Personal lives
Occasionally we are reminded that people in baseball are still people and they have actual lives as well. We get neat human interest stories like Steve Delabar and Tom Wilhelmsen. Sometimes the news is not so good, like with Smoak and Saunders each losing a parent in the past year. Fortunately for the players, baseball has made some progress in recent years in instituting policies for things like bereavement and paternity leave.
Often there’s an urge to try and read into these events an effect on someone’s performance, even though it’s impossible from the outside to know how people are being affected or predict how they will respond. On one hand, Smoak came back from his father’s funeral to hit some home runs and go on a bit of a hot streak, but afterward went into a prolonged slump over multiple months. Then again, at some point he hurt his thumbs too, which may have more to do with it. A lot of people basically gave Jose Lopez a pass for one really bad season due to some tragic family circumstances. Obviously, you sympathize with people in these situations on a personal level, but for evaluation purposes it’s basically a guessing game about whether something will carry over and how.
Along these lines, Geoff Baker has a story in the Seattle Times today that essentially boils down to “Chris Larson, the Mariners’ second-largest shareholder, is getting divorced.” Most of the implications it touches on – will he end up selling his stake, can he still make a capital call if the owners decide to boost payroll – are entirely speculative. We don’t even know that there will be a capital call, let alone what that means for Larson. Mind you, I’m not saying the story has no newsworthy information, there are some interesting details about team ownership and finances. And it’s not like the public will be told directly if there are changes in the team budget or ownership makeup, so we have to read the tea leaves using stories like this. But on some level, you have an unfortunate private matter being publicized simply because of someone’s position with the team.
So, the question I’m putting out there is, “What’s the point at which this kind of personal stuff is suitable for public discussion?” Some level of respect for privacy is still appropriate, surely, but these lines can be hard to draw. With Smoak and Saunders, reporters occasionally alluded to issues and it was kind of circulating in the rumor mill, but official confirmation only came when they actually left their teams (I believe Saunders was down in Tacoma when it happened). How do you react to this stuff, and does it affect your evaluation? For example, and I’m not in any way suggesting this is the case, but if Ichiro’s down season was being attributed to some major personal situation, would that make any difference in how you look at it? Also, should these issues be considered the same for owners and players, or are they distinct?
It’s obvious why it’s newsworthy. Washington State is a community property state, like California, where a Dodger owner divorce (also a case where an owner’s wealth has evaporated) is kind of affecting that team as well.
I believe ones private life should remain private unless of course one decides to make it public or something illegal is going on. I find it to be unresponsible journalism to write private stuff on someone just to get a story.
That’s true, but Baker doesn’t even begin to get into that angle. I would add that on some level, Larson doesn’t deserve comparisons with McCourt, and there’s certainly no suggestion that he’s appropriated revenues or manipulated team assets for personal use. And with a minority owner, the impact is not necessarily as dramatic. The court could split up Larson’s share and give some of it to his wife, or even have it all sold off, without it having to affect team operations.
Mike, as much as I think yours is an appropriate question to ask, I also think Baker’s piece represents an appropriate level of attention and a legitimate question in the midst of an unfortunate personal situation.
Owning a significant piece of a MLB team, which I view as something akin to a public trust, comes with a certain amount of unwelcome attention. The question of whether the accumulation of $225 million in debt (in the middle of a recession) while the Mariners have reduced payroll – at the same time competitors have increased payroll – is merely coincidence or causally related, while hugely speculative at it’s core, is a fair question.
Personally, I don’t think they are related, really. Yes, $225M is a lot of debt, but 19 million shares of Microsoft stock, even at roughly $26 in currently depressed share price valuation, is worth close to a half a billion dollars. And I would assume that isn’t the full extent of his investment portfolio or the entire extent of his wealth. More importantly, outside of Larson’s initial $65M stake in the M’s (which has grown in value to about $104M), he’s never had a capital call from the M’s and they’ve never needed one, because the teams has nearly ALWAYS made money under this ownership group, in this stadium. It would be interesting to total the reported operating profits and losses over the years, and try to figure out what happened to the money…. Surely some went to stadium improvements as well as scouting and other operating improvements, but I highly doubt the Mariners ownership group would need a cash call in order to increase payroll again to the $100M range. It would take courage, because if that money isn’t spent well and doesn’t produce expected results, that could change pretty fast, but the alternative of NOT spending money is nearly as risky – maybe more so.
