New York, New York, big city of dreams. The city I call home, and the city I love more than any other I’ve had the pleasure of going to. One thing about this city that never ceases to amaze me is the love its inhabitants have for their sports teams. New Yorkers love their sports and they are not afraid to tell you about it. The city and surrounding tri-state area of New Jersey and Connecticut will root for their teams through the darkest times and brightest hour because in the end, sports is life. Sports are in the fabric of the people in this city and that will never change. Unfortunately for sports fans of New York Teams, winning is not something that has become synonymous with the greatest city on Earth. It’s to the point where the city’s sports scene has become somewhat of a laughing stock on the national level, and it’s embarrassing to watch. What’s happened to New York sports and what can possibly be done to fix it?
Management Is A Lost Art In The Big Apple…
There are 8 professional sports teams in New York City or in the surrounding areas of Long Island and New Jersey. But for arguments sake, let’s just say NYC has 8 sports teams. The Rangers, the Islanders, the Jets, the Giants, the Knicks the Nets, the Yankees and the Mets. Before we continue, let’s do a little math. From 2001 to 2013 there was the opportunity for 96 championships to be won between all 8 teams. Out of 96 opportunities, New York City claimed just 3 titles. The New York Giants in 2007 and 2011, and the New York Yankees in 2009; that’s it. Meanwhile in Boston, the sports town New Yorkers hate the most next to Philadelphia, their four sports teams won 8 championships. They have half the teams but almost triple the championships. But why? New York has money, the prestige, the fans, and everything else Boston has. The difference between the two cities is how the teams are run and by whom.
The only organization that I can truly look at and say they’ve had a good plan on how to get things done would be the Giants. The Giants aren’t a franchise that’s concerned about winning the back-pages of New York papers. Year after year New York media and even some fans always call for Tom Coughlin’s head coach. And twice Coughlin has gone on to stop the New England Patriots from adding to their Boston sports titles while adding to New York’s. Imagine had the Patriots won at least one of the match-ups between the Giants. Boston would have quadrupled the amount of trophies NYC had with half the teams. But the Giants window seems to have closed and the era of Eli Manning as star quarterback and Tom Coughlin as two-time winning head coach seem to be over. Other than the Giants every other front office has been pretty much inept. The Yankees have one ring in the last 12 years, but their process of just over-paying past their prime players as not bore any fruit. The Mets owners have seemed clueless since the last time the Mets went to the World Series in 2000 where they lost to the Yankees. The Nets just got to the city but between Mikhail Prokhorov using the Nets as a toy and GM Billy King seemingly operating with careless disregard for draft-picks, the Nets won’t be good for years to come. The Jets have been a joke in recent memory with signings like Tim Tebow, and Rex Ryan Promises couple with Mark Sanchez shenanigans have made the Jets look foolish on multiple levels. No one knows what the Islanders are doing and it’s safe to say most of the tri-state other than Long Island even cares to find out. And the Knicks and Rangers are both owned by one of the worst owners in sports who has no idea what he’s doing and hasn’t know what’s he’s doing for years in James Dolan. Owners of New York teams want to win but have gone about it the way that used to work in the past, just throw money at the best players and let them rise to the top. But the landscape of sports has changed. Players have options when it comes to money and endorsements now that they didn’t in the past. As long as the player is great no one cares about where he plies his trade, as long as he can sell product. Leaving New York to fight it out with other markets and over-paying immensely for older past their prime sports stars. But has New York come out of the worst of it? There are some signs of hope on the horizon.
A New and Improved Way of Thinking?...
As poor as management as been for NYC teams in recent memory, I think we are starting to see a shift in the right direction with at least a few of the teams. The Rangers and Knicks who are both owned by James Dolan are in the beginning stages of sport makeovers if you will. Dolan brought in the Zen Master Phil Jackson to be the president of basketball operations and has claimed he is going to stay out of Phil’s way and let him re-shape the team into a contender like they were throughout the entire 1990’s. I’m already seeing Jackson pulling string behind the scenes and making little changes here and there to quietly get this team back to where they should be. They have Carmelo Anthony as their franchise player, they have a coach in Derrick Fisher that Jackson trusts, and in the summer of 2015 they’ll have cap space to add more pieces around Carmelo. It’s a start.
The Rangers made it to the Stanley Cup Finals last years and had they played smart hockey in the first two games, the Blueshirts could have been Stanley Cup Champions. Unfortunately things didn’t go the Rangers way but it’s definitely a good sign. The Rangers signed their own franchise star Henrik Lundqvist to a long-term deal which shows intent. They have a good roster of old players and younger players with a lot of potential like Chris Kreider that can help them build on last year’s playoff run as well. Head coach Alain Vigneault operates completely different than 99% of the people in the city he’s coaching in. He’s always calm and reserved, not brash, just always there watching and paying attention and tweaking where need be. He’s a stark contrast to former coach John Torterlla who eventually wore out his welcome in NYC. The Rangers are in a good place so let’s hope this continues.
It’s far too soon to say the Jets are headed in the right direction but last season they were a far better football team than people expected them to be. This past off-season has been relatively quiet and they made some pretty good acquisitions in Erik Decker, Chris Johnson and Michael Vick to help bolster their rosters. They have Geno Smith that still has a lot to prove, but unlike the Mark Sanchez debacle, Rex Ryan is putting weapons around Smith for him to grow. The Jets have done far too much dumb in recent times for anyone to immediately give them the benefit of the doubt, but it seems that maybe things are definitely changing in the culture of the Jets; and in a season or two they can really start making some noise. No more flashy signings, just really good ones to keep progressing.
The Jury is still out on the rest of the NY sports teams in my opinion. The Mets have some good young arms so lets see what Mets management does to help them. But the three aforementioned NYC teams are the ones that all look headed in the right direction. New York is far too great a city for its sports teams not to be in contention every single year in every single sport. But nothing changes if nothing changes. Only the men with the power and the checkbooks can affect change. Hopefully as a collective NYC’s power player owners wise up and return NY to sports prominence. The City will be waiting.
By Frantz Paul
Twitter: @LSN_Frantz
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