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00:00Joining us right now, California Post, senior sports reporter Michael Duarte has been all over one of the biggest sports
00:06business stories in Southern California.
00:09The stunning, amazing sale of the Los Angeles Angels from Artie Moreno to Rams owner Stan Kroenke for a record
00:17$4 billion.
00:19Michael, how are you, my friends?
00:21It was great to see you making my Shine Time debut.
00:24We met and hung out a little bit at the Super Bowl, and so I'm finally glad to be on
00:28your show.
00:28It feels like a rite of passage when you work for The Post.
00:31Absolutely, and listen, I'm such a big fan of your work, and you have been all over this, your videos,
00:37the written word,
00:38and this is something that you have been covering ever since we started The California Post.
00:44So let's start, obviously, with the obvious question, because Angels fans have to be all sorts of fired up.
00:51What does Stan Kroenke owning the Angels mean for this franchise and for Angels fans?
00:58Well, you know, what I've been seeing on social media, Adam, and I think it's appropriate,
01:02it's that old Barack Obama poster from the campaign in 2008, Hope and Change, you know, if you remember those
01:10back in the day.
01:10So for these Angels fans, it signifies hope.
01:14Hope that this 23-year, tumultuous tenure under Artie Moreno, which, let's be honest, you know, they won the World
01:22Series in 2002.
01:23Artie Moreno bought them five months later in April of 2023 from Walt Disney.
01:29They won five AL West Division titles in his first six years, and then it all went downhill from there.
01:35They have not won a playoff game since 2009.
01:38They have not even made the playoffs since 2014.
01:41And then they had Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout on their roster at one point together,
01:46two generational superstar talents, and they couldn't even crack the postseason even once.
01:52I think they are looking forward to, with all the problems that have been going on with this team,
01:57with that stadium, with the city, for a new chapter, to turn a page, to get that hope I just
02:03mentioned,
02:03a new hope to quote a Star Wars trilogy.
02:06And this is what they've been looking for and wanting.
02:09I've been covering this, as you mentioned, all season long.
02:11They've been chanting, sell the team since the first month of the season,
02:15and they've been doing it for every single home game.
02:17They finally got their wish on Tuesday, and those chants went from sell the team to goodbye Artie,
02:24and I think they were, you know, giving him a fond farewell there.
02:28And those videos were incredible, and they're all up right now on Instagram.
02:33Follow the California Post sports.
02:34It's just incredible.
02:36I thought, Michael, and I've been outspoken on this, Artie Moreno was the worst.
02:41To waste Otani, to waste Trout, to be meddlesome, to really just antagonize the fans.
02:48I thought he was arguably, of the four major professional sports leagues in North American sports,
02:54the single worst owner who didn't give a damn about winning with the fans in Southern California.
03:00How would you characterize his legacy?
03:04That's a great question, you know, because we tend to forget, Adam,
03:08that Artie Moreno was the first Latino American owner in professional sports,
03:13first Latino owner in Major League Baseball, first Mexican-American owner in Major League Baseball,
03:18and to own a franchise in Southern California that has a huge Latino population,
03:23a huge Mexican-American population.
03:26The standard was really high for Artie Moreno when he took over in 2003.
03:30And like I mentioned, you know, he had a little bit of success in his first six seasons as owner,
03:35and his dream, he loved baseball growing up.
03:38His dream was to own a Major League Baseball team.
03:40I don't know if fans know this, but he was this close to buying the Arizona Diamondbacks
03:44back in the early 2000s from his friend Jerry Colangelo,
03:47and he had grown up in Tucson, Arizona, so that would have been kind of like his home team.
03:51So there was a tremendous amount of pressure for him.
03:53There was pride, I think, in him in the very beginning.
03:56But obviously, as you mentioned, the meddlesome nature, this weird obsession with signing these
04:03huge, massive contracts to these aging superstars that were past their prime,
04:07that were just some of the worst deals in professional sports,
04:10and then not being able to implement or hire the right people to get him out of those situations.
04:15I think, ultimately, the buck stops with him.
04:18And if Artie Marino wants to blame anybody for the mess that the Angels have been in
04:22over the last 12 seasons, it's analogous to being all alone in a carnival house of mirrors, right?
04:29Anywhere you look, you can just look at yourself.
04:31And that's exactly what you mentioned, one of the worst owners in sports,
04:35and that's how he'll go down, unfortunately, for his legacy with the Angels.
04:38Those contracts, I mean, Pujols, Hamilton, I mean, all of it, I mean, you knew in moments
04:44they were dreadful, and it was even worse.
