Alex Rodriguez and Rush Limbaugh faring far better than Tom Hicks and Red McCombs these days
MONDAY, 09 AUGUST 2010 18:09
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/alex-rodriguez-and-rush-limbaugh-faring-far-better-than-tom-hicks-and-red-mccombs-these-days
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
It was not a good week for two Texas moneymen whose portfolios included separate ownerships of sports teams and a piece of the ownership of Clear Channel, a radio syndicator and outdoor advertising company. Thomas O. Hicks' Hicks Sports Group hit the financial skids sometime after the economic meltdown in September 2008. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers along with the lease at the team's Arlington stadium and land that surrounds the park from a group that included then Texas Governor George W. Bush for a reported $250 million in 1998. The Hicks Sports Group started when he purchased the NHL's Dallas Stars in 1995 for a reported $82 million. In 2007, Hicks along with then-Montreal Canadiens owner George Gillett bought Liverpool FC in the English Premiership for about $430 million.
Hicks was finally relieved of his baseball team last week. Liverpool backers are hoping for the same outcome. In 2007, this reporter while in the U.K. spoke to some Liverpool fans and they said they feared Hicks and his partners would Americanize English football bringing with them luxury boxes and club seats. They did and local football supporters have rued the day that Hicks got the team. The hockey team has drawn some interest but the problem according to some in the know is that Hicks did everything right in Dallas but the team is a money loser.
Meanwhile one of Clear Channel board members, Red McCombs found out last week he may owe the Internal Revenue Service $45 million. McCombs was one of the founders of Clear Channel in 1972 when it was just WOAI radio in San Antonio and ended up owning the ABA/NBA's San Antonio Spurs, the NBA's Denver Nuggets and the NFL's Minnesota Vikings. McCombs sold the Vikings in 2002 after failing to get the Minnesota legislature to spend money on a new football facility in Minneapolis.
The Hicks Sports Group became an awful investment. In April 2009, Hicks defaulted on $525 million in loans when interest payments were missed. The Rangers franchise declared bankruptcy in May 2010 in an "effort" to speed up the process to get a deal to sell the franchise to a group led by former Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan and Pittsburgh investor Chuck Greenberg on track. The sale of the Rangers ended up in a bankruptcy court last week with the Ryan/Greenberg group battling Mark Cuban and his partner Jim Crane for the franchise.
Ryan and Greenberg group was the highest bidder for the team.
It is interesting to note that while Clear Channel's Rush Limbaugh was again playing the role of whatever is required of Limbaugh to make people notice him and hold attention between commercials that promise to pay off debt and push erectile dysfunctional remedies, Limbaugh made no mention of Hicks problems or the allegations against McCombs. Limbaugh trotted out the same type of lines that got him in hot water while he worked as a football analyst with Disney's ESPN when he complained about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb being protected by the media but this time applied it to First Lady Michelle Obama. Limbaugh quit ESPN on October 1, 2003 three days after he said "McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed." Limbaugh took aim at the media (it must be hard for Limbaugh to figure out what the media is since he is not one of them nor did he every cover a story) because they were not criticizing Mrs. Obama's trip to Spain enough to meet the Limbaugh standard.
"As far as the media's concerned, Mrs. Obama deserves this. Look at the sordid past. Look at our slave past, look at the discriminatory past. It's only fair that people of color get their taste of the wealth of America too," he said on his Friday show.
Hicks was still part of Clear Channel in 2003 when the wrath of the NFL came down on Limbaugh. McCombs is still very much a part of Clear Channel. Silence is golden for Clear Channel executives when it comes to Limbaugh.
Limbaugh must be getting stale as he is recycling old thoughts instead of using that talent that was allegedly on loan from a higher authority. Limbaugh is heard locally on WABC in New York and WPHT in Philadelphia.
Hicks, as the Vice Chairman of Clear Channel, never stood in the way of Limbaugh's daily utterances. Limbaugh, the highly paid carnival barker, was putting a lot of money into Clear Channel's coffers or was he? Limbaugh was paid handsomely by Clear Channel but Clear Channel as a business which included Hicks and McCombs on the board was eight billion dollars in debt.
