BASEBALL DREAMS PHOTOGRAPHY BY CJ WALKER Bases Loaded: New Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria (opposite) is revamp- ing South Florida’s baseball team. Below, a spring training game plays to a full house at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter. When New York art dealer and baseball aficionado Jeffrey Loria bought the Marlins last year, South Florida fans had all but abandoned the team. Now Loria is not only rebuilding a roster of solid players, he is also reconstructing the team’s relationship with its home base. Will the fans play ball? By Jeff Zbar a glorious March day pable. It’s spring training. Marlins,” says Loria, who repeats the at Jupiter’s Roger Amid it all is a 62-year-old with a boy- name in a playful Boston accent: “The Dean Stadium – the ish grin who is plainly in his glory. Jeffrey Mah-lins.” kind of day baseball Loria, owner of the Florida Marlins and About 100 yards away from the owner is made for. The sun avid fan of the game, is talking strategy is the team president, Loria’s stepson, It’s is shining brightly as with manager Jeff Torborg behind the bat- David Samson. Sitting on a second floor players mill about on the field of their ting cage that is perched over home plate. deck outside his office overlooking left sprawling practice facility. The crack of Not owner to employee, but fan to man- field, Samson is as enamored with the bats punctuates the play list coming from ager. As the two talk, up walks Kevin Mil- business of baseball as his stepdad is of the PA system: a mix of hip-hop, Latin and lar, the former Marlins and current Red the game itself. They seem a perfect country-western music, fitting for players Sox pitcher. He wise cracks and the three match: Don’t talk to Samson about the and north Palm Beach County locals alike. start to laugh. joys of going to baseball games as a kid, Fans bedecked in Red Sox red and Mar- Loria breaks away to mingle with fans. he’d rather talk Knicks basketball – if any lins teal also amble about, hotdogs layered An older Red Sox fan starts talking team sport at all – while Loria prefers to skirt in ketchup, pretzels slathered in mustard. dreams and hopes for the season. “Who’re front-office chat and go directly to talk The beer is cold. The buzz in the air is pal- you?” the man asks. “I’m the owner of the about the team. April 2003 / SouthFloridaCEO 39 BASEBALL DREAMS Fan to Fan: Loria (right) loves to talk baseball strategy with Marlins manager “The Marlins have a tremendous Jeff Torborg (left). fan base in South Florida, but until him from moving up. Yet, baseball was always there, at least from a fan’s perspec- tive. Professionally, with a degree in art those fans get ... a competitive history from Yale and an MBA from Columbia, Loria’s first job was with Sears, Roebuck & Co., in the department store’s team, they’re not going to spend fledgling art-buying program. By 24, he had published several books on art. In the money to go to the game.” 1965, he opened Jeffrey H. Loria & Co., a private art dealership he still runs on New York’s Upper East Side. Over the ensuing – Scott Becher, Sports & Sponsorships decades he became wealthy by catering to private clients, dealing in high-end art by the likes of Pablo Picasso and sculptor “My ability to be a fan has increased breakout year. Success or failure will be Henry Moore. exponentially since I got into the game,” measured as much in the stands as on the For his part, Samson, 35, can trace his Samson admits. “But it’s my responsibility field. And both men know it. taste for baseball to a day in 1998. That’s to run the business.” when Loria negotiated to buy the Montreal Together, these two – a New York art Trajectory of a Dream Expos – and lured Samson from his job as dealer and a New York wealth manage- At 62, Loria can trace his love of base- a wealth strategist with Morgan Stanley in ment exec – are the unlikely would-be sav- ball back to his first Yankees game. When New York to be the team’s executive vice iors of South Florida baseball. With only the Boston Red Sox logged the last out, a president. four years in the business of big league six-year-old Loria asked his father if that Actually, the Marlins are Loria’s third baseball they took over the Marlins in the was all. shot at team ownership. He was the owner spring of 2002, hoping to give the fickle Hardly. Loria went on to play second of the Triple-A Oklahoma City 89ers. The local audience something to be proud of – base for his Manhattan high school – team won the 1992 league championship, and to spend money on. This, their sopho- though any hope of making a college and Loria was named executive of the year more season in Florida, could be the squad was quashed when bum knees kept by the league. 