Chris Larson is going to be fine. Might he have to sell a few houses or make some minor lifestyle changes? Probably, but who hasn’t had to change a few things in this economy? He’ll work it out. In the meantime, this kind of uncomfortable attention represents the first of many questions fans can legitimately ask about how this ownership group and front office plan to turn this team around.
That’s true, but Baker doesn’t even begin to get into that angle. I would add that on some level, Larson doesn’t deserve comparisons with McCourt, and there’s certainly no suggestion that he’s appropriated revenues or manipulated team assets for personal use. And with a minority owner, the impact is not necessarily as dramatic. The court could split up Larson’s share and give some of it to his wife, or even have it all sold off, without it having to affect team operations.
Yes, but I would say it’s newsworthy nonetheless- the potential for a minority owner to lose their interest (or potential ownership changes) in the Mariners due to a divorce? The possibility that an owner might not be able to meet a capital call, were one to happen? Definitely meets the bar for me.
I’ll be very candid about my bias here: as a divorced man myself, digging around the fine details of a person’s divorce – even if it’s using public record, even if it’s to just assemble cold facts about financial flexibility in a business venture – is reprehensible.
I was already taking a break from the Times blogs for a bit as it was. One look at the headline from Muckraker Baker pushed me right into staying away altogether. Possibly with the occasional exception of some Larry Stone posts, as he’s actually a good reporter.
I can’t be objective on this topic.
His initial stake at the time of purchase would have been about $30 million. The owners did add capital to cover losses and some of the construction costs for Safeco Field, as the story indicates.
I’m generally in agreement with you, Pete, so I’m asking questions not particularly to challenge the reporting, just to stimulate discussion. I hope Chris Larson ends up fine, and same for the ownership group overall.
Where I don’t share your confidence is that the finances are in place to boost payroll without a capital call. Part of that, of course, is that we don’t have a lot of transparency with team finances. It’s possible that reinvested profits could continue to sustain the team for a while. But with attendance continuing to drop, we’re definitely in times where the team will have to absorb losses if it wants to even sustain current payroll levels. That’s basically taking the ownership back to the environment they bought the team in, instead of the profitable one they’ve enjoyed for the past decade.
Mike – I don’t know why you compare players with personal tragic family deaths to the Baker blog. But otherwise this issue may have a huge direct or indirect effect on the Mariners and fans and the invested tax dollars. This I would say is a public issue and most suitable for public scrunity. Although I see no reason to delve into his personal life anymore than necessary.
Death and divorce are both personal and tragic on some level. I’m not saying they’re equivalent, or even that any two situations are equivalent. Maybe if you want to use the weird saga around John Lackey as a non-Mariners comparison, that would give a different context to things. But if the point is not delving into personal lives any more than necessary, that’s exactly what I’m asking about – how much is “necessary”?
Mike Snow wrote:
“Where I don’t share your confidence is that the finances are in place to boost payroll without a capital call.”
A quick little Google search, focusing in profits reported to the PFD, reveals that in the last ten seasons the Mariners have reported a cumulative operating profit of nearly $100 million:
2010: +1.7M
2009: +3.2M
2008: -4.5M
2007: +17.8M
2006: +23.3M
2005: +8.3M
2004: +8.7M
2003: +13.6M
2002: +10.7M
2001: +15.5M
It was a quick search and it’s possible that I caught a Forbes estimate in there once or twice. It is also probable that what the Mariners report to the PFD is on the low side – as low as accounting practices will allow, as the reporting for those purposes is used to trigger when, if, and to what extent the Mariners have to share profits with the County.
