Your view on your owner, Mr Hicks

1. Mostly
2. The money.

No more limeys.

1. No! I blame the pathetic defense and eye-popping bad hitting with runners in scoring position, and thirdly the bullpen.

2. He cares about winning.

He spends opportunistically. When his spending will be a factor for the Rangers, I think he’ll do it. The Rangers have the worst record in the AL right now, of course.

How much money is he making off the Rangers? I feel like I’ve never seen this figure, nor the one for the Stars.

This site is made up of hardcore Rangers fans and I would be surprised if one of us supports Hicks. President Bush was a decent owner. Hicks sucks. I don’t blame him for every problem we have but he is responsible for many of them because he has changed course so many times. And, yes, he is in it for the money. With the Stars and Liverpool he is definitely in it for the money. With the Rangers, I tend to think he wants to win but he also wants to make money. I mean, this is the owner who said that salary would be commensurate with fan support. He basically told us that as long as we stay away from the Ballpark he is not going to increase salary. So, yeah, we don’t like him. The thing is, if Rangers fans were as numerous and as passionate as you Liverpool fans, you would have seen a similar revolt against Hicks here with the Rangers as you guys got going on there now. Best of luck.

This team has done nothing but lose since he’s been the owner. To say that he has nothing to do with it is silly. Isn’t he the man in charge of this operation? He’s been really good at raising ticket prices at all the wrong times though. If you blame it on the players/the manager or the GM (who exactly oversees all these hirings)? Yep you got it -Big Daddy. Of course they hate him in England it is no coincidence.

1. Yes, he hires the GM.
2. He spends money. Just not wisely.

bought a playoff team, and, if this was a league based on free enterprise like European Soccer, instead of a socialist boys club, would have had the Rangers relegated by now.

Good luck with him, and look forward to relegation in 5 years or so.

I’m not sure that he’s the worst owner in sports. But he’s certainly not a good one. I think he likes winning, but he likes money more.

The current state of the Rangers can not be blamed just on him. Bad trades and some poor signing contribute more than he does. However, the public miscues are astounding. It’s like if there’s a media member there, he turns into a moron. (I’m under the assumption he’s not the rest of the time, but I’m starting to wonder.)

Some of his more astounding moments are sure to pop up in this post. Telling fans that winning was important, but being financially responsible is more so. Telling fans that if ticket sales hit certain numbers, he will increase salary. Telling fans that spending too much too quickly when he first bought the team must be made up for by keeping team salary low now…past the point where he has made back that money.

I think this issue is a bit more complicated. When Hick’s first bought the Rangers, he wanted to bring in his people from the Stars. After all, they just won him the Stanley Cup in ‘99 and went back to the finals the next year. Unfortunately the smart hockey guys didn’t know a thing about baseball.

He then tried to separate the teams as different businesses but the NHL strike still hurt the Hicks (and by extension Rangers) financially causing the Rangers to stop going after top free agents and not even investing in the farm system. He keeps saying he’s going to raise payroll eventually (he has started investing in the farm system now) and even seems to be in on a few big name free agents before getting outbid by someone else. The cynical Ranger fans thinks it’s just lip service and that the Rangers will never attract star players to willingly come here.

I don’t think Hicks doesn’t try to win, I just don’t think he’s competent enough to win without a lot of help. The only thing he’s good at, is making money which isn’t what a fan of a sports team wants in an owner.

1. A lot but not all of the problems are due to Hicks and his subordinates.
2. Hicks wants both money and wins. He’s made a lot of money but he wants the bragging rights at his country club. That’s really all his teams are to him.

Derek

1. No. I think he is a very good owner, actually. He put possibly the best baseball player in history into a Texas Rangers uniform. That alone earns him lots of points in my eyes. Have all his decisions been good? Of course not. Hart was a big mistake. The way they handled Grady Fuson was bad. Letting the best ballplayer in team history go was foolish (but may have been the honorable thing to do). But the team is generally going the right direction now.