40 SouthFloridaCEO / April 2003 The minors weren’t big enough for Loria, however, who sold the team in 1993. Six years later, when the opportu- nity came up to acquire the Montreal Expos for about $120 million, he entered the big leagues. But Canada was a different world for baseball. Revenues and attendance were weak. Loria couldn’t negotiate English- language TV rights in the French-domi- nant province. To make matters worse, while the team collected revenues in Cana- dian dollars, players had to be paid in US currency. “Things fell apart,” says one baseball writer. Then, in November 2001, the league voted to pursue “contraction” – a euphe- mism for eliminating the two worst-per- forming teams from the league. The Expos were one of the targets. While substantial legal barriers still stood in the way of such a contraction, Loria didn’t want to wait around to see if his team would be shut down, and he didn’t want to lose his ties to the bigs. So he negotiated a deal that called for Major League Baseball (MLB) to buy the Expos from him, in turn allowing him to buy the Marlins. MLB paid him the $120 million he had shelled out for the Expos, then loaned him another $38.5 million to cover Marlins owner John Henry’s $158.5 million asking price. This freed Henry to buy the Boston Red Sox, and kept the Expos alive for a future relocation to a US city. Loria was left with the expense of operating the Marlins, and with the task of helping underwrite a new ballpark for South Florida within the next five years. Under the terms of the deal, if no new ballpark is built, part of the loan will be forgiven – since the absence of a dedi- cated park will make it much tougher to turn a profit. Play Ball: Marlins executive vice presi- dent David Samson (top) has worked with owner Jeff Loria since 1998; left, a new Marlins ad campaign aims to drum up excitement for the team. Panthers (13 percent). “The research shows the fans are there,” says agency president Scott Becher, who also consulted with the Marlins under for- But ask locals which pro teams they fol- mer owner John Henry. “Just because A Fighting Chance? low, and some 50 percent from the tri- someone doesn’t attend a live game, it In South Florida, where football rules, county area say they regularly follow the doesn’t mean they’re not a fan. The Mar- other pro sports franchises tend to struggle Marlins. That’s according to a poll com- lins have a tremendous fan base in South at the turnstile. The Marlins are no excep- missioned each year by Sports & Sponsor- Florida, but until those fans feel like tion. Samson claims the team was left with ships, a Miami Beach-based sports mar- they’re getting better treatment from own- a mere 250 season ticket-holders when keting firm. Among the 600 people polled ership in the form of a competitive team, Loria bought it. Last year, the team was – 200 in each of the three counties – Mar- they’re not going to spend the money to go outdrawn by minor league squads in Mem- lins followers were second only to the to the game.” phis, Sacramento and even a Mexican Dolphins (58 percent) and significantly Loria and Samson can trace their fans’ league team. ahead of the Heat (32 percent) and the woes back to the weeks following the April 2003 / SouthFloridaCEO 41 BASEBALL DREAMS Take Me Out: Spring training is the revamped Marlins’ first chance to try to capture a new audience of ticket-buying fans. Bottom left, a player signs auto- graphs for fans both young and old. Left, a kid waits for a fly ball. “My name doesn’t start with ‘H’ like the previous regimes, who did what they wanted to do,” Loria says. “We had noth- ing to do with the previous regime.” Nonetheless, the challenges loom large. Doomed Without a Dome? 1997 World Series. Still euphoric from Now Management intends to rebuild One of Loria’s biggest conundrums is winning 108 games and the trophy, players that relationship, by improving both the one which stymied Henry: where – and and fans awoke weeks later to the news team’s performance and its marketing, how – to build a dedicated ballpark.