Guardians find new minority owner

Once the games start, nobody is going to give a rats ass about the name change. Fans care about the game, the players, and your team.

The new owner must be fine with it or he wouldn't have gotten involved.

Will win a WS within five years.

Exciting to think of what this office can do with additional financial support.

Chris said:

Will win a WS within five years.

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The words of every fan of the team since the shocking sweep of 1954.

CalBuckeyeRob said:

The words of every fan of the team since the shocking sweep of 1954.

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There's always the next five years

BimboColesHair said:

We call that “pulling stuff out of your ass”.

Valuation isn’t heavily tied to the number of fans supporting the team and it certainly isn’t tied to overall fan sentiment towards the team.

The group of cry babies whining about a team name thinking they have power on a teams valuation if they no longer support it is cute though.

Maybe a few more Facebook comments and tweets about how they’re no longer supporting the team will bring the name back!

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The Guardians just can't win. First was the group of cry babies wanting a name change now we have the group of cry babies that didn't want the name change. You can't make this shit up! Seems like no matter what is done, not everyone will be happy. Life's a bitch like that I guess.

Ironically, I find myself in an oddly similar situation wishing they'd just shut up and enjoy the team.

CDAV45 said:

The Guardians just can't win. First was the group of cry babies wanting a name change now we have the group of cry babies that didn't want the name change. You can't make this shit up! Seems like no matter what is done, not everyone will be happy. Life's a bitch like that I guess.

Ironically, I find myself in an oddly similar situation wishing they'd just shut up and enjoy the team.

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Sure the Guardians can win …they already have. Many good things lie ahead for the organization, and a hot pocket of internet juiced complainers are not going to derail that. It would be great to please everyone all the time, but the vast majority are going to be rooting for this Cleveland team, buying the merch, and generally feeling pretty good…along with some new people who will undoubtedly be added.

Happy Holidays, friends…really looking forward to the new year!

Not to make this about the name thing even more. But I'll just say, so many of the people complaining about the name change (not necessarily here, just in general) are politically big fans of free market capitalism as a concept. But what happened here is that the free market went against them and the old name.

Billionaires (or in the Dolans' case hundred and fifty thousandaires) don't make changes like this to be nice. They make changes because they see where the winds are blowing and make a business decision. I think there's a good argument to be made that making this change now is in the long-term financial best interests of the team (or at the very least ownership) even if there does prove to be a temporary hiccup with some local fans.

Because truthfully this will probably - generally - play out one of four ways.

Scenario One: No one cares and the town that has had not great attendance but surprisingly great ratings CONTINUES to be the town that has not great attendance but surprisingly great ratings, only now they can move more merchandise to the younger generation and be featured more prominently by the league (who were not eagerly pushing Indians gear or featuring us in commercials these last few years).

Scenario Two: There's a slight hiccup from some section of fans, but in the end basically scenario one plays out with a slight dip at the beginning of this coming season, but considering the number of people we draw, probably there's no way that dip is large enough to be concerning.

Scenario Three: The name change helps grow the team's fanbase. Current fans buy tons of gear because "hey, new gear." New fans buy it to support the name change because they believe in what it stands for. Or because kids like the Guardians of the Galaxy or whatever. And the shadow of controversy fades about the name all together and now the team can deal with sponsors and the league without needing to have weird separate meetings about which logos and wordmarks are being featured because Pepsi or whoever is worried about blowback.

Scenario Four: The name change SINKS the team. Everyone stops watching. Indians fans never accept the Guardians as their own. Thus making moving the team to a growing city that is hungry for a team (Nashville/Portland/etc) much easier for any owner and therefore making the team a more valuable asset.

So even the nightmare scenario of changing the name... Isn't really a bad thing from ownership's perspective. This is all to say that we yell about wokeness and cancel culture but this was a decision made by capitalism.

And personally, I'm optimistic, because I think the new ownership probably indicates that some growing payrolls might be coming our way, which IMO would all but eliminate the possibility of that nightmare scenario 4.

So anyway: New owner good. New name shouldn't change much negatively but could change stuff positively. Now can the lockout end so we can please get an outfield bat before I lose my goddamn mind?

