That is some pure scumbag shit right there. I feel bad for ever comparing him to Jerry Jones or vice-versa. Jerreh has his own issues but sitting around figuring how to shake down 73-year old ladies, diabetics and cancer patients for their money is likely not among them.
Cubit
3342
Yeah, there is so much in that article that I didn’t know about. Jesus.
Snyder is awesomely wrong. Takes hard work to be that wrong in so many different ways.
Rimbo
3344
Hey, if it weren’t for Snyder firing coaches here and there, whom would the Chargers have available to hire?
Oh god. I’m actually forced to defend Dan Snyder, when I completely agree with that radio rant.
That list is biased and slanted to present Danny in the worst possible light.
Half or more of these things were corrected or rectified (or in some cases justified)
As a longtime Skins fan - Danny boy was terrible out of the gate. Terrible. Deion Sanders and Jeff George were mistakes.
Firing Shottenheimer . . . might not have been. Yes, he finished strong. But he also lost the team.
Danny boy has gotten better. The McNabb deal is an example - this is a great football deal for the Skins. The Haynesworth deal was also an improvement over deals in the past. At least we got a lineman, instead of overpaying for a 2nd rate wideout or washed out safety.
Yeah, it makes me sick to defend Darth Snyder as well, as the dude has proven to be an enormous jerk, but that list is incredibly biased, and even worse, not even correct at times. For instance, yes that horrific Six Flags crap did cost Bill Gates a lot of money, but it also cost Snyder even more than that. It’s called a failed investment. Yet’s Snyder’s loss in the investment isn’t mentioned in the piece. The article makes a point to mention that the Fox Robot toy in Redskins gear is more expensive from the Redskins than from the FOX website…but if you go ahead and click the link that they provide…it is the exact same price. I despise the guy; but even I recognize a hack job when I see it.
Also, this article in the exact same magazine, written in 2006, provides a bit of balance. His public image is far worse than reality. Notably, Snyder gives quite a lot of money to charity. For example, he gave 6 million to establish an emergency wing at Children’s Hospital in DC. He used his private plane to help deliver food during Katrina. He gives quite a bit to cancer research, to boys and girls clubs in DC, etc. Snyder doesn’t publicize any of this; he considers it private. It’s just easier to write slam jobs on him (because there really is enough material out there to do this) than to do the research and realize that guess what…he’s a jerk, but he’s not Hitler.
Sarkus
3347
So as fans may have noticed, the NFL is going from Reebok to Nike for its uniform deal in a few years. Today someone posted a bunch of “futuristic” NFL uniforms, posted here(scroll down a bit), and a bunch of people picked these up and started suggesting they were leaked Nike ideas for changes. Stylistically these seem similar to the style Nike has pushed for Oregon and other clients. The NFL and Nike have denied these are legit, but now the conspiracy theory is that these may have been intentional leaks to see what public reaction would be.
Honestly, some of them aren’t that bad.
I don’t despise the guy - my standard defense of Danny Snyder is twofold.
-
He wants to win. He is dedicated to building a championship team. Maybe he’s not the best at it, but at least he’s trying. Compared to other owners, he’s willing to spend money to make the team better.
-
He has the business part of the football business running well. Again, the Skins make money, which gives them the chance to sign all these coaches and players. Other owners fail at this - Weaver, Wilson, Bidwell.
Cubit
3349
Your praise would make sense if the Redskins have been a successful team the last ten years, but they haven’t. No one cares that the business part of the team is doing well, because Snyder spends the money in exactly the wrong way. Besides, this isn’t baseball. Revenue is shared. You don’t win by trying to be the Yankees in the NFL.
There is a reason why the Colts, Patriots, and Steelers are the way they are, and why the Redskins aren’t like them.
It’s not praise, it’s a defense.
There are owners who fail at both of these traits - owners whose primary interest is not winning.
And owners who shortchange their team and handicap their coaches as much as possible in the interest of saving a buck, not making a buck.
The skins have not been successful because ‘football people’ have not been in charge over those last ten years (until now?). Good, homegrown players are allowed to leave and higher priced free agents have been brought in in their place.
And they’ve been neglecting their offensive and defensive line for the flashier positions for years.
None of that changes what I have said - they are profitable and Danny wants to win.
Cubit
3351
And I’m saying that it doesn’t matter they are profitable, because all NFL teams are profitable via revenue sharing. Also, one could make a strong argument that Danny’s desire to win has hurt the team greatly over the years. All owners have a desire to win, but most are smart enough to stay away from player personnel decisions.
TV and NFL licensed merchandise revenue is shared. Ticket prices are split 60/40 between the home and visiting team.
Corporate tickets go to the owner. Food sales go to the owner. Concert revenue and other “off-season” stuff go to the owner of the stadium (Snyder, in this case). Non-NFL merchandise that is sold at games or through Snyder’s various outlets goes to him. And of course, non-football revenue that businessmen like Snyder make from their original sources of wealth can also be spent on the franchise.
No, football is not baseball, and due to revenue sharing and salery caps, most teams are competitive with one another and cities that wouldn’t be able to field a team otherwise (Jacksonville, Green Bay) can do so. That’s all goodness.
But there are a lot of factors beyond the simple payment of players that can make one team more attractive than others. A successful owner can afford more extensive and nicer training facilities. A successful owner can provide more and better support personnel - doctors, security, gophers, etc. A successful owner can have an MRI machine (or two!) in the stadium as opposed to a rickety X-ray device. A successful owner can provide better “intelligence” services for the players - better film, better analysts, etc. And probably most importantly, a successful owner can provide a better stadium for the team, which translates into much more of the above and more revenue, making them an even more successful owner.