04:47I mean, Rendon, I mean, you could argue that's the single worst contract in baseball history.
04:51We could keep going.
04:52Now, let's move it forward.
04:54Kroenke's track record is obviously the ultimate reason for optimism.
04:58I mean, Angels fans were celebrated yesterday just by knowing that Marino was selling.
05:03The fact, Michael, to me, that Kroenke's buying, I mean, that's unbelievable.
05:08We could talk Rams and Avalanche and Nuggets and Arsenal, I mean, the whole thing.
05:13And for Angels fans, you see it with the L.A. Rams, so you can wrap your brain around it.
05:19What does Kroenke do so well, so differently, that you think could translate when it comes to baseball?
05:26Yeah, you have your board there.
05:28You know, Stan Kroenke is like Thanos.
05:30He just collects sports franchises like Infinity Stones,
05:33and the one Infinity Stone missing from his gauntlet on his hand
05:37was a Major League Baseball franchise, as you show the graphic up there.
05:40And now he finally has that.
05:42Not only does he own every single professional sport here in the United States,
05:46but he also has a Premier League team over in Europe as well.
05:50And, you know, we know how big international football is, especially from the World Cup.
05:55And so what his track record has been, Adam, is everywhere he goes, he wins.
06:00He wins a championship.
06:01The Denver Nuggets won a championship.
06:03The Los Angeles Rams have won a Super Bowl and have a stacked roster,
06:06our Super Bowl favorites again this year.
06:08The Colorado Avalanche have won two championships there.
06:11The Colorado Rapids won a championship in MLS under his tenure and under his watch.
06:15So wherever this man goes, he wins.
06:18And I sent your producer a photo after that photo right there of him holding the trophy after the Super
06:23Bowl.
06:23That was in February of 2022 at SoFi Stadium.
06:26About an hour or two after that photo was taken, I was celebrating and partying with him,
06:32talking to him, congratulating him as he had that big cigar.
06:35And what I found from just engaging with him after reaching the peak of the mountaintop
06:40and coming home triumphant with the Lombardi trophy in his hands was this man,
06:45he might not be an athlete, it might be a businessman, but he is a competitor at heart.
06:50He loves competition.
06:51He loves to win.
06:53And that is why he's willing to do whatever it takes to win.
06:56So you asked, how does he do it?
06:57My opinion is he's not afraid to spend.
07:00He's not afraid to put a good product on the field.
07:03This is a man we forget who bought the land where the old Hollywood Park racetrack
07:07and casino was in Inglewood years before the Rams had even moved to Los Angeles.
07:13But he had a vision in mind that he was going to build not just the greatest stadium in the
07:17world,
07:18a $7 billion SoFi Stadium, but build everything around it, make a whole park, theme park of sorts.
07:25And he's doing the same thing in Woodland Hills at the Rams practice facility.
07:29We're talking restaurants, apartments, venues, movie theaters, retail shops.
07:34He's doing the same thing in Inglewood.
07:35But he's doing the same thing right now in Woodland Hills.
07:37And I know the city of Anaheim owns the land where Angel Stadium is.
07:41It's about 150 acres.
07:42Artie Marino has been complaining about that for years.
07:45But if Stan Kroenke gets the opportunity, I think he's going to want to buy that land
07:49and develop it and create something similar that we're seeing in Inglewood,
07:53that we're seeing in Woodland Hills with the Rams practice facility in Anaheim,
07:56where the Angel Stadium currently stands.
07:58And that's something that isn't just about winning,
08:01but giving fans a great experience as they go along the way.
08:04So I anticipate, look, turning this Angels team around that has lost more than Shohei Ohtani's
08:09interpreter over the last handful of years is going to be difficult, obviously.
08:13But the first thing I expect him to do is hire the right people,
08:17put them in place to start building the right winning habits, whether that's analytics,
08:22whether that's scouting, whether that's building new facilities, recovery facilities,
08:26training, investing in the farm system, which we've seen with the Los Angeles Dodgers,
08:30is a way to get back on the winning track fast because you can trade pieces to get pieces.
08:35You can promote within.
08:36So I think these are the things that Stan Kroenke is going to do right off the bat
08:40to try to turn this around as quickly as possible.
08:42Without question.
08:43I think you articulated that eloquently and brilliantly.
08:46And I've called the Rams the best organization in the NFL.
08:50And Stan has put together an unbelievable team.
08:52I mean, we could talk about, you know, someone like Kevin Demoff and Les Snead
08:56and Sean McVeigh and their PR staff with our guy Artis is the best in the business.