By all accounts, Hicks was a model owner with both the Rangers and Stars. He signed Alex Rodriguez to baseball's most lucrative contract ever in 2000. He literarily built a youth hockey program in Dallas by constructing ice rinks in the Metroplex while the hockey team became an NHL power. There will be players joining the NHL in years to come because of Hicks and his Stars President Jim Lites endeavours. Hicks was the 1996 co-chair of the "Dallas Jewish Coalition for the Homeless "Vogel Alcove" project, and received the 2000 "Henry Cohn Humanitarian Award" from the Anti-Defamation League.
Yet Hicks is one of the people who allowed Limbaugh and his tirades to fill up the airwaves on hundreds of stations nationally. To be fair, Clear Channel also employed Randi Rhodes who is just as distasteful from the liberal side. CBS (WFAN Radio in New York) and MSNBC fired Don Imus after some banal name calling about the Rutgers women's basketball team. It is hard to tell why someone gets fired for saying something stupid while others get suspended and others skate free. Limbaugh is the darling of the media in that he knows how to get attention and probably still has a sizeable portion of listeners while Imus was fading in the ratings. The question of why anybody takes any of these people seriously needs to be examined. Drug addicts, gamblers, adulterers, political operatives and yes, even criminals set the political discussion and most of these people have no basis to command that type of respect. Yet Limbaugh is given credit as the head of the Republican party. Limbaugh is a genius that he has fooled so many esteemed journalists and politicians or the esteemed journalists and the politicians are not very smart and fall for the circus performer(s).
Talk radio on the AM dial has been a savior for some radio stations that could not compete with the FM dial and then satellite radio. But most of AM talk radio is inane conversation featuring babblers whose sole job is to inflame people and hold their attention between radio commercials.
Clear Channel stations and programming have had a desultory impact on society. The strategy of narrowly targeting an audience is nothing new in radio but the problem is that other media take radio talk show hosts seriously when most of them are just performers with no journalistic background and play the role of courtyard bullies. Ironically, the Clear Channel sprint to the top of the radio industry was made possible by one of Limbaugh's most frequent targets, Bill Clinton. In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Telecommunications Act which allowed Clear Channel and Infinity to gobble up as many stations as they could. Before the 1996 legislation, a company could only have 14 AM and FM stations and only one AM and one FM per market. The two companies did buy and buy and buy but neither company has had financial success and the two companies have put thousands of professional disc jockeys, reporters and other radio staff out of work by consolidating operations. Infinity, CBS or whatever name that CBS is using these days corporately owns New York's two news stations, WINS and WCBS, and WFAN along with a number of FM stations including WCBS-FM.
In terms of profitability, neither Clear Channel nor Infinity has done well. In truth, the entire 1996 Telecommunications Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton, was a fiscal disaster for all except a few like Limbaugh.
The still financially struggling Clear Channel and the company's partner Premier Networks have Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Jim Rome, Ryan Seacrest, Bob & Tom, Delilah, Steve Harvey, Blair Garner, George Noory, John Boy and Billy, Big Tigger, Dr. Dean Edell, Elvis Duran, Jason Lewis, Randi Rhodes, Kane, Nikki Sixxon the roster and distribute FOX Sports Radio. Clearly, this is a company that only cares about selling commercials to numerous demographics more than content. Critics contended that Clear Channel was too close to the Bush Administration and pushed for support of the Iraq War. But the truth is, Clear Channel has no ideological agenda and just like Rupert Murdoch, the company was looking for a niche were they could get the most money from advertisers. There is one ideology in radio and TV.
Get as much money as possible in ad sales.
Hicks' baseball legacy will not get him into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Despite having Alex Rodriguez on the roster (and paying him $252 million to boot---some of ARod's money was deferred and may be in play in the aftermath of the bankruptcy), Texas was never a major player for a title. Hicks never developed the land around the Arlington baseball stadium while ARod was with Hicks' Rangers as planned. Part of the reason ARod signed with Hicks besides the money was that Hicks would develop the acreage around the stadium with ARod as his signature employee and possible spokesman. It never panned out.
Hicks' hockey team won the Stanley Cup in 1999 and he is reviled in Liverpool.
Hicks has left MLB and had Alex Rodriguez wondering about his back pay. Limbaugh and Beck never talk about the people who give them a platform. They should show they are more than just one dimension cartoon characters whose sole purpose is to fill time between selling your gold and sleep deprivation spots. But if they did, they might blow the cover on what radio talk shows are all about, no nothings who scream the loudest and call people names like schoolyard bullies.