$100M is a lot of money. Even if they lose double what they lost in 2008 in 2011 (I’ll buy that), and even if the 2000-2010 reporting above is overstated, do we really think they sunk, say, $50M into team operations and uncompenstated stadium improvements over the last ten years? I don’t. Maybe half that. Maybe. So I am reasonably confident that the Mariners have a war chest that can fund a 10-15% increase in payroll for 2-4 years without a capital call, but the trick is they have to be confident that at the end of those 2-4 years they will at least be close to break-even in operating profits. Tough choice, because if they don’t start to spend and show commitment to more immediate improvement, they are going to lose their fan base at an even faster rate than they would if they spent and spent and still failed.
I agree with you, though, that lack of transparency in finances makes uneasy guesswork of most of this. No doubt that the Mariners are going to have to be willing – one way or the other – to re-enter a phase where at least modest operating losses are to be expected if they hope to break the downward cycle of failure and fan exodus they are currently in. I really don’t think they have much choice about this. And because the Mariners have chosen to operate with such lack of financial transparency, Mr. Larson’s unfortunate personal situation is relevant to questions about whether and how the Mariners will face that “choice.” To me, that makes it news, without much question.
I respectfully disagree. The proper response IMO is to continue to press on the lack of financial transparency of the organization, and do speculation based on how the business is operated, what similar organizations do, and so on. Not by straying into tabloid speculation about the finances personal lives of its shareholders.
“We can’t see your books, so instead, since we know how many houses and cars one of your shareholders has, we can imply that they could pony up the money to help get a proper payroll if they’d just live right.”
Bleh.
I think it’s safe to say that the local media has been pretty gentle to local ownership. Before the story about a month ago that went through all the owners– I had no idea who was still involved, who had left already, how much anyone’s share was worth, much less anything about their personal lives.
And now, as their names have been talked about since that article, seems pretty ok to give an update on one of those owner’s situations changing, and possibly having ramifications on the club. (It certainly wouldn’t have helped MLB or the Dodgers organization to NOT KNOW as fully as possible what McCourt was going through… Or before him, the sad state of affairs surrounding a Rangers ownership while they were making a run at the World Series.)
So yeah, definitely for me, as this team tries to get to NOT SUCK-ing, I’m okay with hearing about details that might explain any inability to increase payroll this year (y’know, beyond the fact that attendance was horrendous last year). If nothing else, so we can talk about things like– maybe it’s time for him to sell his stake to another owner as quickly as possible, so the divorce doesn’t interfere in any way with fiscal choices heading into next season?
Not really concerned at all with the details of his personal life, but appreciative of being able to hear info that might affect the product the M’s are able to put on the field.
And hey, as a little needling point– if I DID have a problem with it, which again I don’t, I think it’s a bit ironic that the article questioning that information as publicly necessary– um, restates the story to more people who may not have heard about it through Geoff Baker’s stuff (there are those of us who don’t read him)…
That part I find a little humorous, in the off chance you don’t think Baker should have written about it… Kinda reminds me of my college roommate’s girlfriend, who was from the East Coast, and complained whenever we went to any Northwest destinations, like Snoqualmie Falls, or the Space Needle, “This place would be a lot nicer if there weren’t so many tourists” (guffaw).
“We can’t see your books, so instead, since we know how many houses and cars one of your shareholders has, we can imply that they could pony up the money to help get a proper payroll if they’d just live right.”
With respect, Chris, I don’t think that is the point of Baker’s piece or why I think it is relevant. At least I’m not suggesting that Larson could pony up for a “proper payroll” – in fact, I’m suggesting he probably won’t have to be asked to do that until well after his divorce is tried and finalized.
