Two of the Washington's biggest names got some unwanted attention this week from Sports Illustrated. The SI website rated owners of the four major sports leagues. The top five (best) owners of each sport was listed. No DC owners among those groups. But, we did log two entries on the bottom five (worst) owners in two sports.One will not be a surprise. Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington football team, was rated the 3rd worst owner in the National Football League. He has stellar achievements on the balance sheet. The team was worth $750,000,000 when he purchased it. They are now worth more than double that, now at $1.54 billion. $1,538,000,000. However the teams record is below .500 and the team has neither won, nor appeared in a Super Bowl during his ownership. He's known for spending mega bucks on washed up stars, who shall remain nameless, lest I offend the masses that seem to want to fork over their firstborn's inheritance supporting this team. Probably my least favorite of the DC sports franchises.
In a bit of a surprise to me, the owner of the Washington Nationals, Ted Lerner was rated the 5th worst in Major League Baseball. The family has owned the team for less than five years, so I thought, at worst, they'd get a pass in this type of ranking. But no, and I can rationalize why. The team has become less valuable over the Lerner tenure. From $450 million down to $406 million. The Lerners initially tried to save money by not signing top stars and by developing young prospects. That strategy blew up when a scandal erupted this year when a fraudulent Latin American prospect scene emerged with the Nationals all up in the mix. Add to that a record which has gotten progressively worse and a fragile-at-best relationship with the city of DC and the residents of DC. All after trying to snake the city out of millions after the city constructed a half billion dollar stadium for the team in 18 months flat. Hmmm... starting to understand why they made this list in the first place. The only consolaton is that the worst owner in baseball, according to SI, is our rival Peter Angelos of the Baltimore Orioles.
