Limping my way back to full efficacy here, but I don’t want too much news to pile up, so let’s give this a shot. One of the bigger items to drop in the last week was that Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno, would-be stadium land grifter and serial Mike Trout squanderer, is looking into selling the team that he bought for $180 million in 2003:
“It has been a great honor and privilege to own the Angels for 20 seasons,” Moreno said in a release. “Although this difficult decision was entirely our choice and deserved a great deal of thoughtful consideration, my family and I have ultimately come to the conclusion that now is the time.”
For Angels fans, this may come not a moment too soon; for everyone else, it’s more of a puzzle that a rich guy who tethered his ego to his ownership of an MLB franchise would abruptly throw in the towel. Several questions suggest themselves:
- Is this because the stadium deal fell apart? Sports team owners typically know that that the collapse of one stadium deal isn’t anything to lose sleep over, because there’s always the potential for another one around the corner. But the collapse of Moreno’s campaign to get Angel Stadium land at a cut-rate price imploded especially dramatically: FBI investigations, the resignation of the mayor, charges of illegal helicopter registration. Add in that this was already Moreno’s second go-round — he had another land deal in hand with the city of Anaheim a decade earlier before then-mayor Tom Tait scuttled it — and maybe he figured he’d let somebody else beat their head against this particular white whale.
- Is Moreno just old? Arte Moreno just turned 76, and if none of his kids are interested in inheriting the Angels, he may have just figured it’s a good time to get out. The latest Forbes-estimated value for the Angels is $2.2 billion, which would provide a nice return on investment for 20 years of mismanagement, which Moreno could use to go buy himself an election or something.
- Did he realize he’s not very good at this? It can’t have escaped Moreno’s notice that the last time the Angels won a World Series was the year before he bought the team, and they’ve only made the playoffs once in the last 12 years despite the presence of one of the best players in the history of baseball (two, if you count Shohei Ohtani in recent seasons). This seems unlikely since Moreno has never seemed to learn any lessons from terrible moves like signing Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton to long-term deals just as they started to suck, but there’s a first time for everything.
- Will the team name change again? Moreno famously changed the Anaheim Angels name to “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim,” in hopes of grabbing a bigger share of the Los Angeles market from fans who didn’t own maps. This has been roundly unpopular in Anaheim — countless hours of hearings on the stadium deal were wasted on complaining about the team name — so it’s possible a new owner could switch back, but it all depends on who that is.
Then there’s the future of the stadium, which Moreno holds a lease on through 2029, meaning there’s plenty of time for him to pass off any decisions to the next owner. This suggests one last possibility, actually: Moreno may have decided that his association with Mayor Harry Sidhu’s bribery scandal was too much to overcome, and he’d be better off leaving the pursuit of a sweetheart stadium land development deal to some other rich dude without so much baggage. Or, sure, in a perfect world maybe a new buyer will give up on increasing the value of his new asset by extracting some public subsidies, but you don’t get to be rich enough to own a pro sports team by leaving money like that on the table.
Or maybe, as Marc Normandin summed it up, it really is just that Moreno is a real weirdo. Sports team owners sometimes do things for dumb reasons just like the rest of us.
Maybe the clippers owner wants the team ? Should be California Angles
Supposedly not: https://www.si.com/nba/clippers/news/report-steve-ballmer-not-interested-in-buying-angels
Glad to have you back Neil!
I’d be happy to see Moreno’s ownership of the club end, but I agree that it is unlikely that the next owner won’t try to fleece the city/county/general area just as much as Moreno did.
Like an apartment building that sells during a boom, the new owner of the Angels will pay so much that s/he will need to generate the revenue a new stadium would provide… they aren’t paying what the team IS worth, they are paying what it could be worth with a new stadium etc.
As for Moreno, I’m holding out hope that he is/will be more greatly implicated in future… maybe he wants to sell because he can’t see the benefit in owning an MLB team while in the joint.