It wasn't a good week for Hicks and McCombs, two people who are never in the spotlight but should never be ignored as they are the deciders of how we think and how we are entertained whether it is in sports or on the radio.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Tom Hicks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Hicks. Show all posts
Monday, August 9, 2010
Saturday, October 10, 2009
The Carnie Has a Right to Buy an NFL Team
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7555
The Carnie Has a Right to Buy an NFL Team
By Evan Weiner
October 10, 2009
5:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- It is really odious to defend Rush Limbaugh but he does have the right to put in a bid for the National Football League franchise that is for sale in St. Louis. The carnie Limbaugh who might or might not believe every word that comes out of his mouth in a bid to startle people to get them to listen to his three hour daily United States radio program, apparently has enough money to join with long time sports executive David Checketts in an attempt to buy the team. If Limbaugh has the money, then he should go ahead with his bid despite his opinions on race, women, politics and anything else. After all, George Preston Marshall once owned the Boston-Washington Redskins and did not employ an African American player until 1962.
Checketts, if Limbaugh is telling the truth about the bid, is a Mormon and apparently is comfortable with the radio character who has made a career out of race baiting along a Nazi fascination and other less than complimentary, rude, hurtful, spiteful comments which would landed him in hot water with many elementary school teachers and principals which could lead to a school suspension and lessons on civility. Of course, Limbaugh’s words came out with a wink; he is only a carnie after all.
There are far more grown ups in elementary school than in the vast cultural wasteland of American radio and TV and that is where the defensive of Limbaugh has to begin. You see the caretakers of the publicly owned radio stations and syndicators are also involved in sports, people like Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers and the National Hockey League Dallas Stars owner Thomas O. Hicks. In addition to Hicks, there is the former owner of the National Basketball Association's San Antonio Spurs and the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings Red McCombs.
McCombs and Hicks were Limbaugh enablers but their contribution to the Limbaugh story is pretty much scrubbed from the public record. In 1975, McCombs along with L. Lowry Mays purchased a San Antonio, Texas radio station, WAOI, and founded Clear Channel Communications. In 1996, Clear Channel purchased Premiere Radio Networks and gained control of Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio show. McCombs was the owner of the Spurs at the time and there seems to be no record of NBA Commissioner David Stern expressing any sort of outrage that McCombs had Limbaugh and others of his ilk under his control.
Limbaugh was making money for McCombs and the association flew under the radar screen. In 1999, Hicks' AMFM, Inc. merged with Clear Channel, but neither Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig nor National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman ever voiced any opinion about Hicks owning a company that allowed Limbaugh to rant three hours daily about whatever would get him into trouble with the elementary school principle whether it was race baiting or calling feminists "Feminazis" or other words or radio skits that would be deemed offensive.
The real genius of Rush Limbaugh lies in the fact that he can keep an audience between commercials with whatever inflammatory statements he can think up. The truth is that over-the-air TV and radio along with newspapers depends on keeping the consumer's attention in between commercials that pay the bills. It has nothing to do with political ideology or covering the news, it is all about getting the most consumers and then being able to steer them to buy what the advertiser is selling. Someone has to pay the bills.
It is all about money; Limbaugh has made money for bosses like McCombs and Hicks. McCombs and Hicks sports interests do not dovetail necessarily with their real businesses. McCombs and Hicks perpetuated Limbaugh's brand and they own sports teams.
Selig was not bothered at all that one of his owners, Hicks, was an enabler but Selig developed a social consciousness over two very visible incidents that involved Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott and Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker that sort of echoed the type of programming that Limbaugh and others had on Premiere.
One of the consequences of the absolute lessening of manners and civility of conversation on radio and TV is the diminishing of respect people have for one another. The likes of Don Imus back in the 1970s opened the door to nastiness and it was all in the pursuit of an audience that would spend money on sponsors. Perhaps Rocker, who was a guy in his 20s at the time felt that he could say what we wanted because of pioneers in race baiting, like Limbaugh who had a rap sheet going back to the days of being a radio disc jockey in Pittsburgh.
Of course there has always been this caveat that has been uttered by the likes of Imus and Limbaugh. We are only entertainers.
In December 1999, Rocker did an interview with Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman. Among the quotes that caught the attention of Selig was one response after Pearlman asked if Rocker would ever play in New York.
“I'd retire first," Rocker told Pearlman. "It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing... The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?
