Huizenga regrets selling off the 1997 team - Sort of
by craig on Feb 11, 2009 11:32 AM EST
in News
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Wayne Huizenga expressed regrets about selling off the 1997 World Championship so early.
Outgoing Dolphins majority owner H. Wayne Huizenga bid an emotional farewell to his favorite franchise Tuesday, but for the first time admitted he might have broke up the Marlins a year too soon after they won the 1997 World Series.
"We lost 34 million dollars the year we won the World Series and I just said, 'You know what? I'm not going to do that,'" Huizenga said at Dolphins headquarters when asked if he had any regrets about dismantling the Marlins in the aftermath of their World Series triumph over the Indians.
"If I had to do it all over again I'd say, 'OK, we'll go one more year. I'm telling you right now at the end of this year I'm out of here.' That's what I would've done, but that's in hindsight. There's nothing you could do about it. The decision was made and we made it."
In other words, he would have waited until after the 1998 season to start the fire sale. Yeah, that would have been better.
The truth is Huizenga was looking to sell the team and he wanted to get the labor cost as low as possible to make it attractive to a buyer. While in the meantime keep getting ridiculous payments for the stadium from a simply horrible lease.
Maybe waiting until after the 1998 season would've made him more money, whether that would've been the case, I don't know, but the results would've been the same on the fan base -- just a year later.
I'm sorry if I find no contrition in his statements, maybe you do, but his ownership of the Marlins was always about how much money he could make. When teams are "losing" money, that really isn't a major concern as long as they are "losing" less than the franchise appreciates.
I'm not against an owner making money, I'm all for it, as I am the players sharing in the increase of income. I mean really, I have never gone to a game in hopes of the seeing the owner sitting in his luxury box.
But something about Huizenga's statement seems a bit disingenuous to me. Perhaps I'm being too harsh.
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That's rather cynical
He probably would’ve made money in 1998. THEN started the Fire Sale.
It’s his fault the Marlins are in the mess they’re in. Maybe HE should pay for the stadium. He did just make a cool billion (with a B) from selling the Dolphins and their POS stadium.
Lay off the stadium, Iwamura
That's rather cynical
Huizenga did make money in 1997 when you add in the money he made as the owner of the stadium. It was only by using an accounting gimmick, did he make it look as if he lost money in 1997. So he then stuck the following owners with the worst lease of any sports team in professional sports.
A real twisted, evil soul.
Ironically the only time he ever won a sports championship, the only thing he knew how to do was destroy the very team that won it.
The Marlins still have not recovered from what he did. Huge numbers of fans were lost to the Marlins forever.
If he had kept the 1997 team together, they would have been strong candidates to repeat in 1998 as Leiter, Sheffield, Conine, and Luis Castillo all had off years in 1997.
Man that 1997 team was powerful-remember Dennis Cook? Sigh……….
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