I do take issue with aerial photographs of Larson’s sprawling compound, descriptions of the size of his “home office,” how many houses or cars he has, the size of his garage, and the like – that seems like unnecessary voyeurism to me, and isn’t really all that relevant to the central question: can Chris Larson still afford to be a 30% stakeholder in a “public trust” franchise whose profitability was built upon public funds? There is certainly a question about whether the Mariners might need to head into a period where capital calls are necessary, or at least conceivable, and the fact that Larson is going through a divorce (in a community property state), has $225M in debt and another $30M pledged to other business ventures from which he expects capital calls, and lives a lifestyle that requires four times his current income to support, are all things that are relevant to the legitimate question of whether the Mariners can be confident that their largest minority owner can meet that call if/when it comes. I find myself in total agreement with MrZDevotee’s comment that he’s “[n]ot really concerned at all with the details of his personal life, but appreciative of being able to hear info that might affect the product the M’s are able to put on the field.”
While the talk has died down over the last few years it seems to me that, especially during the Bavasi years, bloggers and commenters on this site and others were in favor of Larson becoming the managing partner of the ownership group. There seemed to be a general feeling, despite any hard evidence to support it, that as a Microsoft exec he would be more open to hiring front office staff friendly to advanced metrics.
Baker touches on this briefly at the beginning of the article, and I think that may be the most important thing that we can take away from it: Chris Larson may not be in any position to be the saviour of the franchise he was once looked to to be.
I disagree, Mike, that the article boils down to “Chris Larson, the Mariners’ second-largest shareholder, is getting divorced.” I think that regardless of his marital status, the importance of the story is his shaky financial situation and the fact that should a capital call be made (regardless of the likelihood of such an event), close to a third of that capital would be the responsibility of someone who may not be able to come up with it.
It’s easy for us to say “Well, he should just sell off a few of his properties to come up with the money.” But the reality is that in a recession, how many people are in a position to buy his properties?
Spot on, benno. The only reasons his divorce is relevant are (a) it is the reason why this information is public and accessible, and (b) something Baker didn’t even really explore – in a community property state, this shaky financial house of cards is subject to being partitioned in an even shakier economy.
Having read the article, I didn’t come away thinking that it overemphasized personal aspects of the divorce, but only mentioned it in the larger context of the dynamics of the current ownership group. And I wasn’t aware of who all the owners were, what their relative stakes were, etc. until I read the article. I thought it was all newsworthy content and I know a little more about how the team is run now that I’ve read it. Still pissed at Baker over the whole Edgar HoF voting situation, but I have to say I think this article was fine.
The media, like baseball, is a business. Every time I turn on the TV for the evening news, I’m reminded of what most people want to see. So to get readers/viewers/listeners, in order to keep a viable business, this is what they give us. Divorce Of The Rich And Famous will get attention every time.
But to get to the questions Mike posed, I have mixed feelings about an article like this. Larson is clearly a guy who doesn’t seek the limelight like a George Steinbrenner, yet it is thrust upon him. I think the lack of transparency into the ownership group made this less of a headline, if anything.
As for Smoak and the others, mention of their personal tragedies has more positives than negatives. I guess some of the players would rather the word not be out, but most people appreciate a little kindness and sympathy when they have this sort of issue, and it can only make us more fond of them. Maybe there will be a few less boos for a strikeout by a player who is suffering through something like this.
AS for divorce records being public, I am not sure that it really serves a sufficient benefit to society to have all the dirty laundry and private information out there for gawkers. Maybe it should be kept sealed.
More irritating to me is Baker’s constant beating the drum for a higher payroll as if that is the sure way out of the Mariners’ problems. The article seems to be based on the idea that a cash call is needed, and it is a problem that Larson may not be able to meet it.
“A significant payroll hike appears needed,” Baker writes, “but Mariner owners haven’t added any new money–through what is known as a capital call–in more than a decade.” Completely misleading and flawed in its analysis. Sometimes he reports, sometimes he does some weird mixture.
And this: “Whether Mariner owners would meet a capital call in the post-2008 economy, the fact remains–for whatever reason–they aren’t being asked.” The subtext is that Baker believes, and wants fans to believe, that they should be asked.
So at its heart this is Baker’s hobbyhorse as much as it is a Larson-centered expose. The team cut payroll based on revenue projections over the past several years without going to a capital call to spend the money that would make the team competitive, he reports, as though this is the avenue that should have been taken in previous years and should be taken now.
