Owner of a Lonely Heart...

The Dallas Cowboys opened their new $1.2 Billion Dollar "palace" last night. The .2 part of that represents $200,000,000. The Florida Marlins ENTIRE FRANCHISE isn't worth the .2 portion of the Cowboys new home stadium. Jerry Jones, Owner of the Cowboys, has been mocked, ridiculed and publicly berated for his state of the art video board that hangs above the field. Mind you, it is well within the height requirements that the NFL dictates. But the media would have you believe that every time a punter punts a ball, it will hit this "monstrosity", causing a do-over and thus lengthening the game. Some reporters even joke that the game will now take 5 hours and punts will be the most exciting thing to watch during Cowboys home games. The following is an excerpt of an article written on Friday, on ESPN.com - "And you know what? I am genuinely excited for every single punt at New Cowboys Stadium. Oh, like you'll be turning the channel? Come on! This is gonna be great. Hit the scoreboard! Hit it! Hit it! YESSSS! I can't remember the last time I was this excited for something this stupid, and when the old farts in the media get riled up on Monday because five punts hit the scoreboard and somebody's wedge guy pulled a hamstring sprinting downfield for the fourth time in three minutes, even better."
Guess what? Exactly ZERO punts hit the scoreboard last night. None were even close. Jones, amid tremendous pressure and ridicule, chose not to raise the scoreboard. It would have cost him a little less than $2 million to do it (in other words 1/100 of the .2 portion of the stadium cost). So, clearly, he has the money to do it. He left it there, out of principal and because the height that it is at right now is the optimum viewing level for fans. And that is why Jones gets it. He is an owner who 100% gets the purpose of his job. Owners like Jones, Daniel Snyder, Mark Cuban, and yes, even George Steinbrenner get it. They all get mocked publicly for their behavior and their lavish spending. But ask any fan of any of those teams, and the answer will all be the same - their owner is trying to put a winning product on the field at any cost. Why do we mock that?

Why isn't there more public outcry for owners like Donald Sterling and Jeffrey Loria and Bob Nutting? These are owners who take fans' money and revenue sharing money from TV and other owners and then do not put it back into their teams- but rather pocket the profits. They don't care whether their team wins or loses. All they care about is a quick buck.

But owners like Steinbrenner, Cuban, Snyder and Jones - they all reinvest that money into their teams. Yes, they are multi-billionaires and have the wherewithal to do this, but the fact remains, they choose to do it. They are just as much fans as they are owners. They live and breathe their teams, just as we fans do. They care whether their team wins or loses. And that, in this day and age is noble. I would much rather throw my support behind an owner I know invests his money, his heart and his soul into his team, than an owner who is using his team as a tax shelter, while pocketing the profits.

Think about it, if I gave you $1 billion and told you to buy a sports franchise. First, you'd pick your favorite team, so you could run it your way. Then you would do anything and everything you could to make that team a winner. And that's all these guys have done. They are just like you and me......you know, with a couple extra billion in their pockets.