Questions about Mark Attanasio from a Norwich City fan

[littleyellowbirdie]

Hi folks, 

I don't know if you're aware, but Mark Attanasio has become involved in Norwich City Football Club (soccer), in England at board level and we're all intrigued about him. 

We're what's known as a yoyo club in the UK, which is a club that goes up and down between the Premier League and the Championship on a rather more regular basis than many fans would like!

The club's majority shareholding is currently owned by a well-known celebrity chef (in the UK) and her husband: Delia Smith and Michael Wynn-Jones. I think most fans of the Canaries (Norwich City's nickname) would agree that our biggest obstacle has been financial and suddenly we have the owner of a billion dollar plus baseball team with a minority stake and on the board of directors, which is rather exciting, but raises huge numbers of questions about what's going to happen and what we might expect if he was to finish up with a controlling interest. 

I would describe Norwich as quite a family-oriented, friendly club, whose owners try to do things within the resources of the club without risking the finances of the club. How does this compare to your feelings about the Brewers during Attanasio's tenure?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts. 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

I like Attanasio quite a bit. Well, as much as one can or should like a billionaire, anyway. The Brewers are pretty financially competitive in MLB, a sport with no salary cap and Milwaukee being a very small market in comparison to most. He also seems to let the sports people handle the sports side of things, which is what I want to see from ownership. Overall; I think you’ll be satisfied with how he manages a sporting operation. 

[owbc]

Agreed with Brock, Mark A seems to genuinely be a good person. Family and community come first to him so perhaps that is part of what was appealing about Norwich to him. In terms of management and operations, he has been a good judge of talent and has been on good terms with senior leadership. Like any good leader, he tends to find smart people and empower them to do their job well. He was a bit more active in player personnel decisions early on in his tenure but seems to have learned it is better for an owner to not be involved in player personnel decisions. 

I think his critics would say that he tends to be conservative with spending and not much of a risk taker. Some of this impression comes from because the Brewers are near the bottom of MLB in terms of revenue and they have decided to run a steady ship by fielding a competitive team every year and trying to find bargains. There was a brief period under a prior GM where the Brewers liked to make splashy trades and free agent signings to get the fans excited but they have moved away from that of late. 

 

[UpandIn]

8 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I would describe Norwich as quite a family-oriented, friendly club, whose owners try to do things within the resources of the club without risking the finances of the club. How does this compare to your feelings about the Brewers during Attanasio's tenure?

I'd say that pretty much fits what I'd describe Attanasio to a T. 

Though you'll get PLENTY of Brewers fans who will say he's cheap. I'm not sure some of those fans appreciate that Baseball, unlike Football or Basketball in the US doesn't have a salary cap, it doesn't have the same revenue and teams are more just kinda on their own. Meaning their revenue is largely just what they can generate.(MLB teams do get money from revenue sharing, but the individual TV deals are so disproportionate, small market teams, which the Brewers are, cannot spend like the large markets).

I don't have a clue how the finances work in Soccer. If there's a revenue sharing agreement or if they split the TV money, but I believe Attanasio puts the revenue the team generates back into the team and or the facilities, player development, etc.... Without those numbers being made public, it's hard to know exactly, but our payroll while limited, is comparable to those teams in a similar market size. 

[JimH5]

Mark is a likable fellow.  A little nerdy, but he's admirable in what he has done as owner of the team.  

Baseball's finances are a mixture of known and unknown details, with lots of room for speculation.  How that projects onto Norwich City, I don't know.  

By baseball's standards, he's not a wealthy owner.  He has been fortunate to have David Stearns work fairly successfully within the limitations that Mark A. and the small market have set.  The Brewers have built their teams around one big contract guy (Braun and now Yelich), and filled in the rest of the roster with mid-career shorter term deals and young, cheap guys limited by the labor deal.  

I've been critical of Mark in the past for not using the increase in franchise value to boost payroll, even if that meant operating at a loss.  Though that was speculation on my part, as none of us know how much profit and how much loss any team has in any given year.  I suspect the pandemic and following years had a big effect on P/L, as attendance has been down since 2019.

So I have no idea what his ownership stake means to your team.  He's been a great steward of the Brewers franchise.  He's smart and says the right things at the right time.  He handled the Braun suspension well.  He has approved aggressive acquisitions (Sabathia, Yelich, Cain).  He found David Stearns and seemed to let him do his thing.

Not sure that he's the great financier you want, but he also won't embarrass you.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Seconding all of this.

From a "fit" perspective, it's hard to think of an American owner better for Norwich. Mark has been very involved with the city of Milwaukee and seems to approach the Brewers as, to some extent, a civic operation. He's presided over the most competitive era in franchise history. If baseball ran it's playoffs like the EPL, the Brewers would have had a couple of Champions League (or at least Europa League) seasons to show for his tenure. 

Basically this: I would feel good if I were you. Brewers have consistently punched above their weight. Mark is not Todd Boehly. I'll be rooting for Norwich. Hoping they can gain some ground on QPR and get closer to the top of the table this weekend.

Hope you'll stick around! We should perhaps add a Norwich thread in addition to our soccer thread. I see no reason why Josh Sargent and the Canaries shouldn't be the official English club of BF.

[Jimbo]

How did you find this site?

 

[True Blue Brew Crew]