Edited: Typos

If the name change enhances their ability to engage in the "free market" then it certainly will be for the betterment of the organization. The reasoning for the change doesn't need to be discussed further because it is water under the bridge. If someone chooses not to be a fan of the Guardians that's well within their rights. I'm just ready for this lockout to end so that I can begin to see the benefits of becoming the Guardians. My only request is that they work on the logos because they are f'n lame. Absolutely the worst in the league IMO. I choose to continue to follow my favorite team, but I will not be wearing anything with that hideous C or winged ball.

This is still the same organization regardless of the name. It has been assembled in a manner by which most of us midwest/rust belt folks appreciate. As long as they continue to conduct themselves accordingly they'll have my support. This doesn't mean that I don't want a larger payroll by any means, just that they continue to be "smart" in their decisions and morally plausible. This is a good organization by whatever name they are called.

There are essentially 2 demographics that have to wear diapers on a regular basis. If you owned a baseball team, which one would you be looking at for future revenue?

The knuckle draggers will be forced to march forward or they will have to actually take a seat on the sidelines, doubt many of them actually will... Especially when their kid buys them a new Guardians hat or shirt for Christmas.

How many diehards are going to hang in there if their family and/or friends are suddenly more inclined to go to game, root for the team that weren't interested in "baseball" before?

And finally the Washington Bullets..... Is anyone still standing on that hill?

Criznit said:

And finally the Washington Bullets..... Is anyone still standing on that hill?

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Was anyone standing on that hill to begin with?

As for how much financial stability Blitzer would bring to this franchise...

He's been with Blackstone, a very successfull and cutthroat organization for thirty years, and is head of its tactical acquisition depth. Hes been good enough to amass about $1.6 billion for himself, but thats not the big number. Because of his successful connections in international business, he has a Rolodex with enough names to buy all of MLB...lol.

He should have little problem with putting together a very well heeled group of partners, should he become majority owner. Within the sports world, he has been the second man in almost all the acquisitions he has been involved in. It isn't clear whether he is moving to the forefront here, or in the end will still be riding shotgun. In either case, his personal wealth is secondary to the amount of other peoples money he can control.

For the financial historians, this is how the House of Morgan (J P Morgan) operated. Use other peoples money to eventually make your own.

This news is 90% very good, and 10% very bad. The good is that ventures these kind of people take over usually in the end make a lot of money, although there is sometimes a lot of pain involved. The bad is that there are times when an acquisition is stripped of all its value and destroyed.

The biggest question will be whether Blitzer wants this franchise to win on the field or merely serve as a guaranteed profit maker on the back end...because, win or lose, no franchise loses value over the years.

CATS44 said:

As for how much financial stability Blitzer would bring to this franchise...

He's been with Blackstone, a very successfull and cutthroat organization for thirty years, and is head of its tactical acquisition depth. Hes been good enough to amass about $1.6 billion for himself, but thats not the big number. Because of his successful connections in international business, he has a Rolodex with enough names to buy all of MLB...lol.

He should have little problem with putting together a very well heeled group of partners, should he become majority owner. Within the sports world, he has been the second man in almost all the acquisitions he has been involved in. It isn't clear whether he is moving to the forefront here, or in the end will still be riding shotgun. In either case, his personal wealth is secondary to the amount of other peoples money he can control.

For the financial historians, this is how the House of Morgan (J P Morgan) operated. Use other peoples money to eventually make your own.

This news is 90% very good, and 10% very bad. The good is that ventures these kind of people take over usually in the end make a lot of money, although there is sometimes a lot of pain involved. The bad is that there are times when an acquisition is stripped of all its value and destroyed.

The biggest question will be whether Blitzer wants this franchise to win on the field or merely serve as a guaranteed profit maker on the back end...because, win or lose, no franchise loses value over the years.

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Using other people's money to make their money... Sounds like Steve Cohen. So a spending spree is incoming?

macbdog said:

Using other people's money to make their money... Sounds like Steve Cohen. So a spending spree is incoming?

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We can hope lol

It's all about the financials for them. There's no heart in it. If they think $20 mil extra of spending will bring in $20 mil extra of revenue they'll do it. Otherwise they'll pass.

The one thing I'll say is, from a business perspective, if you're looking at the data I think there's a compelling case to invest more in a better team. Even just looking at attendance as a barometer for overall interest, you can see how Cleveland fan engagement fell so much from where it was in the 1990s likely as a result of the dry spell, before seeing a resurgence once the team had success again.