Do any of those things make for a better team? Not directly - Snyder and Jones are proof positive of that. But you’d be a fool to think that all those extras don’t turn the heads of free agents and available coaches. Snyder spends his (player) money horribly… but he has options that Bidwell or McCaskey do not because he is better at the business side of things.
Shmtur
3353
If only the Cardinals had a better stadium, they might have won that Super Bowl!
Did you just not read the parts about his communications company and the Redskins engaging in illegal and/or highly questionable business activities? Also if one uses the metric of providing a good product in terms of business success, Snyder is an abject failure as an NFL owner.
I followed most of those stories as they broke. My sympathy for people who sign club seat contracts they can’t afford is low - even if they are little old ladies.
Again, much of that article was a hack job, and contains none of the followups where things were corrected. The whole ‘charging for training camp’ thing, for example, was a failed one season experiment.
Right, but my defense of the man is that he is trying - and he’s tried several different models -
Nice, but ineffective coach - Turner
Tyrant in control of all football operations - Shottenheimer
Flashy college coach - Spurrier + Cerrato
Legend brought back for one more go- around - Gibbs + Cerrato
Traditional football operation - Allen and Shanahan
He’s shown at least some ability to learn and adapt.
Genji
3356
It’s been a few years since I’ve been to a Redskins game but the thing I hate Snyder for the most is how much the experience of going to a game changed under his ownership. I used to love seeing the Redskins play at RFK. You’d get off the metro, buy up some food from the vendors (steak, bbq chicken, they had everything) on the walk over to the gates. The stadium was cozy (loved how the bleacher style seating would shake during cheers, you could really feel the energy of the fans) and relatively inexpensive.
FedEx field, at least at the time, was just crap. Sure it was new and shiny, but you’d have to get there very early to get to your parking spot. All of the concessions were jacked up in price, they didn’t allow outside vendors to sell food outside of the stadium, and the upper level seats were sky high. The worst part was after seeing the Redskins play terribly you’d be stuck in parking lot traffic for 2 hours and then for at least another hour on the beltway. You felt like shit when you got back from the games, just nickle and dimed for everything.
Well, that’s one thing among that list, I guess. What about the rest?
That makes it untrue somehow? I’d love to see these followups, honestly. I am not saying that I don’t believe you but some of those things seem so ludicrous it’s hard to believe they aren’t true.
I like how you listed Turner as “ineffective” when he was fired midseason while posting a winning record in both seasons under Snyder (they went 10-6 and even made it to the divisional playoffs his first year). He fired Schottenheimer after he went 8-8. Then he let Spurrier go 12-20 before Spurrier himself resigned in disgrace. Gibbs was just as mediocre and I am wondering why you left out The Jim Zorn Experiment, which nobody understood.
Under Snyder the Redskins have only done as good as 10-6 twice, once being his first year as owner, and as bad as 4-12, which was last season. Midway through all of this Snyder developed his deserved reputation for overpaying for past-their-prime free agents. Coming off a complete drubbing on Monday Night and the clear signs that McNabb is another one of those overpaid over-the-hill free agents, I don’t see much in the way of learning or adapting.
I’m very sorry, I think you misread my post. At no time did I accuse Snyder of being a good person, an ethical business person, a good golfer, a passable sous chef, or having a singing voice worth listening to. I only said that he was a successful business person… which usually involves wringing every penny from any possible source you have access to. To be a spectacularly successful business person, you usually also have to skirt the boundaries of the law and quite often step over and hope you don’t get caught.
And for the record, yeah I think that’s a bad thing, but it was not what I was debating. Though apparently it is somehow germane to your point.
By that metric, no.
But he does provide a product that sells. To be successful, Snyder needs to fill the stadium to the highest capacity he can and sell the maximum amount of Redskins merchandise he can. A lazy Google for comparative profits between NFL owners didn’t come up with anything but speculation, nor was I able to find anything about Redskins merchandise sales compared to other teams. But by the first measure, Snyder is wildly successful. FedEx field is the largest stadium that the NFL plays in, and has sold out every home game since it opened in 1997 (though there is a little fuzzy math in the term “sold out”).
Might the Redskins make more money if the “product” didn’t suck as badly as they do? Sure… Haynesworth’s salary alone would have made a pretty damn big difference by any sane accounting. But it’s unlikely that the stadium could be much more “sold out” than it is now.
Bill, I’m not going to respond point to point - I’m simply expressing my opinion that Snyder could be worse, and, as a diehard Redskins fan, I believe that he is improving.
A simple google search: http://www.google.com/search?q=worst+owners+in+the+nfl&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a - doesn’t even list Danny boy in the bottom half of the league in 09 or 10 - a sentiment I agree with.
And, as for opinions, my opinion is that the Mcnabb deal is a sign of improvement. This is a horrible deal for Mcnabb, and unbelievably good for the Redskins - tieing up a free agent middle of the pack NFL quality QB for 3.5 million.
You simply cannot get an NFL quarterback for that cheap - Look at the money dumped on Jake Delhomme or Matt Cassel in similar situations.
And again, my opinion is that, if you are looking at the Mcnabb deal as a continuing sign of teh crazy in Ashburn, Va, then you have a bias.
Not like the Redskins. From Forbes:
The Redskins have lost 55% of their games and made the playoffs only three times since Dan Snyder bought the team in 1999. That hasn’t stopped fans from flocking to FedEx Field and making the Redskins the NFL’s most profitable team in recent years. The 'Skins average operating income of $76 million over the past decade is 50% higher than the Dallas Cowboys, the NFL’s second most profitable team.
Just looking at operating income:
The Redskins operating income was north of $100 million last year. The operating income for the Jaguars was around $26 million. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think that extra 80 million a year matters (especially since Snyder has been more than willing to spend that directly on signing bonuses and salaries).
