The deal was right in Arte Moreno’s wheel house.
He ran with it.
Turned out to be a slam dunk.
Yes—sports lingo is too often applied to business.
How about some business lingo applied to sports?
How about “big market”—as in the big-market teams in the most populous cities?
Big markets command premiums on ticket prices, luxury boxes and television rights.
Orange County has been a big market for years. We have a population of more than 3 million, bigger than the metropolitan areas of Denver, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Kansas City and lots of other cities with major-league sports teams. And that’s before you consider that Orange County’s draw area takes in other parts of the mega-market known as Southern California.
OC hasn’t had a big-market reputation in the sports world, though.
The local baseball team has long been regarded as a small-market franchise, consigned to second-tier status in the minds of fans, broadcasters and more than a few marquee players.
It hasn’t helped that the team had four names over its first five decades.
The Los Angeles Angels became the California Angels when the team shifted south from its original home. The move looked to capitalize on geography and demography. No one saw big money in the Orange County moniker, let alone Anaheim.
Then Walt Disney Co. bought the team and went local, renaming the franchise the Anaheim Angels. Everyone at Disney was familiar with Anaheim because the company has a massive theme park in the city. Locals cheered mightily for what they took as an overdue expression of local pride.
Disney tired of the team and sold it to Moreno, an entrepreneur with plenty of dough but nowhere near the resources of Disney. There was no other play for Moreno—no theme park or hotel for marketing tie-ups, no hockey team for package suite sales.
Moreno had to make the Angels make sense, and he made a tough call (there goes the sports lingo). He renamed the team the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Moreno worked around a clause in his lease, perhaps violating its spirit. Anaheim remained in the title as a second fiddle that would be all but overlooked. Moreno wanted the Los Angeles part of name to be noticed. That’s how the media market understands everything from Santa Barbara to the San Diego County line.
There were all kinds of howls, and some continue.
They’ll likely be drowned out by the cheers over Moreno’s bold move to land Albert Pujols, a first baseman of the first order, and C.J. Wilson, a highly regarded pitcher.
Moreno shelled out more than $300 million for the two. Pujols is in line for at least $250 million over 10 years; Wilson signed for $77 over five years. Moreno could afford them because he knew how to market a team in the heart of Orange County for a big-market cable contract—at least $2 billion, and probably more.
I predict that the Moreno’s recent coup will eventually stun observers in the baseball world and beyond for more than the talent he added to the local team’s roster.
The real stunner will be that Moreno’s bold move put a “big-market” stamp on the Angels overnight.
It will be up to others to figure out how to take Moreno’s assist and put their own shot on goal (last bit of sports lingo) on building a big-market perception of Orange County.
It’s clear that Moreno has his own work to do.
Now might be a good time for everyone to forgive him for the slight to Anaheim.
