a revenue stream has been proven.

IMO he won't sell for a long, long time.

 

[Beerfish]

well, i'm not getting back the 2 minutes it took me to read this thread, that's for sure

ridiculous thread, simply ridiculous... it's threads like this that lately that have been making me want to quit HFboards altogether... just, wow

Agreed, the defense of an owner who was supposed to spend to the cap, build us a rink and be an all around hero instead of being a buddy to Lowe ala Wang being a buddy to Garth snow is indefensible.

 

[Beerfish]

I think Katz' motivation is being the big man on campus as if his primary motivation is cash he will be cashing out within a couple years of the rink opening.

As the owner of the Oilers he is the man in town. He loses all public profile when he sells the team.

His return on investment has been pretty negligible so far. There are a lot of areas where he could make more cash.

Given that he isn't making a ton of cash annually his best chance to cash in on this team is to sell after the rink is completed and a revenue stream has been proven.

IMO he won't sell for a long, long time.

The motivation for sports owners in most cases should be the caretaking of a franchise for a city, giving back to cities that made them rich in the 1st place and a hobby they take seriously enough to want to win and have their names on the cup. Almost all owners of sports teams are already very rich and they know going in that pro sports is not the best investment out there.

 

[Six in O6]

bullcrap. he's not fighting for the future of the Oilers in Edmonton. it's about the $$$
I believe even Katz has said that.

Last time I checked Katz is an Edmontonian first.

Very Vancouver like post. Condescending (or maybe works for the Katz group). Sports and business, a history lesson? Can I get you a coffee sir?

As a business he is doing good (taking other peoples money) and will fill his pockets but as for creating a winning team or dynasty not so much. Not the worst though obviously.

I don't drink cofffee but resorting to personal attacks is what gives this fanbase a bad name. This is one of the reasons I present a cynical attitude in some of my posts. I don't see Katz forcing people to buy luxury suites, sponsor this team or sign up for season tickets yet they still do. He's not taking anything, perhaps it's being handed to him by customers that aren't as critical as this forum seems to think it is.

Holy ****. People still believe this.

And yet you contribute nothing constructive to the discussion. I'm sure you don't know the guy and personally I'd rather have NHL hockey here with him as the owner than see the Oilers relocate. That's essentially what this comes down to, we are a small market team in the rebuilding process.

 

[Raab]

Agreed, the defense of an owner who was supposed to spend to the cap, build us a rink and be an all around hero instead of being a buddy to Lowe ala Wang being a buddy to Garth snow is indefensible.

As of right now Katz is a worse owner then Wang which is saying something. Its been speculated many times by Stauffer that the Horcoff contract was personally negotiated between Katz and Horcoff. He purposely sewered the team for draft picks which has yet to take us out of the bottom 10 teams in the league. IMO as soon as we knew what we had in Eberle and Hall we shoud have started adding and Improving by him not firing Tambo it looks like he's been on board with this plan the whole time. He also threatened to move the team from a hockey crazed market which simply a ridiculous move.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Could you imagine VOLUNTARILY giving this man THOUSANDS of dollars, then both agreeing with the idea and wishing for a crook like Pocklington to own the team again, that would be just crazy.

 

[flashy]

Not a big fan of the guy.

He probably has the worst w/l ratio as an owner in history. His record of terrible finishes for the team speaks for itself. Katz has been a cancer since joining. This team has gotten worse ever since he touched the team. Now most of you are going to be like its not his fault but you can't deny the facts.

This guy tried to pull some sneaky ones on council like forcing then to give him 6 million subsidy without telling them why...or the whole casino fiasco. Threatened to move the team to Seattle. Shady things like textin Stauffer that Mact was not getting fired on air(so who's really make the decisions?) the fact that he was directly responsible for the rediculous Horcoff contract.

The guy seems more concerned about making sure he owns all the property around the new arena than icing a competitive hockey team.

 

[NewBoysClub97*]

I would take this a little seriouslyif you didn't mention beer prices, etc. Half of those don't matter.

I'm not as big as a fan of Katz as I was when he purchased the team though. For a very rich and business astute man, he has done some pretty dumb things.

Go look up Bill Wirtz...

Go through some history books and look up Ballard....

/End Thread

 

[Six in O6]

Not a big fan of the guy.

He probably has the worst w/l ratio as an owner in history. His record of terrible finishes for the team speaks for itself. Katz has been a cancer since joining. This team has gotten worse ever since he touched the team. Now most of you are going to be like its not his fault but you can't deny the facts.

You clearly did your research and got the "facts" together. Mind telling us who the worst owner w/l is?

 

[flashy]

You clearly did your research and got the "facts" together. Mind telling us who the worst owner w/l is?

Oh please. I put probably, secondly I put ratio so try to read a little better please enlighten which owner has a worst record ratio and placing than last last second last out of their first 4 years owning the team.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Not a big fan of the guy.

He probably has the worst w/l ratio as an owner in history. His record of terrible finishes for the team speaks for itself. Katz has been a cancer since joining. This team has gotten worse ever since he touched the team. Now most of you are going to be like its not his fault but you can't deny the facts.

Owners of the Cubs and Phillies will disagree.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

I'm shutting this thread down for now, it's gone to hell in a hand basket, when I get time I'll see if it is worth the clean-up to bring this thread back to life or whether it's time to cut the losses and can it.