| 26 August 2010
(a conversation that took place this morning over breakfast)
Stan Kroenke: Hey son?
Josh Kroenke: Yeah, Dad?
Stan: Would you like a raise to your allowance?
Josh: Sure would, Dad! What do I have to do?
Stan: Pass the syrup.
Josh: That's it? Hell, I would have done that for free. What do I get in return?
Stan: Two professional sports franchises.
Josh: /jaw drop
So for those who haven't heard, Stan Kroenke has been granted his wish and is now the majority owner of the St. Louis Rams. It has not been determined if he will be required by the league to wear garish blue Frontiere business suits. What the league has determined that owning an NFL franchise requires ALL of your time. After all, this league prints money, and how can one expect to count it all if you've got side businesses to tend to. But that's okay - pro sports franchise ownership is often a family business, and Stan surely has some kin to whom he can farm out the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche.
Take his 30-year old kid, for example.
Effective immediately, Josh Kroenke is now the principal owner of the Avs. One of the few major market Western Conference teams is now in the hands of someone my age. So before press conferences are called and owner's suites are redecorated, let me put something out there.
People my age are not fit to own sports teams.
It's not that we don't like sports - we love sports. And we play enough fantasy sports to give the impression that we have some interest in holding such a position. But as a seasoned veteran of fantasy sports, and more specifically, fantasy hockey, there are stretches of the season where I get busy with other stuff and forget to fix my roster. If I was in charge of the Avs, I might give Coach Sacco the directive to play Kyle Cumiskey 32 minutes a game and then go on vacation. Then I would come back to find that I've killed Kyle Cumiskey. That would be terrible.
Also, despite being in Finance for a living, I'm not always the best with budgets. There hasn't been a grocery store trip in three years that hasn't ended with me grabbing a Mountain Dew from the cooler by the cashier. What if I did that with personnel? You realize how crowded the Pepsi Center locker room would get with 48 members of the ECHL looking to suit up?
I also play video games in my free time. I play Franchise modes of EA Sports titles. After creating the perfect roster and winning back-to-back-to-back titles, I get complacent with victory and look for ways to change the game. One such way is relocating the team at its absolute popular apex. Hey Omaha, get ready for AVALANCHE HOCKEY.
Now I'm sure Josh Kroenke is probably beyond all of this. He was an Academic First Teamer at Mizzou - it's the Harvard of Missouri - and he's been in the front office with the Nuggets for years. But just you wait until the first all-organization meeting when Adam Foote talks about how he was drafted out of the OHL and the owner realizes he was NINE.
This is going to be fun.