Additional capital may be necessary just to maintain payroll (although that’s uncertain, as Pete has pointed out). And I don’t think anyone would dispute that a higher payroll would create more flexibility in terms of how Zduriencik goes about trying to improve the team. I don’t see this as being an agenda Baker is pushing, more just pretty conventional baseball wisdom. Flawed, but not totally wrong either.
As if divorce is unusual? There is certainly a potential to affect the team, whether it actually does or does not, so it’s probably worth reporting. Those that have had a painful experience with divorce may find it revolting; those of us who have not may think ehh.
More embarrasing than any details of a divorce is the performance of the team over the last half decade. Ownership has had a pretty free ride.
I find the article interesting in gaining some knowledge of the Mariners. I could care less about the details of the divorce. If Larsen wants to stay out of the public eye, he chose the wrong investment.
I agree with Mike, or at least I didn’t see or read into the article the kind of agenda firova perceives, though it is certainly a reasonable interpretation from the excerpts firova quotes.
Baker could have made his point clearer, and the chart that was produced at the end of the online version of the article might have been made clearer if it also reported the operating profit claimed in each of those years, as that would have amply demonstrated why there was little need for a capital call at any point recently. Yes, the team lost money in 2008, but that came with a $117.6M payroll in a year when attendance drop by 400,000 fans – and it followed two years where the reported profit exceeded $41M. There wasn’t much reason to try to spend on a par with 2008 in 2009, coming off a 101-loss year, so the payroll drop was reasonable, but even if they had decided to keep payroll in the $110M+ range, it would sure seem the money was there without need for a capital call. As it was, attendance in 2009 only dropped another 100,000, while payroll dropped $18.7M…and the Mariners saw a $3.2M operating profit.
It is really difficult to do this in anything more than a very rough way, because you kind of have to assume that operating expenses outside of payroll and revenues outside of ticket sales stay virtually the same, and you can’t really do that going back too far because the KOMO radio/TV deal was far richer than the current KIRO deal, but looking at 2009-2010, I’d speculate that every drop in attendance of 100,000 costs the Mariners somewhere in the range of $3-$3.5M in operating profit/loss, which would mean they’ll have something like $5-$6M in operating losses in 2011. That’s still something I would think they can absorb, and make a commitment to increase payroll, without making a capital call yet.
After all, the last five years have seen a cumulative operating profit of $41.5M, going into 2011 – a 2011 loss of $5-$10M shouldn’t break the bank. Nor should a 10% payroll increase (which would mean a 2012 payroll of roughly $103M), even if attendance dipped another 100,000, revenues were flat, and the result was a 2012 operating loss exceeding $15M.
Mind you, I am not advocating for a payroll increase (though I think having the flexibility to go that direction if the FO determines it makes sense from a baseball perspective would be nice), as I am not really sure I think the Mariners are at that point in their development where they need to spend like that nor do I believe there are logical targets for that kind of spending. I think adding back in roughly what is already coming off the books should be enough. BUT, I am saying I don’t think Chris Larson is in any real or immediate danger of having the Mariners make a capital call too soon. As I said before, I’d think that unless the decision to spend more is executed very poorly and the results continue to disappoint, the M’s should be able to go 2-4 years without having to make a capital call, depending on how much payroll they add. If they go about that correctly, there is time for attendance/revenues to turn around.
Not a huge margin for error, but not quite as dire as Baker paints it (in the firova presentation/perception of his case). Cause for concern, maybe, but not time to panic.
Professional baseball teams are share more in common with local government than they do with privately-owned business.
Cities and states subsidize local sports teams to the tune of 100’s of millions of dollars in exchange for some local entertainment and pride.
It does not seem unfair then for local reporters to be allowed to focus on the “private” lives of individuals who receive so much public money. I’m not proposing that Geoff Baker should write about WHY they got divorced, or about who a person is dating, etc, but something like the divorce proceedings of a person who the electorate are investing money into.
But it’s Geoff Baker, and I generally dislike almost every word he writes, so whatever.
