One factor that MLB will never consider when examining their drop in popularity would be to look inward. That would be to take a good look at its ownership groups or more importantly their failed ownership groups. What is that old saying, “you can’t fire the boss.” Well maybe in this case the fans should be able to fire their owner.
In this first in our series of bad owners, we will look at one of the worst teams over the past 17 years. That owner is Bob Castellini, who has been the controlling owner of the Cincinnati Reds since 2006. Over that time, the Reds have logged a record of 1,197 – 1,297 or a winning percentage of 0.480. The Reds have the 22nd most wins, only five winning seasons, four playoff appearances and have never won a playoff series during that 17-year span. Bob Castellini – Wikipedia
Perhaps one of the reasons for the poor record is the fact that Mr. Castellini and his ownership group have been one of the bottom spenders in all of baseball during his time at the helm. In our prior post Follow the Money, or Maybe Not? – Baseball Purist, we examined the payroll salary level of each team going back to 2000. In that analysis, the Reds came in as the 22nd average spender of payroll at $81.0 million, with the average team payroll coming in at $102.9 million. This Reds payroll average was almost $100 million less than the top team the New York Yankees over that same period.
Mr. Castellini did not own the team though until 2006, so if we look at the numbers over that time span the picture does not appear to be much better. During his 17 year ownership the average team payroll was $112.2 million, with the Reds having the 21st average payroll of $93.8 million or nearly $20 million less than the average. The highest during this period was again the New York Yankees at $201.5 million.
What though could be worse than a losing owner who is a bottom spender in all of MLB? How about an arrogant son of the owner who also happens to be the team President and CEO, Phil Castellini. It was about a year ago around the festivities for the Reds home opener in 2022 that a radio host posed the following question to Phil Castellini, ““You have people who say, look, ‘Faith is earned. Fifteen years of ownership and they haven’t won to the extent that we would like. So, you had my faith, but you’ve lost it.’ Why should that fan maintain trust?”
Maybe one would expect Phil Castellini to be humbled by that question or simply state that they would eventually do better or offer up some platitude about eventually building a winner. Well if you thought that, you’d be wrong. Very wrong. Instead, Phil Castellini went in the completely opposite direction by stating:
“Well, where are you gonna go?” Castellini said, his comments dripping with contempt for the average Reds fan who might dare question him. “Let’s start there. Sell the team to who? … If you want to look at what would you do with this team to have it be more profitable, make more money, compete more in the current economic system that this game exists—it would be to pick it up and move it somewhere else. And so be careful what you ask for.” Reds Fans Accept Phil Castellini’s Challenge – Cincinnati Magazine
His reply to the average Red’s fan was to essentially claim you got us as your ownership group, so where else is a Cincinnati fan going to go? Essentially then threatening the fan base by stating if we sell the team it will likely be moved. Heck of a guy.
It must be noted that Phil eventually apologized to the fan base. An entire month later!
Fast forward to January 2023 and Phil Castellini was appearing in front of a Red’s fan group where one would assume he would be there to drum up excitement or at least feign excitement for the upcoming season at that point. Instead, you guessed it, Phil decided to go once again in the opposite direction when he presented a slide titled “‘Teams out of contention by Opening Day,’ which was a chart showing how many teams since 2019 started the season with no chance of making the playoffs. Guess which team Phil is talking about? You guessed it. His own Cincinnati Reds”. wkyc.com/article/sports
It shouldn’t be surprising that the Reds are such penny pinchers, since Bob Castellini is the “poorest” owner in all of MLB. According to this article Castellini has a net worth of $400 million which ranks him dead last, but ironically his franchise has a valuation of almost $1.1 billion. blogredmachine.com
Is it any wonder then that the Reds typically have one of the lowest home attendance? In 2022, they averaged a dismal 17,447 fans per game, which ranks them just 7th from the bottom. espn.com/mlb/year/2022. In fact just this year, the Reds set a low mark in attendance on April 17th, when only 7,375 fans attended the club’s series opener Monday against the Tampa Bay Rays. It was the smallest crowd in the 20-year history of the ballpark, including all the games that were capped at 30% capacity at the beginning of the 2021 season due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. cincinnati.com/story/sports/mlb/reds-set-low-attendance-record
The cause of fan apathy and thus lower attendance in Cincinnati isn’t because the games are too long, but rather due to poor ownership. We use the word “poor” to both describe an ownership group that lacks the funds to compete with big market teams, but also poor to describe their decision making. Whether you blame the structure of MLB, which allows for a case of “haves” and “have nots” in terms of money or just plain bad decision making, this is an ownership group that has not been able to compete with the other major league teams over a prolonged period of time. There is no way to fire owners, but maybe there should be, at least for the good of the game and more importantly for Reds’ fans.
Baseball Purist 
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