Rocker also made it clear he did not like New York.
“Nowhere else in the country do people spit at you, throw bottles at you, throw quarters at you, throw batteries at you and say, 'Hey, I did your mother last night — she's a whore.' I talked about what degenerates they were and they proved me right.”
Pearlman did the interview while driving with Rocker and reported that "Rocker spat on a Georgia 400 toll machine and mocked Asian women. Also, he supposedly referred to black teammate Randall Simon as a "fat monkey".
The interview was a stain on baseball and Selig acted quickly after it was published. Rocker was suspended in spring training and for the first 28 days of the 2000 season without pay and ordered to sensitivity training. It did little good as Rocker continued opening his mouth but his career quickly went downhill. As soon as his left arm wore out rendering him useless, his career was over.
Schott had all kind of things to say about Nazis, including nice things about Adolf Hitler and disparaging opinions on African Americans and Jews along with men who wore earrings. She earned suspensions in 1993 and 1996 and Selig laid out a deal with her in 1998, face a third suspension or sell off your part of the team by December 31, 1998. Schott did sell most of her Reds ownership shares. What Schott said publicly hurt her, but there were baseball owners who said unsavory things but were never caught on the record. Selig had nothing to say in 1994 when it was alleged in a John Helyar book, Lords of the Realm, that New York Mets co-owner Nelson Doubleday said a derogatory remark against Selig and Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf to National League President Bill White.
Doubleday was one of the good old boys, Schott wasn’t.
Limbaugh is up front with his mouth. Oklahoma City Thunder minority owner Aubrey McClendon funds anti gay groups. That is McClendon's right but see how differently NBA Commissioner Stern handled McClendon’s political agenda when compared with his actions with Tim Hardaway. Stern did nothing. There could be a reason for that, McClendon is one of Stern's bosses, a commission has to answer to others and Haradway was merely a former player.
During an interview on Dan Le Batard's Miami radio show on February 14, 2007 concerning the recent coming out of former NBA player John Amaechi, Hardaway eventually said that " Well, you know I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States." He also said that if he found out he had one or more gay teammates, he would try to get them fired."
Hardaway was long retired by that point and was an NBA legend. He was supposed honored at the league's All Star Game Weekend festivities a few days after the interview. The NBA banned him from appearing and Hardaway lost his job with the Continental Basketball Association's Anderson, Indiana team. The CBA threw him under the bus. Stern did fine McClendon though but it had nothing to do with his politics. Stern was offended that told an Oklahoma City newspaper that Clayton Bennett and his partners, one of who was McClendon, bought the Seattle SuperSonics with the hope of moving the team to Oklahoma City. In August 2007, Stern levied a $250,000 fine against McClendon for speaking the truth.
Limbaugh does not a criminal record despite his OxyContin problem back in 2003, so that is a plus in his bid for a spot with Checketts group. There is a sports team owner with a Betty Ford Clinic background so that should not matter. But the NFL also has an unfavorable record with Limbaugh as his radio character came out in 2003 when he criticized Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb in a racially charged way, Limbaugh might have been right in his assessment of McNabb the quarterback but he forgot he was on ESPN not the imaginary EIB or Excellence in Broadcasting network and that his audience was not the radio "dittoheads". Limbaugh resigned his ESPN job on NFL Sunday Night Countdown October 2, 2003 after just a couple months on the job.
African American players who are currently employed by the St. Louis Rams are not impressed that Limbaugh wants to bid on the team. Ironically enough, the 1946 Los Angeles Rams hired two African American players, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, and ended a 12-year-old policy of segregation. The rival All American Football Conference started in 1946 and did employ African American players as Paul Brown signed Bill Willis and Marion Motley for his new Cleveland Browns franchise. The 1946 Browns replaced the Rams as Cleveland's team and it was because of the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission's deal with Rams owner Daniel Reeves that Washington and Strode signed with Los Angeles. Reeves wanted LA but could only get the Coliseum if he signed Washington. Reeves signed the two players ending NFL segregation.
