infinite improbability

An open letter to Manchester United fans

Dear Manchester United fans,

I hear that you are all up in arms about Malcolm Glazer wanting to buy your beloved football team. You think he's an outsider who doesn't belong. I know how you feel, all of us in the Tampa Bay area felt the same way when he bought the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We thought he was an outsider who didn't know the team and who wouldn't spend the money he needed to. We called him and his sons Joel and Brian all sorts of names, and since I am sure you all will want to do the same when he buys your team, I'll make it easy for you and suggest some insults. Among our favorite names for his sons were "Frick and Frack" and "Tweedledum and Tweedledumber," and one of the popular suggestions was that he bought the team so that his rather nerdy looking sons could pick up women by using the line "I own a football team." Apparently, they were not successful, so now he has to go and buy them a new toy, the world's most famous football team.

Now that we have the ready made insults out of the way, I would like to point out that although we spent several years insulting everything Glazer did, it turned out that he and his boys not only know how to run a sports team, they do a very good job at it. According to The Economist, the Buccaneers, which were worth somewhere around $127 million dollars when he purchased them are now worth over $800 million dollars, which is a pretty darn good increase in value. Mr. Glazer is not loose with his spending on the team, but he is willing to spend money to improve the product (despite the fact that John Gruden and Bruce Allen are currently being idiots), and he took the team from the league laughingstock to a valuable product. You do not need to fear that Malcolm Glazer is going to destroy the storied legacy of Manchester United, he has sufficent sense not to do that, and I can almost guarantee you that in ten years, you will all be asking yourselves, "Tell me again why it was that we all complained about Glazer?" I know that's what we're doing now.