I read the article in today’s Times, and considering we live in the age of blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the media at large offering opinion as news, thought the article was well-written.
The writer actually did some research and backed his story with facts. It is absolutely relevant to the future of the Seattle Mariners.
Did the author cross the line into sensationalism?
He presented the facts and their relevance to the M’s situation for the coming year. I say he did not.
I have to agree with Chris here:
Figures that it’s Baker with the controversial (some can well say, muckraking) story.
No wonder some people write him off as being just another attention whore.
You are joking, right? First of all Baker’s story related entirely to the impact on Mariner finances which is an important aspect to a significant number of people in the area and, therefore, legitimately newsworthy. I’m guessing there could be a lot of details about the divorce itself that might be very interesting but not related to the Mariners’ ability to increase payroll. None of that was in the story.
Second, from a non-baseball perspective, the enormous debt he has managed to rack up is truly astounding. Something’s wrong when someone can live like a King (of the non-Sacramento kind) while so many people are struggling. And yet people can sympathize with someone who lives in a 25,000 SQUARE FOOT HOUSE and has 8 OTHER HOUSES between here and London. With all that, he’s still managed to blow it. Get some perspective and save your sympathy for the people who need it.
Er… Boeing? Microsoft? Plenty of private businesses around here that enjoy (or enjoyed) subsidies from the public sector. For our entertainment and pride. Some of them probably closer to billions of dollars, than 100’s of millions…
It’s just how the “game” works (both types).
Yeah, like the Yankees… (hee, hee) Seriously though, talk about lots and LOTS of money and still finding a way to blow it– they’d be exhibit A.
I gloat, yes, but it’s just reassuring to know, year after year, that money isn’t the deciding factor in who wins the World Series (waving “hi” at YOU, Red Sox Nation… and NY Yankees… and Mets…)
A minority owner is getting divorced? Hmmmmm…..slow news cycle meet lazy beat writer.
Anyone who reads this story and thinks it is about Chris Larson’s divorce is either not paying attention or completely biased against Geoff Baker.
The public records of Larson’s divorce offers readers a glimpse into some of the financial factors that obviously are a factor in the product that this team is able to put on the field.
If you are so tied up about this being a divorce story, what you think if you learned there wewre a lot of so rid details about the personal aspect of Larson’s divorce that Baker omitted from the story? I would not be surprised if there was a lot more detail that Baker considered irrelevant or untasteful to include.
The so try, and more importantly the news behind it, are totally legitimate by news journalism standards: the subject is a prominent and public figure, the subject of the Mariners and their payroll is timely, the Mariners are a local team and the issue of the team’s ability to meet a capital call as opposing teams are increasing their payroll has considerable impact on the team (although it is bate able whether the team can’t be successful without raising payroll).
With respect, I think this post is poorly thought out and smacks of some type of vendetta With Baker, which is unfortunate be ause I think he deserves credit for the quality of his reporting.
This article is just additonal evidence of why I think that Geoff Baker is one of the worst newspaper writers I have ever seen…
This is a typical Baker story. Come up with a conclusion (such as the fact that payroll has gone down since 2008) and then back into that conclusion by using what he thinks are “facts” while ignoring other factors.
The day that Baker stops writing for the Mariners (or stops writing for 75% of the Mariners season while he is on vacation the other 25% of the time) will be a great day for us all.
Sorry for the typos, I am an idiot for trying to use a tablet.
Something is wrong when they judge how another person lives their life and then feels that it is ok with doing so because they happen to make more money than you do.
I truly, truly don’t understand Seattle’s obession with athlete’s (and coach’s) salaries. Why are we full of so many jealous people in this town?
Well, two thoughts. No, divorce records shouldn’t be sealed. You don’t get to use the courts we all pay for to settle up your private matter without making it a public record. The Larsons would have paid the same filing fee everyone else paid, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest their divorce may take more public resources to resolve than the typical middle-class person’s divorce. So, sorry, I can’t see any reason those records should be sealed.
