Devil Rays Fans Want to Fire Team’s Owner
The idea is to get rid of Vince and for a second ownership group to step up and do something. We’re not asking for the Yankees’ payroll but if you double it (from about $28 million) to $50 or 60 million that would at least make us competitive. If Vince doesn’t go then the ultimate goal should be to get him to spend more money.
- Mike Farnham
Yes, Virginia, there is a team out there even more inept, incompetent, and overmatched than our own Houston Astros. Say hello to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays- they of the worst uniforms in the history of professional sports, the worst stadium…and apparently, the worst owner.
In their eight years of their existence, the Devil Rays have…hmm, how to delicately state the truth??…stunk up the American League East. To use the word “doormat” would hardly begin to sum up the totality of their ineptitude and futility. Tampa Bay, in the world of Major League Baseball, is where careers go to die. It’s the home of a stadium that was designed to house every sport BUT baseball. It’s also the home of Vince Naimoli, the owner of Tampa Bay’s tribute to less-than-mediocrity.
Of course, it’s not all bad being Vince Naimoli these days. His Devil Rays are quite profitable, no mean feat in the realm of professional sports. Of course, when your payroll is just slightly more than 10% of the New York Yankees (The salary of Yankees 3B Alex Rodriguez alone is roughly equivalent to that of the ENTIRE Tampa Bay roster.)…well, it’s true; you really DO get what you pay for.
Much of the fan’s anger stems from the fact that the team apparently makes money. In fact, according to a Forbes magazine estimate, it was more profitable than any team in baseball other than the Orioles, who the magazine figured had brought in $34 million in operating income. After receiving $20 million in luxury tax payouts, the Rays took in $27 million in operating income Forbes said. The team has disputed this number saying the Forbes estimates have proven historically inaccurate.
Fans being angry with a team that seems OK with losing is hardly new. What IS new is that some Devil Rays fans seem willing to take matters into their own hands.
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays sit on the bottom of the American League East today, just as they have for much of their eight-year existence. Given that they’ve won just three road games, have few players who could truly be called Major League and are suffocating in baseball’s most luxurious division with a payroll that is last in the league, there is little chance their fate will change anytime soon.
So why not fire the owner?
This thought occurred to 35-year-old Mike Farnham of Bradenton, Fla., as he listened to sports radio one day last month. On the air, the host had launched into what has become a daily rant about the Devil Rays Managing General Partner Vince Naimoli and his small-spending ways.
“I thought, ‘There has to be something that can be done,’” Farnham says.
That night, Farnham, who is a part-time web page designer went home to his computer and invented vincemustgo.com, a website dedicated to the immediate removal of the Devil Rays owner. When it was done, he called up the radio station, alerted the newspapers only to discover someone else had the same exact idea.
Suddenly the information superhighway was clogged with Naimoli antagonists. There was Farnham’s site and another called oustnaimoli.com.
Farnham’s site is advertising a fan walkout for today’s Devil Ray’s game. The cynic in me wonders if anyone will actually notice fans leaving, since the Devil Rays’ home attendance is so poor to begin with.
While people have been supportive Staggers has no idea who will show up. For a team that routinely draws crowds of about 10,000 there might not be enough people in the stands to muster any kind of protest. And it’s highly unlikely that a group of fans heading to the exits is going to force Vince Naimoli to sell his team.
But who knows? Maybe 25,000 people will show and flood the aisles in a sea of white. In which case a filled stadium might actually be a better protest than 30,000 empty seats.
Naimoli, of course, is free to run his business as he chooses- and it is his business. He purchased the Devil Rays, and he is the one taking the associated financial risks. Any business owner wants to turn a profit. No one is going to deny that to an owner of a professional sports franchise.
Vince Naimoli’s team turns a rather tidy profit. In doing so, however, he is alienating many of those who buy the tickets, the t-shirts, the beer, and the hot dogs that generate his teams profits. When your bottom line IS the bottom line, and fielding a competitive team is an afterthought, eventually the fans may just stop showing up. After all, who wants to spend their hard-earned dollars on a team that habitually sucks?
Of course, if you can turn a tidy profit by averaging a mere 10,000 fans per game, why alter the formula?
Well, how about because you as an owner recognize that owning a professional sports franchis is about more than the bottom line. It’s also about recognizing that you also have a responsibility to the community that supports your team. The nature of the business of owning a team is that profitability is all well and good, but people want to see a winner.
I wish Tampa Bay fans the best in their dream of being able to root for a competitive baseball team. Once they achieve that dream, perhaps they can do something about those god-awful uniforms?
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