Like most of my incarceration related hopes for the questionably wealthy, this one will probably go unfulfilled however…
It would be interesting to know more about the methodology Forbes uses for these valuations. Do they assume the public is going to pay for hte stadium?
Forbes doesn’t do anything nearly that involved. They just look at sales of existing teams, do some quick comparisons by revenue and market size, and then guess.
The Forbes revenue estimates have proven to be very accurate over time. Team value estimates, not so much.
Exactly, Neil.
When the company that owns the Maple Leafs was sold for an amount that valued the entire company (only 80% of it was actually sold at the time) at $1.3Bn, the Leafs Forbes valuation immediately jumped from $400-450m – where it had been for several years – to nearly $1bn.
This, of course, failed to take into account that that company also owned the Raptors and other properties.
Similarly, the Dodgers sale (which was mooted to be the first MLB team sold for over $1bn) for more than $2Bn in 2012 immediately ‘recurved’ all the other MLB valuations to reflect this latest example of the bigger idiot theory.
Check out Forbes valuations prior to 2012 and post… it’s really laughable. At best I use them as a relative trend of what teams might be worth in a sale… but the actual value of the business?
(FYI: 2011-2013 the Dodgers value doubled while most of the rest of the top ten grew by at least 30-40%… based on what, other than the Dodgers’ loony sale price??? At the bottom end, the Royals, Pirates, A’s and Rays saw valuation increases of nearly 50% over two seasons. Madness.)
Even Forbes admit that their efforts to quantify income streams are heavily based on conjecture and unattributed but allegedly insider info.
When the Marlins revenue info was leaked a few years back, it matched the Forbes figures almost exactly.
That doesn’t make the Forbes revenue figures gospel, but they do seem like highly educated guesses. Whereas sale price you’re just throwing darts, because of, as you say, the bigger idiots.
I think that’s fair. They certainly do try to figure this stuff out… but unless people on the inside are actually willing to go on record, it’s pretty hard to do better than educated guesses.
Maybe owning a business where you don’t have to show anybody your real books is part of why they’re so valuable.
I’m sure it helps!
would you have included the “buy himself an election” comment had he said to vote for biden back in 2020?
Yes, because I actually typed that line before looking up who Moreno supported politically, then went and inserted the link. And Moreno did far more than just appear at a Trump rally — he gave a bunch of money to Republican campaigns as well:
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1542edd/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1915×1362+0+0/resize/840×597!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fef%2Fe2%2Fb9d1c4be49cf8ac6bd80a640072a%2Fangels-final.png
seriously…i really enjoy your site, have for several years. i am far right leaning, and i feel from your occasional blurbs we do not share the same politics. so you’re gonna tell me you mentioned the line before looking up who he supported? makes absolutely zero sense to me. not to mention the article headline – “latinos for trump” or the comment about it being “necessary” to vote for trump. did an associate tell you, ” moreno sure made a odd political comment” and you “inserted” that in your piece before looking into the details? just not seeing/understanding your response. i really like your site and i find myself in alignment with most of your opinions and views. but when you try and tie in the political stuff it just gets tainted imo.
I didn’t paste the link in before checking what it said; that would be silly. I wrote the line about “buy himself an election” figuring that Moreno surely has waded into campaign funding, then Googled to find an example and went “Yup, checks out.”
Anyway, if you’re reading a site about how rich sports business owners use their money and power to extract subsidies from local governments and hoping to avoid “political stuff,” I don’t know what to tell you except you are in for a world of disappointment.
yes i expect the political stuff – it makes the world-go-round. but i still find your explanation weak on this particular comment. seems like a convenient way to take your turn with the anti-trump & anti-anyone who supports trump talking points. there’s enough negative moreno stuff around, so to me the trump stuff was unnecessary. your site is great, you are a pro on this stuff. resist the major media narratives – you’re better than that.
I miss the “Califonia Angels” name.
I can still see that Jim Fregosi 1970 baseball card in my minds eye…..