COMMENT: Tough Tony – He was the Unhappiest Sports Executive on Earth
By Rick Reiff
For more than eight years, Tony Tavares, the first and only president of Disney’s Anaheim Sports Inc., was a walking, talking grimace.
Players pained him, coaches pained him, fans pained him, the media pained him, losing pained him, the price of winning pained him, setbacks and bad luck pained him. When upper management started to pain him, it was finally time to leave.
It couldn’t have been all bad. There was the landmark Edison Field renovation, the early hockey mania, a few winning seasons for the Ducks and Angels mixed in with the bad. But when Tavares resigned the other day, it wasn’t goodbye, it was good riddance.
“Losing money and losing on the field makes a job like this unbearable,” he said in parting. A “boyhood dream” had become “a nightmare.” He accepted blame for the losses, but complained once more that Orange County lacks media coverage or an identity. He questioned whether Disney would keep both of its sports teams. If his departure was a “good day” for his critics, well, “it’s a great day for me.”
The intense Tavares plans to sell his home here and move to Lake Tahoe, where he’ll consult and try to relax. It’s been reported that he had been thinking about quitting since 1997. Too bad he didn’t decide earlier to end his agony, and let somebody who might have enjoyed it more take the job.
This was sports, after all, Disney sports,family fun, cool-looking ducks and angels’ wings. To a situation begging for vision and flair, Tavares brought a background in arena management and no discernible “Disney magic” other than a temperament like that of Grumpy.
Still, it seemed to satisfy Disney boss Michael Eisner. These were Eisner’s teams. Let Tavares run the venues, birddog expenses and keep underlings in line. Eisner and his top brass could make the big decisions, and the hockey and baseball people could shape the products. Winning was a goal, but not at any price. It was only in recent months that Disney appeared to give up on Tavares, as his immediate boss Paul Pressler increasingly called the shots at Anaheim Sports.
If, as some speculate, Disney’s experiment with sports ownership is ending, the company will leave a mixed legacy. Disney has made major contributions to the local sports scene,bringing hockey to Anaheim, keeping the Angels in town and remodeling their stadium. Disney was, of course, acting in its perceived self-interest, but it’s a fact that in an era of build-me-a-stadium-or-I’ll-leave sports owners, little Anaheim was able to keep its baseball team and get a like-new ballpark for a relative song.
But among OC sports fans there’s less gratitude for what Disney has done than resentment over what it hasn’t, which is to leverage its vast resources into winning teams.
Whether Disney is revamping Anaheim Sports for the long haul or preparing the franchises for sale is hard to tell. The signals are mixed. Tavares’ departure seems merely incidental.
In With the Old – THE ANGELS ARE OFF TO A GOOD START IN THE POST-TAVARES ERA,
unveiling new uniforms that eschew the Disney-esque wings and restore the traditional halo. Gosh, aren’t those new (old) uniforms nice?
Now, if the Angels can figure out a way to bring back Jim Fregosi, Bobby Grich, Nolan Ryan and Reggie Jackson, they might really be on to something
Financial Fiction – GOV. GRAY DAVIS SAYS HE CAN ERASE A PROJECTED $12 BILLION STATE
deficit without raising taxes and while spending billions more on education.
Careful, governor. All 17-year-old Cole Bartiromo of Trabuco Hills High did was promise cyber-investors that he could return 2,500% risk-free by betting on sports contests, and now look at the all of the trouble he’s in.
Horrors! – I LOVED THIS HEADLINE I SAW LAST WEEK:
“Prop. 13 Case Could Cost OC Millions.”
It depends on what you mean by “OC” The story was about the tizzy public officials are in because a local judge ruled against one of the techniques used to assess property values. It has raised the possibility of marginal rebates to property owners, albeit tens of millions in the first year for Orange County’s government jurisdictions.
I guess it would have been too much to expect a headline, “Prop. 13 Case Could Bring OC Taxpayers Millions.”
, Rick Reiff
