A mogul to admire?

I saw this advert floating at Kosville; you've probably seen it at other ad supported sites.


What a savvy and admirable guy this Huizenga is, eh? Sports team owner, multi-zillionaire, self-made mogul eager to pass along his secrets for the price of tuition to his humbly-named school o'business. One wonders if one of the lessons on the syllabus will be how to ruin a sports franchise for personal profit. Just ask Florida Marlins fans - those few you can find - what kind of businessman Huizenga is. They'll tell you what Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci tells us: Huizenga is single-handedly responsible for one of the ten most embarrassing moments in baseball history. Huizenga took a world championship team - the Marlins of '97, a team on the verge of years-long success and enduring public support - and gutted it in a appalling fire sale for personal profit. Huizenga falsely claimed massive financial losses and, as Verducci recounts, dismantled his champs "before the champagne had dried on the clubhouse carpet":

He cut the payroll from $53 million to $13 million, sinking the team to 108 losses in 1998 and placing the franchise on a slippery slope toward relocation. Oh, and by the way, Huizenga sold the team after that '98 season. Not by coincidence, the sale came just as the standard five-year player amortization allowance had expired for him, losing a significant tax benefit.

Thanks to Huizenga's greed, the Marlins gained the distinction of being the first (and so far only) World Series winner to lose more than 100 games the following season. Despite this betrayal of the club and its fans, the Marlins struggled back to success and a new championship title under new ownership in 2003, only to suffer the vagaries of possible relocation.

So much for the self-made mogul. Students at the Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship at Nova Southeastern University should carefully examine the shining example they're being offered.

(Cross-posted.)