09:00So do you think that we could see real synergy between the Rams and the Angels?
09:08Is that possible?
09:09I think so.
09:10You know, people forget that the Rams used to play in Anaheim when they were in Los Angeles.
09:14I was a kid growing up here in Los Angeles in the 80s.
09:17My dad driving me out to Anaheim to go see Rams games.
09:21So these two teams are synonymous with each other, in my opinion, because of that history
09:28dating back 45 years and sometimes even longer.
09:33It's human nature to think that the Rams and the Angels would not kind of go blend together
09:39with Kroenke owning both teams.
09:41But what I can say is I haven't seen much crossover between, you know, the Denver Nuggets
09:46and the Rams or the Colorado Avalanche or Rapids and the Rams.
09:49But for people I've spoken to in Denver, those three teams that Kroenke owns in that city
09:54and in that market, they're cross-promoting and sharing and having players go from here
09:58to there all the time.
09:59So I think that's where it's going to start.
10:01You know, once Stan puts his own people in place, once the MLB owners vote on this and
10:05get him in, which I think is going to be a unanimous vote to get him as an MLB owner
10:11of the Angels, once that takes place, which I'm understanding is early next season, early
10:152027, you're going to start to see Angels players, whether it's Zach Netto or Mike Trout
10:20or maybe some future superstars we're not even mentioning or talking about right now, you're
10:25going to see him in suites at Rams games next season.
10:28You're going to see that synergy you just talked about.
10:31You're going to see a Rams bobblehead night, for example, out at the Angels stadium.
10:35You're going to see a Rams night where they bring players out to throw the first pitch
10:39and do things.
10:39Those are the kind of things that are going to start to slowly gel this together.
10:43But I think, like I said, you can safely assume that the Rams and Angels are now going
10:48to start to kind of go hand in hand, which is interesting for this team because it feels
10:52like the Rams and Dodgers have kind of built something, but I'm assuming that's going to
10:55start to change now over the next few years.
10:58Similarly to your point, Adam, when LAFC kind of burst onto the scene in 2018, they became
11:04the new kind of Dodgers soccer MLS franchise where prior to that there was an LA Galaxy
11:09night, LA Galaxy players would come out and throw the first pitch.
11:12We don't see that at Dodger Stadium anymore.
11:14It'll be a slow kind of fade away and dissolve as Cronky now runs the Angels and has them
11:20kind of link up together.
11:21Dodgers have been as relevant and dominant as, you know, a franchise could be a stranglehold
11:27when it comes to the LA sports scene.
11:28And I think the LA sports fan is amazing.
11:31Angels have been losing and obviously irrelevant in terms of the, you know, big picture in
11:37Major League Baseball.
11:38I know that Angels fans exist and I know they're amazing and they're passionate and they're die
11:45hard.
11:45And we've seen that through the years.
11:48Can Stan Cronky turn the Angels into a legit competitor when you take a look at the marketplace
11:55for Southern California sports?
11:57100% and all it takes is what I've told every single franchise that has either come here
12:02or moved here over the years of the decades.
12:04I told the same thing to the owners of LAFC when they wanted me to come out and cover the
12:09team in their first inaugural season.
12:11I said, if you win, people will come.
12:13I will come.
12:14The media will come.
12:15People will show up and they'll want to be there.
12:17So that is how you do it.
12:19Stan Cronky is a proven winner.
12:20He needs to get this Angels team to win.
12:22As I mentioned, he's got to hire the right people and start to turn it around.
12:25It could be a slow build to get there.
12:27But once he gets there, LA is kind of a bandwagon city.
12:31I remember I was in college in 2002, Adam, and on Halloween, people were dressed up as
12:36an Angels bandwagon riding down the street, telling everyone to jump in and have a shot
12:40with them.
12:41And I can see that coming again because that stadium in Angel Stadium in 2002 was packed
12:45every night.
12:46It was the rally monkey.
12:48It was popping.
12:49It was loud.
12:50And it was a fun, good time.
12:52And they need to bring those good times back.
12:54And, you know, I've been to Angel Stadium recently.
12:56There's rats.
12:57There's cockroaches.
12:59There's possums running around.
13:01I think this is going to be a process where we're going to see changes to the stadium,
13:06whether it's improvements, whether it's kind of remodeling it, or whether it's just
13:10tearing it down and starting over.
13:12We're going to see a lot of changes with this team.
13:14The name could even change.
