William Clay Ford Sr. has owned the Detroit Lions since 1964 AP Photo/Paul Sancya
In recent weeks I have heard a lot of talk on Sports Talk Radio that most sports fans do not care or know who owns their sports teams. As a Sports Business Columnist I disagree with that assertion. In fact I have found that many sports fans not only know, but very much care who owns their team. I would also say that is true of the teams that are poorly run.
With that in mind we are going to take a look at the men and women who own our sports team. We start with William Clay Ford Sr. owner of the Detroit Lions.
Ford will go down in history as one of the worst sports owners of any sport, and really one of the worst owners who ever but enough money together to buy a professional sports team. In Detroit he is hatred more than Cleveland hates Art Model, and the Lions will never be a winning team while he remains there as owner.
The numbers back these assertions up. Ford Sr. became the sole owner of this team in 1964, since then this team has won only won playoff game, became the first team to lose all 16 games in a given season (2008) and are no closer to the playoffs then they were nine years ago when Ford Sr. hired Matt Millen to run his football team.
Ford Sr. is the youngest of Edsel Ford’s four children, and remains the largest shareholder in the Ford Motor Company that his Grandfather, Henry Ford, founded. Ford earned a BS in Economics from Yale University and served in the US Navy during World War 2.
For Ford he ran the Continental division before it was merged with the Lincoln Division when the company made its initial public stock offering. He was a member of the Board of Directors for 57 years serving as Chairman of the Finance committee. He retired from the company in 2005.
Ford bought into the Lions in 1948 with other local Detroit businessman Ralph Wilson. He was named Team president in 1961 and in November of 1964 paid 4.5 million dollars to become sole owner of the organization. Ford Sr. is listed by Forbes as the 283rd richest American with a net worth of 1.2 billion.
Comments