As 2022 wraps up, jon_wertheim and chrisjalmeida will discuss some of the themes of the year in sports. Today, they chat about Robert Sarver, Dan Snyder and the ways leagues have pressured problematic owners to sell their teams
) Robert Sarver, we may have our feelings about him, but he's gonna be fine when he sells this thing. So, yeah, I think that is a factor in this but I think what we're seeing is that these leagues have figured out levers that they can pull that don't necessarily force a sale, but can make these problematic owners want to sell.
Certainly a big part of forcing a sale is seeing the players turn against the owner in question. When Chris Paul and C.J. McCollum and LeBron and the Players Association speaks out against a particular owner, that's something that hasn't been in the marketplace. That’s something that can send a message to sponsors and create even more pressure. We see, whether it's FedEx or whether it's Footprint in Phoenix, that when the sponsors start to pull out, that becomes a problem.
and let him make the situation unsustainable for himself. They basically put the cinderblock around his leg and then let him throw himself into the river. That strategy accomplished that direct pressure may never have done. I had an owner once tell me that they don't necessarily mind these guys because it means one less team, one less franchise to worry about. Donald Sterling was a terrible person, but he also wasn’t paying lavishly. He depressed wages. His team was awful.
And in this way, they don’t have to. They don’t have to worry about lawsuits. They don't have to worry about these scorched earth tactics. You basically pull the right levers through players associations and sponsors and changing debt limits. And any rational human being then looks at their situation and says, “You know what, I'll take my money and go.”