Tiger's Owner Mike Ilitch Dies at 87
- Thread starter HowBoutDemSox
- Start date
So sad he didn't see a Tigers championship during his ownership. He sure gave it a shot though.
In fact I suspect the front office made some decisions in favor of short term success at the expense of the long term because of his age. For his sake I wish they had worked out, but for the sake of the franchise it's probably for the best that this dynamic is no longer a factor.
In fact I suspect the front office made some decisions in favor of short term success at the expense of the long term because of his age. For his sake I wish they had worked out, but for the sake of the franchise it's probably for the best that this dynamic is no longer a factor.
I guess this was reported in Sports Business Daily a couple years ago, but Ilitch quietly paid Rosa Parks's rent for the last decade or so of her life. Probably a drop in the bucket compared to his philanthropic efforts (and those of most others with similar means), but the way he did this without fanfare says something about the man's character. RIP.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/02/15/us/mike-ilitch-rosa-parks-trnd/index.html?client=safari
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/02/15/us/mike-ilitch-rosa-parks-trnd/index.html?client=safari
There are not many owners of professional sports teams who are objectively good people. Ilitch was one of them, in spite of the odds. Ewing Kauffman was another in his class.
Not to be a jerk but does a billionaire paying a local civil rights hero's rent really make Ilitch an "objectively good person"?
Don't get me wrong. This was a nice gesture – thoughtful and kind. And the fact that it wasn't public indeed says something good about him. But let's not go overboard. People rarely make billions of dollars by being saints. At the bare minimum, he surely took a ton of public money to support two sports franchises.
Fake edit: and here is the Deadspin article right on cue that suggests he was a ruthless businessman. The whole article is worth reading but this is a good summary:
Don't get me wrong. This was a nice gesture – thoughtful and kind. And the fact that it wasn't public indeed says something good about him. But let's not go overboard. People rarely make billions of dollars by being saints. At the bare minimum, he surely took a ton of public money to support two sports franchises.
Fake edit: and here is the Deadspin article right on cue that suggests he was a ruthless businessman. The whole article is worth reading but this is a good summary:
http://deadspin.com/mike-ilitch-was-no-saint-1792480558
I was going less on the Rosa Parks thing (ah-ha, hush that fuss, everybody move to the back of the bus...) and more on his commitment to keeping his teams in Detroit, at probably some considerable financial opportunity cost to himself personally.
I read that article, and I'm not impressed. Bob Kraft is 10x the ruthless businessman Mike Ilitch was; I mean, Kraft basically back-stabbed his own father-in-law in order to get his first big break in business. Ilitch sold shitty pizza with good marketing. So what if his company bought up a bunch of parcels of land that the city council was willing to steer favorably towards him, in order to let him make a new arena? Fucking great. Compared to the shenanigans of most sports owners, that is dog-bites-man stuff. Oh look, real estate developer uses tax breaks. Run that one live, Tom Brokaw!
Deadspin is into hit pieces knocking someone down a peg, I get that. I don't think the Pope is going to be putting Ilitch up for canonization anytime soon. But on the spectrum of business-mogul-sports-owner, ranging from Hiroshi Yamauchi down to Dan Snyder, Ilitch looks pretty good to this outsider.
I read that article, and I'm not impressed. Bob Kraft is 10x the ruthless businessman Mike Ilitch was; I mean, Kraft basically back-stabbed his own father-in-law in order to get his first big break in business. Ilitch sold shitty pizza with good marketing. So what if his company bought up a bunch of parcels of land that the city council was willing to steer favorably towards him, in order to let him make a new arena? Fucking great. Compared to the shenanigans of most sports owners, that is dog-bites-man stuff. Oh look, real estate developer uses tax breaks. Run that one live, Tom Brokaw!
Deadspin is into hit pieces knocking someone down a peg, I get that. I don't think the Pope is going to be putting Ilitch up for canonization anytime soon. But on the spectrum of business-mogul-sports-owner, ranging from Hiroshi Yamauchi down to Dan Snyder, Ilitch looks pretty good to this outsider.