13:15My guess is he cuts the deal with Anaheim and it becomes the Anaheim Angels, no longer
13:19the Los Angeles Angels.
13:21We'll see about that.
13:22But that's kind of what I think with this new bill passing soon that Gavin Newsom signed
13:26into law a few days ago.
13:27I see a lot of changes happening.
13:28And once those changes happen, then this team will start to win.
13:32And I think everyone will follow.
13:33We've now seen the Lakers sell for roughly 12 bill.
13:37Padres for 3.9 bill.
13:39Angels for 4 bill in a short period of time.
13:41Michael, why has Southern California become ground zero for this ownership carousel?
13:47I like that, ground zero.
13:48Those are my words.
13:49I like that, Adam.
13:51It's unbelievable because we have seen three huge marquee franchises in Southern California,
13:57as you just mentioned, in the Los Angeles Lakers, arguably the crown jewel of all sports
14:02franchises here in the City of Angels.
14:04The San Diego Padres down south, which was part of the Seidler family and the O'Malley
14:09family for so, so long.
14:11And now you have Artie Marina, who had owned this team for 23 years.
14:14That's three franchises, huge marquee franchises in this market, selling to new owners in less
14:20than a month.
14:21And so to answer your question, why is this happening?
14:24It's because of what you just mentioned first, $12 billion.
14:28That was the evaluation that Josh Kushner, son-in-law, sorry, brother of Trump's son-in-law,
14:35Jared Kushner and Bob Iger, the former CEO of Disney, purchased the Lakers at an evaluation
14:40of 12 billion.
14:41That is insane, astronomical numbers to think about.
14:46Obviously, the largest sale in professional sports in history.
14:49When you see evaluations that are like 30, 25, 30, going for 25 or 30 times what revenue
14:56is for those teams, it starts to become unthinkable what people are paying.
15:02And if you're an owner out there, whether you were, you know, it's not a coincidence,
15:05obviously the Seidler family, Peter Seidler passed away.
15:08There was a drama and controversy surrounding who would own the team and how they would move
15:15forward.
15:15So they chose to sell.
15:17Obviously, Artie Marino was getting pressure to sell, but he was going to sell a couple
15:20years ago, and then he decided to pull it off the table.
15:23I think seeing these skyrocketing evaluations, I think as much as Artie wants to own the
15:28team, and I'm told he's still going to be a minority owner, so he's still going to get
15:31to be a part of it, just like Jeannie Buss is going to still get to be a part of
15:35the
15:35Lakers, more than likely.
15:37Obviously, some court challenges are coming up.
15:41That's kind of like having your cake and eating it too, right?
15:44Let this private equity come in.
15:45Let big, big ownership who have unlimited pocketbooks come in.
15:49Let them make the changes I can't make, but yet I can still participate and be a part of
15:53the fun as a minority owner.
15:55I can still go to games.
15:56I can still be in the suites.
15:57I can still kiss babies, shake hands with fans and players, and be a part of it, and
16:02that's what I think is the lure in what you're seeing, and let's be honest right now, owning
16:08a sports franchise anywhere in the world right now is one of the greatest and hottest investments
16:13you could possibly have, especially at these evaluations, especially at the money they're
16:17making, and that money is largely because of these television contracts that you're seeing.
16:22I think the NBA just signed a $79 billion television rights contract.
16:26Major League Baseball just had a new television rights contract.
16:29When you see the numbers coming from these television contracts, when you see streamers
16:33like Netflix and Amazon Prime wanting a piece of the NFL and wanting a piece of live sports,
16:38you can see the directions and the future that this is headed and why it's making so much
16:42money and why these huge billionaires want this investment, and because there's only a finite
16:47amount of sports franchises available, there's a scarcity, and in business, it's supply and
16:53demand, and when there's not enough of a supply, but the demand right now is through the roof,
16:58then you see these astronomical evaluations, and it's only a matter of time before an owner
17:02looks at what they paid to what they could sell it for now and how much money they could
17:07make.
17:08In the case of Artie Marino, it's 177 times what he paid for it back in 2003, and that's
17:12just in 23 years.
17:14So I think this is not just going to be a one-off here in Southern California and on
17:20all the country for professional sports.
17:22I think this is kind of the beginning of something that we're going to see happening more and
17:26more as these evaluations continue to explode.
17:29Excellent stuff.
17:29You can read all of Michael's coverage in the California Post and make sure you follow
17:33him on X.
17:33He's an amazing follow on social media, at Michael J. Duarte.
17:38Michael, as always, great stuff.
17:39We appreciate it.