Astros owner Drayton McLane and Rockets owner (soon to be former Comets owner) Les Alexander did a Q&A session at Rice last night – it was supposed to be a trio along with Texans owner Bob McNair, for whom the room in which it was held is named, but he couldn’t make it. I didn’t see anything terribly surprising in the story about the nature of their businesses and how they run them, but I did see the one thing I fully expected to see:
“Drayton and I would like to have $100 million a year coming in,” Alexander said in response to a question about how national and local revenues vary between the teams in the different sports. “I can speak for Drayton on that.”
The football franchises, of course, divvy up football’s huge television revenues equally, something baseball and basketball only dream about. McLane called the NFL model “socialism” but wistfully admitted, despite his being a “complete free-enterprise guy,” he’d embrace the system in a heartbeat.
“If you purely wanted to see the best return for your investment,” McLane said, “it would be the NFL. They have almost complete revenue sharing over 80 percent I believe is shared equally. Baseball has 29 percent, so the big (city) teams have a distinct advantage.”
McLane, who has owned the Astros since 1992 and contends he has lost millions on them, said: “I thought our system would change more than it has.”
He called the push to bring more financial parity to baseball “a slow, tedious process” but expressed optimism the game will survive its financial ills, saying the economics are “improving.”
It’s not an article about Drayton McLane and the Bidness of Baseball if it doesn’t include his whining about what a moneyloser it is for him. At least this time, unlike some other times I could name, his statement about losing money is taken as exactly that, and not as gospel truth.
I wish someone had asked him about the new CBA that has been tentatively reached, but perhaps that news was not widely know last night. I’m sure we’ll hear McLane’s opinion on this soon enough, but it would have been cool if someone who isn’t a sportswriter had brought it up. Oh, well.
At least this time, unlike some other times I could name, his statement about losing money is taken as exactly that, and not as gospel truth.
Those other times usually are when Jesus Ortiz, McLane’s resident PR hack in the Chronicle sports department, is writing the story. This one was by Dale Robertson, who’s a somewhat more solid (albeit, strangely neglected) reporter.