The Chris Moeller Archives

A completely unsubstantiated rumor that I'm promoting

A Cardinals fan friend-of-mine at work told me that he had it from a buddy that Anheuser-Busch was thinking of re-purchasing the St. Louis baseball team. The nation's largest brewer sold the club in 1995 after 42 years of ownership. The partnership produced six National League pennants and 3 World Championships for the Cardinals, but was an even better business arrangement for A-B, a company that has come to symbolize the marriage of sports and advertising in America. When sportsman Gussie Busch bought the Cardinals in 1953, the brewer was being outsold in St. Louis by a brewer named Griesedieck Brothers. Now they sell nearly one of every two beers sold in the United States. I don't want to tell you what I have to pay the tax man this year in capital gains after selling off a huge chunk of my BUD shares after 20 years of market growth to cover the downpayment on my new home.

Searching online for confirmation of this rumored re-partnership, I have come up with absolutely nothing. And yet I love it. It makes perfect sense. On the one hand, you have an ownership group led by Bill DeWitt. In the early '90s, DeWitt partnered with a flop-of-a-businessman from Texas named George W. Bush on the purchase of the Texas Rangers baseball club. Together they helped to revolutionize a baseball ownership model that has been replicated in communities all across the country-- First, you buy a baseball team. Then you threaten to relocate it to a different city/state/suburb in an effort to hold the home city/state/county up for ransom on a taxpayer-funded ballpark that will exponentially increase the resale value of the franchise. The first enterprise in Arlington catapulted Bush to the governorship of the Lone Star State, and DeWitt to the chairmanship of his favorite baseball team while growing up in St. Louis, the Cardinals.

Now, the time would be perfect to resell the Cardinals. DeWitt and Partners have already shown over the last couple years that the days of spending money on baseball talent have come to an end. The new ballpark has finished construction, but the ownership group is flailing away in vain-- like Tino Martinez in a Redbird uniform-- in their effort to get financing for the long-promised "Ballpark Village" in downtown St. Louis. The Village was the original blueprint for a 12 acre, $650 million development of retail shops, restaurants, entertainment venues, and residential units to be built beyond the leftfield bleachers of the new park, atop the pile of Missouri topsoil and debris left behind after the cannonball destruction of the old beloved stadium following the 2005 baseball season.

In Anheuser Busch, or perhaps in just the Busch Family itself, you would have a buyer who knows a little something about selling a baseball product, or any product, and of having built world-class entertainment destinations. (See: Busch Gardens and/or Sea World) The "Michelob Ultra Ballpark Community" would be a bonanza. An A-B merchandise shop and a micro-brewery (from the ultimate macro-brewery) could be housed next to a revamped Cardinals Hall of Fame and a relocated International Bowling Hall of Fame. They could move the Clydesdales and some of the animals from Grant's Farm into a contructed zoo area just beyond the stadium's outfield wall. "Look Sarah, that elephant has Albert Pujols' home run ball in his mouth. That's adorable."

The only reason the A-B board and Gussie's son, August III, sold out to begin with was that labor unrest was plaguing the game in '95, but baseball is in the middle of an extended period of labor peace and financial prosperity. (Though, to the latter, when has it not?) The business journals are ripe with news that the brewer may soon merge with InBev, the largest brewer in Europe, and who knows? That may mean a change in priorities for the company or members of the Busch Family. Forty-three-year-old August Busch IV now runs the company, and though August III had not an ounce of interest in baseball or the Cardinals-- his father's favorite toy, the Busch barons tend to rebel from their own fathers, and from a personality standpoint, take after their grandfathers instead. The playboy Gussie (August II), with his bevy at beauties and cardplaying cronies always at his side, was the pride of his grandfather's eye, the grandiose and princely Adolphus, while August III had only a mind for the business, like the solemn August the First. "The Fourth," as he's known, has already shown that he'll stand in contrast to his father by supporting left-leaning political causes and candidates, like his grandfather. And this may indicate as well a willingness to pursue a venture in an industry that has such a strong union.

I think, it would be win-win-win for everyone involved-- for the current owners, the brewery, and the team. The ballpark wouldn't even have to be renamed.

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Here's the recently-released trailer of the movie they just made about Indiana Jones' grandfather.

posted by CM @ 8:56 AM