Kick Out the Sports!
by Bob Cook

Bob Cook's weekly ruminations on sports appear Mondays in Flak.

Wal-Mart, a company whose $250 billion in annual sales are more than the gross domestic product of Sweden, presumably should have the bulk and wherewithal to pull off a transformation into a place where people want to shop, rather than where they have to, a move made necessary by Wall Street love for its hipper competitor, Target. But can Wal-Mart do it? To get an idea of how its corporate culture can translate into a business whose success depends on brand loyalty, let's look at the tenure of former Wal-Mart CEO David Glass as owner of baseball's Kansas City Royals.

Whatever you think of Wal-Mart, there's no argument that Glass was one of the most successful CEOs in American corporate history. When he succeeded founder Sam Walton at Wal-Mart's top spot, the company brought in $16 billion a year. When Glass retired in 2000, Wal-Mart had $165 billion in annual revenues, thanks to his push for greater efficiency through information technology and ever-larger stores.

But with the Kansas City Royals, Glass cannot outsource player development to China. He cannot use information technology to develop the most efficient lineup of players, Billy Beane be damned. He cannot shut down third base to break the union. All he can do to turn a profit is be cheap.

And that's what he has done. The Royals' 2005 payroll of $36.8 million is less than what the New York Yankees paid to so-called "small market" teams in luxury tax last year as a penalty for a payroll that was too high. And $11 million of that is going to Mike Sweeney, who is likely to be dumped for a bucket of beans to some contender by the July 31 trading deadline. Glass also has become the first owner ever to turn down a shot at getting a publicly financed stadium, presumably because that would mean he'd be expected by the community to put extra cash back into the team.

Small-market team or not, the Royals have been below the league average in attendance since 1991, and Glass has done nothing to engender Target-like loyalty toward the Royals.

Yes, the Kansas City Royals, at $13.71, have the second-cheapest average ticket price, a penny behind the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. But people don't go to Major League Baseball games because they're cheap. They go because they hope their favorite team will win, or they go because the stadium experience is spectacular, or they go to hate the Yankees.

Under Glass, the Royals are on their way to their third 100-loss season out of the last four years, and the waterfall at Kauffman Stadium is no Niagara Falls. At least the Yankees come a few times a year.

Glass has reminded fans and media over the years that free spending does not guarantee winning. If he wanted to, he could point to the cross-state St. Louis Blues, the hockey team that Sam Walton's daughter and son-in-law have just put up for sale.

Nancy and Bill Laurie spent freely on players such as Keith Tkachuk and Chris Pronger, and that was enough to push the Blues' streak of consecutive post-season appearances to 25. But they never got close to the Stanley Cup, and they also lost a lot of money, despite a loyal fan base.

The Blues might end up leaving St. Louis to achieve that balance — perhaps moving to Kansas City, which is building a new arena. If the Kansas City Blues are to achieve Target-like success, fans had better hope that David Glass isn't the one moving the team to town.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.