First at Worst
June 12, 2025
By Noonefromtampa
A by-product of the Washington football franchise history review column was me pondering who were the worst owners of professional sports franchises regardless of sport. I’m going to have some fun with this and not present it like your traditional top 10 list.
Washington’s Three Worst Owners
We have covered two of three already in Dan Snyder and George Preston Marshall. So, let’s add one more name to this list, Bob Short.
Bob Short had the winning bid, over Bob Hope, for the expansion Washington Senators team, which lasted from 1969 to 1971. Previously, Short was famous for owning the Minneapolis Lakers which he moved to Los Angeles in 1960 and sold in 1965 to Jack Kent Cooke. Short, who was not short on confidence, installed himself as general manager and hired Hall of Famer Ted Williams as the manager. The team won 86 games in 1970 and finished 4th in the American League East, the first time an expansion team had a winning record in the first 11 years of operation. How do you improve on that? By trading your best pitcher and two of your best infielders for a washed-up Cy Young pitcher in Denny McLain, who was suspended for gambling and lost 22 games. The team was never the same and was relocated to Texas after the 1971 game. That season ended in a forfeit because the Washington fans stormed the field in protest.
Worst Behaving Football Owners
We have a good trio here in Jerry Richardson, Michael Bidwell, and Bob Irsay. Richardson was forced to sell the Carolina Panthers after the hostile workplace he fostered came to light. Activities he allegedly was a port of include sexually suggestive comments, racial slurs and retaliation which led to several large settlements. Bidwell has also been accused of fostering a hostile workplace and cheating. The cheating allegation comes from improperly contacting Steve Keim when he was on suspension for a DUI. Several former employees have filed lawsuits or entered arbitration as a result of the allegations. Former Arizona Cardinals vice president of player personnel Terry McDonough was awarded $3 million for his filing. Bob Irsay actually bought the Rams but swapped franchises with Carroll Rosenbloom in 1972. In 1974, after arguing with head coach Howard Schnellenberger during a game over starting Bert Jones, he fired him postgame, in an era where in-season coaching changes were uncommon. In 1984 when negotiations over a new football stadium became deadlocked, the Maryland state legislature passed a law allowing the city of Baltimore to seize the Colts under eminent domain, which city and county officials had threatened to do. Irsay responded by moving the team in the middle of the night to Indianapolis.
Cheapest Football Owners
Bill Bidwill (who joins son Michael in this column as the only family duo), Hugh Culverhouse and Mike Brown were notorious as some of the cheapest owners in NFL history. Bidwill owned the Cardinals for 63 years and they made the playoffs eight times and had a winning record nine times. Much of that came from his refusal to spend big money on player contracts. The Buccaneers original practice facility was a joke to say the least (I personally visited it; to call it a dump would offend dumps). Try lifting weights outdoors in Tampa from August to October. Plus, it was next to Tampa’s airport which would often drown out the coaches. Want to watch the Bucs practice for the big game? No problem: just go to the parking garage which overlooked the facility. Culverhouse also refused to pay Doug Williams, who then signed with the USFL. Mike Brown also has a reputation for spending the least amount of money possible on players and the facilities that support them. Part of Brown’s problem, maybe the smaller market he is in, but darn, teams get a ton of TV deal money.
Worst Baseball Owners
The top three worst owners in this sport are Marge Schott, Harry Frazee, and Jeffrey Loria. Schott was racist, homophobic and a notorious cheapskate, a trifecta of undesirable personality traits. After her infamous pro-Hitler comments, she agreed to sell her controlling interest in the team and retire. Frazee is infamous for his bad dealings as the owner of the Red Sox. The owner of a good team with bad finances, he sold off most of the talent, including pitcher and outfielder Babe Ruth in 1919. The “Curse of the Bambino” lead to a near century drought of World Series titles until 2004. Frazee ended up selling the franchise in 1923 for $1.5 million, double what he paid for the team. Loria is a two-time loser who ended up being a hated owner of two different teams, the Expos and the Marlins. He refused to work on deal for a new stadium, insisting that it be 100% publicly funded and had no English-language broadcast of the team. Luria essentially traded the Expos franchise for the Marlins franchise. Luria continued his bad ways there. The roster was loaded when he took over and won a World Series title in his second year of ownership. From there, he deconstructed the roster, trading away all the star players and ending up with a bottom of the league payroll. He pleaded small market poverty, but accounting should the Marlins was one of the league’s most profitable teams. He got a new stadium built on the public dime and ended up selling the team for $1 billion profit in 2017.
Worst Basketball Owners
The picks in this category are Donald Sterling, Jim Buss, and Ted Stepien. Sterling, the Clippers owner for 33 years, was forced to sell after his mistress published audio of him being a racist. The NBA forced him to sell the franchise and banned him for life in 2014 to end the public relations nightmare. Jim Buss took over the Lakers from his very successful father Dr. Jerry Buss. He was so inept that he was fired by his co-owner sister and reduced to a non-controlling owner status. Stepien owned the Cavaliers from 1980 to 1983. The team was so bad at roster management that they traded away five consecutive first round picks from 1982 until 1985. The end result of this mismanagement was the NBA adopted the Stepien Rule governing trading away picks.
Special Award for the Dumbest Move by an Owner
The USFL had a niche as the spring football league but was not on sound financial footing as a number of franchises had folded or merged in after the 1982 and 1983 seasons. In 1984, a new owner bought the New Jersey Generals franchise, a businessman named Donald Trump. He advocated for a move to the fall and direct competition with the NFL. Trump believed that this would force a merger with the NFL, and he would become an NFL owner. The league was unable to move forward in 1985 and folded. The USFL sued the NFL over antitrust concerns and won, but was only awarded $1, which was tripled according to antitrust law and with interest added coming to a grand total of $3.76 or about $0.28 per owner.