The Rangers downsize

by
June 16, 2009

On the field the 2009 season is shaping up to be a great one for the Texas Rangers. They’re winning and looking pretty good in the process. Off the field, however, things aren’t as rosy:

Despite being in first place and having increased attendance at the ballpark this year, the Texas Rangers cut several staff members from their front office on Monday.

Team spokesman John Blake said the job reductions were less than 10 percent of its staff and that affected employees were offered a severance package. Before the job cuts, the Rangers had about 275 employees in their organization, not including the baseball team.

Just the latest consequence of Tom Hicks’ disastrous, debt-heavy business plan for the Rangers, which has been haunting them for several months now.

Reasonable people may disagree as to whether sports are recession-resistant. They’re not idiot-proof, however, and the plight of the Rangers is some of the best evidence of that.


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YankeesfanLen
14 years ago

When the Yankees get rid of George Costanza, then we know we’re in trouble.

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MooseinOhio
14 years ago

Maybe the folks at Haliburton can buy the Rangers and give it back to George W. Bush as a way to say thank-you for all the billions they made under his watch.  It would give W something to do and also help launder all that money they stole.

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Richard in Dallas
14 years ago

Moose – I agree that W needs something to do, and that it should probably be in baseball (the world would be a safer place, PLUS he was pretty good at it before).  But I was thinking that he should replace Sir Bud, the MOST incompetent CEO in the US today (including those discharged recently).  What I’d LIKE to see happen in Arlington, is for the great baseball tight-asses get together and, instead of REJECTING him, RECRUIT Mark Cuban to buy the thing from the idiot known as Hicks.  Loosen up the rules at our beautiful ballpark, starting with allowing “Yankees Suck” T-shirts, and selling “RFFL” (Rangers Fan For Life) T-shirts, and being emotional about your team.  Tom Hicks has been known to believe that there is no room for emotion in business.  That may be true in the REAL business world, but not in the business of baseball.

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Aaron Moreno
14 years ago

Maybe the folks at [AIG] can buy the [White Sox] and give it back to [Barack Obama] as a way to say thank-you for all the billions they made under his watch.  It would give [H?] something to do and also help launder all that money they stole.

Just as relevant.

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MooseinOhio
14 years ago

Point taken but 1) Obama is still in Office and 2) it could argued that he is cleaning up the mess that was left for him (similar to the Carter to Reagan transition) and 3) almost all politicians could be inserted into the equation as members of both parties active contributors to the mess were in.

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Jim Evans
14 years ago

Bush actually bought AIG.  You might want to bring up a car company instead.

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Wally
14 years ago

Not only was Bush a lame duck at the time but he completely stopped fighting the democrates in congress.  So to be accurate, the democratic congress bought AIG, Bush just didn’t veto it.  And realistically it didn’t matter what he did, if Bush vetoed TARP, congress would have just made a slightly different one (and probably a larger one) for Barak to sign.

And MooseinOhio, you can’t argue that Obama is cleaning up Bush’s mess, this mess has roots that go all the way back to the 80’s, under the Carter administration, and the creation of all these asinine HUD policies.  You could maybe argue Bush didn’t do anything to predict this problem and try to stop it (nether did Clinton, who actually only made it worse, as is Barak now), but generally its very hard to repeal legeslation, particularly the kind that makes it easy for people to make money (banks) and for underserving people to buy houses.  That kind of thing is very unpopular if it isn’t painfully obvious (to the generally ignorant population) that it is causing a major problem.  Heck even now its painfully obvious and Barak and the Dems are trying to make it even EASIER for people that shouldn’t be buying houses to buy houses.  ….Just replacing one bubble with another…. The market just needs an honest correction, not some half-witted attempt to prop up the bubble.

Anyway, if you’re going to bring up economic/political (which shouldn’t be combined as much as they are today) issues in a baseball form, at least be correct.  Don’t go spouting lies, that its some sort of given that this is Bush’s mess.

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Phil J
14 years ago

Hicks is in REAL trouble with his (joint) ownership of Liverpool in the Premier League – they announced huge losses this year, and having bought the club with big loans, and having not been able to get the finance together to build a new stadium (owners build stadiums in this country, not the public….), they’re desperately trying to find an owner and given the current global financial situation, they’re not exactly queuing up to buy a debt laden team that badly needs a new stadium building.

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