NFL owners generally never talk about potential partners but Checketts is already a member of the fraternity as an owner of the St. Louis Blues National Hockey League team after running Madison Square Garden for years along with the NBA's Utah Jazz. Checketts is not the problem, the carnie Limbaugh is for numerous reasons starting with his reputation. But Limbaugh has accomplished his primary mission which is all about El Rushbo, but saying he is interested in the Rams, he got people's attention and that probably will put money in his pocket. After all, isn't that what a carnie does?
eweiner@mcn.tv
The Carnie Has a Right to Buy an NFL Team
By Evan Weiner
October 10, 2009
5:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- It is really odious to defend Rush Limbaugh but he does have the right to put in a bid for the National Football League franchise that is for sale in St. Louis. The carnie Limbaugh who might or might not believe every word that comes out of his mouth in a bid to startle people to get them to listen to his three hour daily United States radio program, apparently has enough money to join with long time sports executive David Checketts in an attempt to buy the team. If Limbaugh has the money, then he should go ahead with his bid despite his opinions on race, women, politics and anything else. After all, George Preston Marshall once owned the Boston-Washington Redskins and did not employ an African American player until 1962.
Checketts, if Limbaugh is telling the truth about the bid, is a Mormon and apparently is comfortable with the radio character who has made a career out of race baiting along a Nazi fascination and other less than complimentary, rude, hurtful, spiteful comments which would landed him in hot water with many elementary school teachers and principals which could lead to a school suspension and lessons on civility. Of course, Limbaugh’s words came out with a wink; he is only a carnie after all.
There are far more grown ups in elementary school than in the vast cultural wasteland of American radio and TV and that is where the defensive of Limbaugh has to begin. You see the caretakers of the publicly owned radio stations and syndicators are also involved in sports, people like Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers and the National Hockey League Dallas Stars owner Thomas O. Hicks. In addition to Hicks, there is the former owner of the National Basketball Association's San Antonio Spurs and the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings Red McCombs.
McCombs and Hicks were Limbaugh enablers but their contribution to the Limbaugh story is pretty much scrubbed from the public record. In 1975, McCombs along with L. Lowry Mays purchased a San Antonio, Texas radio station, WAOI, and founded Clear Channel Communications. In 1996, Clear Channel purchased Premiere Radio Networks and gained control of Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio show. McCombs was the owner of the Spurs at the time and there seems to be no record of NBA Commissioner David Stern expressing any sort of outrage that McCombs had Limbaugh and others of his ilk under his control.
Limbaugh was making money for McCombs and the association flew under the radar screen. In 1999, Hicks' AMFM, Inc. merged with Clear Channel, but neither Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig nor National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman ever voiced any opinion about Hicks owning a company that allowed Limbaugh to rant three hours daily about whatever would get him into trouble with the elementary school principle whether it was race baiting or calling feminists "Feminazis" or other words or radio skits that would be deemed offensive.
The real genius of Rush Limbaugh lies in the fact that he can keep an audience between commercials with whatever inflammatory statements he can think up. The truth is that over-the-air TV and radio along with newspapers depends on keeping the consumer's attention in between commercials that pay the bills. It has nothing to do with political ideology or covering the news, it is all about getting the most consumers and then being able to steer them to buy what the advertiser is selling. Someone has to pay the bills.
It is all about money; Limbaugh has made money for bosses like McCombs and Hicks. McCombs and Hicks sports interests do not dovetail necessarily with their real businesses. McCombs and Hicks perpetuated Limbaugh's brand and they own sports teams.
Selig was not bothered at all that one of his owners, Hicks, was an enabler but Selig developed a social consciousness over two very visible incidents that involved Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott and Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker that sort of echoed the type of programming that Limbaugh and others had on Premiere.
One of the consequences of the absolute lessening of manners and civility of conversation on radio and TV is the diminishing of respect people have for one another. The likes of Don Imus back in the 1970s opened the door to nastiness and it was all in the pursuit of an audience that would spend money on sponsors. Perhaps Rocker, who was a guy in his 20s at the time felt that he could say what we wanted because of pioneers in race baiting, like Limbaugh who had a rap sheet going back to the days of being a radio disc jockey in Pittsburgh.
Of course there has always been this caveat that has been uttered by the likes of Imus and Limbaugh. We are only entertainers.
In December 1999, Rocker did an interview with Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman. Among the quotes that caught the attention of Selig was one response after Pearlman asked if Rocker would ever play in New York.
“I'd retire first," Rocker told Pearlman. "It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing... The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?
Rocker also made it clear he did not like New York.
“Nowhere else in the country do people spit at you, throw bottles at you, throw quarters at you, throw batteries at you and say, 'Hey, I did your mother last night — she's a whore.' I talked about what degenerates they were and they proved me right.”
