Dodgers: Justin Turner Goes OFF on Cardinals’ Owners Financial Claims
Tensions between ownership and the players are rough right now, as the two sides struggle to come together on terms to get games going. While the players want more games and a full prorated salary, owners seem to want fewer games and less money paid. The Dodgers’ Justin Turner had enough this week.
After St Louis Cardinals’ owner Bill DeWitt stated that owning a team ‘isn’t very profitable’, Turner had to speak up. The Dodgers’ captain took to Twitter today to point out a number of things wrong with DeWitt’s statement through excerpts from a Baseball Prospectus editorial.
The Cardinals, per Forbes, were worth $2.2 billion in March. That’s a compound annual growth (CAGR) rate of 11.8 percent on the $150 million investment.
— Justin Turner (@redturn2) June 10, 2020
Turner went on in a lengthy statement that continued or several tweets talking about the flaws in Dewitt’s statements.
Point being: DeWitt has been earning outsized returns, year after year after year, for 24 years. Oh, and about the $150 million he paid for the Cardinals—he got half of that back within a year, selling four parking garages received in the club’s purchase for $75 million. So take those outsized returns and double them, if you’d like. Bill DeWitt has earned returns on his baseball investment that are far, far higher than anyone outside his financial class could reasonably expect.
To say that Dewitt’s comments were untimely would be an understatement. The Dodgers’ captain knows that now is certainly not a good time for owners to be telling the media that they don’t make any money, especially when they’re trying to pay players 33 percent of their salaries and cutting minor league players.
Dodger Stadium Cleared For Fan-Free Games Effective Friday
Excellent. Safe to say JT will never play for the Cardinals. ALSO excellent!
Just awesome- Tell it like it is JT!!!
Bill DeWitt has some balls to say his baseball biz isn’t profitable. Sooo ya, $70M/yr. (pre-tax) is chump change to some. He also owns some Arby’s franchises and a petroleum company, but considering oil is doing pitifully and Arby’s is gross- this guy is doing alright owning the Cards.
It looks like DeWitt’s playing the ‘pity-me-billionaire card’ and is blowing out BS, which Turner just knocked right out of the park.
Meanwhile, Turner was to make $20M, or ~ $125,000 per game, with no investment, to play this game. Turner’s contract in early years were ~ $400-$500K/year. His CAGR is ~ 70%. Who’s crying now? Sorry, I can’t weep at that pity party!
He does not whine or complain here. He points out facts about an owner who is whining.
Weak argument KJ! JT was not asking for sympathy, he was just stating fact. Compared to us, JT is being paid handsomely, but he didn’t really start making serious $$$ until he signed his last contract….and worth every penny 🙂
As a huge Cardinal’s fan we have been hearing this in STL forever. It is BS, they have plenty of money to make the season happen if they want. It always amazes me how tone deaf these billionaires are during this time. If they keep this up, it could start to drive fans away if it hasn’t already started. Keep telling the truth JT.
Yeah, I’m honestly disappointed. I know that they have money that they can use right now to warm up the fans a little to save their business. It is very bad that they do not see this. Or maybe there are some pitfalls in this that would need to be illuminated so that we, the fan, knew about it and understood that this was either a huge loss, or they did not tell us!