But I still don’t see the point of the article. It’s absolutely taking a conclusion first and then adding “facts” that appear to support the conclusion without any evidence. Indeed, the Mariners expressly deny in the story that Larson’s divorce will have any impact on their payroll. And there’s no reason to believe the Mariners would need a capital call to increase payroll. While the M’s public disclosures may not be the most transparent on earth, we in Seattle get more information on team finances than almost any other franchise in the majors, because of the requirements of the PDA legislation and lease. The M’s would not claim a profit if they had any way to claim poverty; anyone who was here in the Argyros or Smulyan years knows that.
I don’t understand why people don’t think this is a good article, or why it should stay private. The post before this, Dave talked about how the M’s would likely have about $20 million to play with this off season, and how it’d be difficult to fill all the holes given that budget. Now we have an article by Baker that explains (at least in part) why there isn’t going to be additional $ to fill the holes on the roster.
I’m not saying money is the end all be all, but obviously the more money you spend, and spend wisely, the more likely you are to have a really good team. If this divorce impacts the team’s finances, it’s news, and fans deserve to know about it.
– The Mariners are run like a business they try and optimize their revenues and then base their payroll on that number. If the Mariners thought they could guarantee 3million fans next year (with any move) they’d consider adding that payroll.
But (and rightfully so), they know that no matter who they signed they will only get a certain amount of fans.
Like I said earlier, Baker just likes to stir the pot and uses his own biases to write stories and then backs into them by using things that appear to be related, but are not necessarily related and then ignores all the other points that are either obviously more strongly related or at least just as “not-necessarily” related.
The problem with the article is that it does not explain it at all. In order to reach Baker’s conclusion, you have to believe all of the following:
1. The M’s at any time would use a capital call in order to increase payroll.
2. The M’s would otherwise make this capital call right now, except that they won’t because Chris Larson couldn’t make the call.
3. Chris Larson couldn’t make the call.
In the article itself, the M’s categorically deny 1 and 2. Given the M’s have never done this in the past, that’s a pretty believable position. Some fans may not like it, but it’s pretty unusual for a profitable business to make a capital call for the purpose of product improvement when they can’t (as the poster ahead of me points out) be sure it will increase revenue.
The article is germane to 3 to some extent, but it’s the typical sportswriter’s misunderstanding of anything actually involved with business or the law. The article threw out a lot of facts, but didn’t provide a lot of context about what the parties’ positions in the divorce are. It’s pretty clear the Larsons’ divorce is not the McCourts’. They have no ability whatsoever to use team funds to pay private debt. The conclusion that Larson couldn’t make a capital call–if it is relevant to anything (see 1 and 2 above)–is unproven. Ordinarily, if a partner can’t make a call, their percentage ownership is diminished. Given the likelihood this is a community asset, it’s unlikely if it could be made that it would not be made, because it would diminish the value of the asset for the community, which would affect both spouses negatively. So, even assuming that the M’s are lying and 2 is true (I personally can’t imagine Nintendo getting involved in Larson’s divorce one way or the other, but I could be wrong), I don’t see anything in the report that would make me assume that the Larsons wouldn’t either be in a position to or wouldn’t make a capital call if it were demanded.
A minority owner is getting divorced? Hmmmmm…..slow news cycle meet lazy beat writer.
Chris Larson is the 30% owner of a for-profit team playing in a tax-subsidized ballpark. His ability to fund the team became an issue the moment he and other owners threatened to leave Seattle unless taxpayers built them a $400 million ballpark.
It continues to be a newsworthy issue amid declining performance on the field and at the gate.
If public documents show that Larson is heavily in debt and has lost much of his fortune (how is almost irrelevant), you have to ask whether the team would avoid going to owners for more money because they know they can’t or won’t pay up.
We don’t know the answer. The Mariners aren’t going to say. But it’s worth asking.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/marinersblog/2016460990_can_the_mariners_increase_payr.html
And now we see…Baker taking his “story” from earlier and the conclusions that the Mariners denied (i.e that payroll isn’t a function of projected attendance) and writes an entire new article about it.