"It's not as profitable as making Titanic, but it's still a good
business," says Howard Nuchow, executive vice president of Mandalay
Sports Entertainment, which owns the
Dayton and Las Vegas
franchises in addition to its joint-venture with the Texas Rangers'
parent company to start the RoughRiders. "Not only can you
hopefully turn a profit," Nuchow says, "but the numbers are a whole
lot more predictable than the movie business."
Nuchow mentions Titanic because Mandalay's sister company, Mandalay
Pictures, makes movies. Another produces television shows. Each is
owned in part by Peter Guber, a Hollywood mover and shaker who once
ran the
Sony movie empire (where his credits included Batman, Basic
Instinct, and Sleepless in Seattle).
Mandalay is not the only sports outsider.
Utah's Elmore Sports
Group, which evolved from travel and marketing companies, operates
six franchises. New York's Goldklang Group owns six teams. Capitol
Broadcasting owns
Durham as well as a Class A club. Throw in the
teams owned by their major league affiliates and those whose owners
have some sort of relationship with another group (a Class A team
in suburban
Los Angeles is operated by a Mandalay partner, for
example), and as much as one-third of the minor leagues is run by
big-time companies.
"And that's the reason they've been so successful," says Johnson.
"First and foremost, they're business people. They aren't the guy
who wants a minor league team because he had a dream of playing in
the major leagues or the guy who wants a team to save it for his
hometown. They want to make a profit."
kenny braun is a fine-art and commercial photographer who lives in
austin, texas. his clients include rolling stone,
london times
magazine, texas monthly, fast company, and us weekly.
out to the ball game