Pearlman did the interview while driving with Rocker and reported that "Rocker spat on a Georgia 400 toll machine and mocked Asian women. Also, he supposedly referred to black teammate Randall Simon as a "fat monkey".
The interview was a stain on baseball and Selig acted quickly after it was published. Rocker was suspended in spring training and for the first 28 days of the 2000 season without pay and ordered to sensitivity training. It did little good as Rocker continued opening his mouth but his career quickly went downhill. As soon as his left arm wore out rendering him useless, his career was over.
Schott had all kind of things to say about Nazis, including nice things about Adolf Hitler and disparaging opinions on African Americans and Jews along with men who wore earrings. She earned suspensions in 1993 and 1996 and Selig laid out a deal with her in 1998, face a third suspension or sell off your part of the team by December 31, 1998. Schott did sell most of her Reds ownership shares. What Schott said publicly hurt her, but there were baseball owners who said unsavory things but were never caught on the record. Selig had nothing to say in 1994 when it was alleged in a John Helyar book, Lords of the Realm, that New York Mets co-owner Nelson Doubleday said a derogatory remark against Selig and Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf to National League President Bill White.
Doubleday was one of the good old boys, Schott wasn’t.
Limbaugh is up front with his mouth. Oklahoma City Thunder minority owner Aubrey McClendon funds anti gay groups. That is McClendon's right but see how differently NBA Commissioner Stern handled McClendon’s political agenda when compared with his actions with Tim Hardaway. Stern did nothing. There could be a reason for that, McClendon is one of Stern's bosses, a commission has to answer to others and Haradway was merely a former player.
During an interview on Dan Le Batard's Miami radio show on February 14, 2007 concerning the recent coming out of former NBA player John Amaechi, Hardaway eventually said that " Well, you know I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States." He also said that if he found out he had one or more gay teammates, he would try to get them fired."
Hardaway was long retired by that point and was an NBA legend. He was supposed honored at the league's All Star Game Weekend festivities a few days after the interview. The NBA banned him from appearing and Hardaway lost his job with the Continental Basketball Association's Anderson, Indiana team. The CBA threw him under the bus. Stern did fine McClendon though but it had nothing to do with his politics. Stern was offended that told an Oklahoma City newspaper that Clayton Bennett and his partners, one of who was McClendon, bought the Seattle SuperSonics with the hope of moving the team to Oklahoma City. In August 2007, Stern levied a $250,000 fine against McClendon for speaking the truth.
Limbaugh does not a criminal record despite his OxyContin problem back in 2003, so that is a plus in his bid for a spot with Checketts group. There is a sports team owner with a Betty Ford Clinic background so that should not matter. But the NFL also has an unfavorable record with Limbaugh as his radio character came out in 2003 when he criticized Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb in a racially charged way, Limbaugh might have been right in his assessment of McNabb the quarterback but he forgot he was on ESPN not the imaginary EIB or Excellence in Broadcasting network and that his audience was not the radio "dittoheads". Limbaugh resigned his ESPN job on NFL Sunday Night Countdown October 2, 2003 after just a couple months on the job.
African American players who are currently employed by the St. Louis Rams are not impressed that Limbaugh wants to bid on the team. Ironically enough, the 1946 Los Angeles Rams hired two African American players, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, and ended a 12-year-old policy of segregation. The rival All American Football Conference started in 1946 and did employ African American players as Paul Brown signed Bill Willis and Marion Motley for his new Cleveland Browns franchise. The 1946 Browns replaced the Rams as Cleveland's team and it was because of the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission's deal with Rams owner Daniel Reeves that Washington and Strode signed with Los Angeles. Reeves wanted LA but could only get the Coliseum if he signed Washington. Reeves signed the two players ending NFL segregation.
NFL owners generally never talk about potential partners but Checketts is already a member of the fraternity as an owner of the St. Louis Blues National Hockey League team after running Madison Square Garden for years along with the NBA's Utah Jazz. Checketts is not the problem, the carnie Limbaugh is for numerous reasons starting with his reputation. But Limbaugh has accomplished his primary mission which is all about El Rushbo, but saying he is interested in the Rams, he got people's attention and that probably will put money in his pocket. After all, isn't that what a carnie does?
eweiner@mcn.tv
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