2. No. But maybe he is only in it for the money in Liverpool. Because why else would anyone from Texas buy a soccer team.

He’s made a lot of mistakes, and constantly puts his foot in his mouth, but he is not simply an evil money-making robot. I think he wants to win AND make money, like most other owners. The fact that he doesn’t have a good idea how to do that does not make him evil.

The questions are:

Do you blame Tom Hicks for your current situation?

Firstly, Tom Hick History lesson shows he got his wealth as a leverage buyout hedge fund group with Muse. His job is to literally buy companies that are undervalued and restructure their management structure and turn the company more profitable as well as successful and then sell that company reaping huge profit. So from a rangers persepective, he has done that, his problem has been that he doesnt know the right structure to set up, he knows just enough about baseball that it gets us into trouble. He has gone through as skipper, Johnny Oats, Jerry Narron, Buck Showalter, Don Wakamatsu, and now Ron Washington since he purachased the club, he has gone through general managers Doug Melvin, John Hart, and Jon Daniels each with different philosophies and long term vision, all since 1999… Just from a managing of the club he owns perspective, it has been a disaster, and each time the disaster gets worse its harder and harder to get Hicks to open his wallet(all while prices continuously go up). He cant make up his mind what the long term vision of this team is, he’s tried everything and thats generally b/c i dont think he understands the long term ins and outs of baseball. He tried to spend money here but his system was flawed in that he spent money from the top down paying for high priced free agents but then cutting the expenditures for scouting and player development and draft signing bonuses as a consequence. its a lack of a complete vision of how the whole system, from scouts to guys on the farm, to managers in all his farm affiliates, he’s never kept any consistency b/c he never has had a long term vision for what that consistency would be. The reason why teams like the Dodgers and Sox and Yanks have always had some form of long term success is b/c they understand what the long term plan involves, and we’re talking multiple generations of talent and success.

Does he really care about winning or is he just in it for the money?

The short answer is money takes priority over winning, the one thing he has never understood and is just now understanding is that you invest evenly and thoroughly throughout your whole system. if your cheap in any one or 2 areas but attempt to overspend in other areas to make up for it, its gonna kill ya. it took Tom Hicks 10 years to figure that out, and im still not sure he fully gets it. A successful club is so much more profitable long term and i think he actually believes that saving a couple million on development dept salaries or by passing on the sure fire top of the rotation pitcher in the draft to save 2M bucks and getting the next best is acceptable if he spends extra to get Frank Catalanatto and spends the same on a Left Fielder or DH or Bullpen Arm. his system is screwed up b/c i think he cost himself a lot more money than it would take to develop a winner. In baseball success is all built on spending money to win and having a successful long term vision for how this team and all its assets will be the best, most well oiled machine in the MLB. I dont think he knows how to do that. I think he knows that maybe and that if he knows he cant dominate MLB he can at least reap giant profits off of a huge market without much expenditure. He cares about the money first and the winning 2nd.

1. The current situation is not all Hick’s fault, but I certainly do not believe he is blameless. It seems his biggest problem in his lack of patience in sticking to a plan. Because of that, I question his integrity because he often goes back on things he has previously said. There were two situations that exemplified this:

a) The firing of Doug Melvin & hiring of John Hart. The qualities of Melvin are debated, but he did want to start rebuilding in 2001 and told Hicks spending a lot of money now would be inadvisable. He was fired for doing so. Hicks did spend a lot of money, but on the wrong guys and the franchise was set back even further through all the draft picks lost and the bad draft picks that were made. Now he uses this situation as an excuse for not spending money – he went from a freewheeling spender to a being extremely conservative.

b) Going back on his plan to hire Grady Fuson after the 2004 season and resigning Hart after a mini-revolt of Fuson by the coaching staff. Hart took advantage of a little bit of success in 2004 and got resigned to a large contract, screwing Fuson who was told he would take the GM job.

To add insult to injury, Hicks re-signs people only to fire them soon after, eating the contract. I would think a businessman such as himself would see how illogical that is!

2. I do believe he wants to win, but the first requirement is turning a profit. I think the 2001 season scarred him quite a bit, and he would rather make a modest profit & have the team be mediocre than take a chance to contend while risking the team falling short and losing money. I’m definitely not a fan of how fair-weathered he is, since we see him in the owner’s box only for big games or when we’re winning. How many times has he left in the 3rd or 4th inning win the other team takes an early lead?

People complain about raising ticket prices when, in reality, tickets here are still a bargain compared to the rest of the league, not to mention there are so many promotions that rarely should you have to pay full price.

Additionally, I’m not sure if this is at the feet of Hicks or not, but I’m not liking what the Temple is turning into. The scoreboards are hilariously outdated (the supplemental boards in LF & on the club level haven’t been updated since 1994!) And, the outfield walls are some of the most advertisement-riddled in the league.

1. Hick’s biggest problem is, he’s got his fingers in a lot of pies, and he doesn’t concentrate soley on any one project at any one time. That often gives the impression that he doesn’t care about his interests, which isn’t really true. The mistakes he has made with the Rangers have been hiring the wrong people to run the team for him, like John Hart and Buck Showalter. Now that Nolan Ryan is in the organization though, and Jon Daniels has been given the latitude to carry out his rebuilding plan, I think our situation should improve.

2. Hicks wants his teams to win, but he likes to make money, and wants to win on the cheap if he can. The only way he’s willing to spend big money, at least on the Rangers, is if the money spent will create a huge publicity splash, and result in more tickets sold. In other words, the problem is, he’s a businessman, not a sports owner, and that’s the main problem people have with him.

I would like to see the team under better ownership, who can focus exclusively on improving the Rangers, and not be off worring about soccer teams or football stadiums. I think this team would improve faster, and stand a better chance of remaining a good team longer if he was not the majority owner.

However, I don’t think anymore that it’s impossible for this team to win or be competitive while Hicks owns them (like I did at one time). He’s not a big bad wolf who wants his teams to lose so he can rape the fans, he’s just a businessman doing what he does best, and that’s trying to make money – some people, you just can’t expect anything more of.

I think everyone’s said some good stuff- just wanted to let you know that there are a couple Liverpool fans on this board- myself and jayslick are both die-hard Reds!

mostly everything has already been said, but i will chime in.

1) i dont’t believe hicks is entirely responsible for the current state of the team but i believe his past actions have greatly harmed this team. He went from spending money freely to bring in the best players, to being burned by a bad contract and no longer wanting to spend money. He brought in one of the games best players (who it seems never wanted to play in texas to begin with but couldnt turn down the insane money) then he turns and trades him to the hated yankees for pennies on the dollar AND agrees to pay them each year for part of his salary.

Hicks never knows when to shut up, he utters such nonsense as “unfortunately we won the stanley cup”. I believe hicks could be a good owner if he just took more of a backseat and stopped butting his nose into the business of day to day baseball operations. He needs to just sit back, and write what checks need to be written, and stop trying to be the owner/gm/ and president.

2) Yes i think when it comes down to it, hicks main concern is money. I believe he really does want to win, but not at the cost of spending too much money and not turning a big enough profit. I also think that over the past few years is other businesses have not been as successful as he would have hoped and he is taking that out on how much money he spends on the rangers.

As was said by someone else, the nhl lockout hurt his pocket book, and that has a trickle down effect to all of his teams. I think at one point he realized he shouldnt own multiple teams, but couldnt find a buyer for the stars.

Ultimately I’d like for hicks to sell the team to a better owner, many people want cuban to roll in and buy the team but the more i think about it, the more I feel he might be worse. Cuban tends to be more hands on, and the last thing the team needs is an owner trying to dictate the lineup.

He likes eating hotdogs…