Is Tom Hicks Going Broke?

D Magazine, Jul 01, 2002 by McGraw, Dan

Hicks likes to emphasize that the, sports teams are completely separate from Hicks Muse. And they are somewhat minor investments, considering his entire portfolio. Before the Stars moved into the new arena last year, they were costing Hicks about $10 million or more a year; now they make a small profit. The Rangers are in worse shape. Last year, Hicks announced a loss of $31.2 million; this year it will likely surpass S40 million. We'll try to understand what those numbers mean to Hicks-and just how minor the investment is-in a minute.

Putting money aside, Hicks' biggest problem has been the melding of the two organizations under the Southwest Sports Group umbrella. The Stars and Rangers now share marketing, ticket sales, media negotiation, and real estate ventures. "You don't need two of everything," Hicks says. "The Stars play in the winter and the Rangers in the summer. The crunch time to sell tickets is at two entirely different times. You can use a lot of the same people to do two jobs."

Sounds logical, but the results haven't been pretty. In 1999, before the SWSG merger, the Stars won the Stanley Cup and the Rangers won the AL West. Now the Stars can't make the playoffs and the Rangers are in last place.

The front office has been a mess, too. Hicks inherited team presidents Tom Schieffer of the Rangers and Jim Lites of the Stars from the previous owners. Schieffer was gone fairly quickly. Lites was named president of SWSG because Hicks knew little about hockey and because Stars general manager Bob Gainey wasn't comfortable discussing personnel issues with him.

To look after the money, Hicks installed his own man, attorney Mike Cramer, as chief operating officer. Cramer had once managed the Bumblebee brand for Hicks, which led some SWSG colleagues to refer to him derisively as "Mr. Tuna." Later, he and Lites sparred over personnel and financial issues, and Lites was gone. Hicks helped Lites get a job with the Phoenix Coyotes.

"The clash was between Lites and Cramer, and that was the only clash." Hicks says.

"Mike Cramer is clearly in charge of the business side, and he and his team are doing a better job than anyone has ever done."

The other changes in the organization are easily explained, Hicks says. Rangers manager Johnny Oates and Stars coach Ken Hitchcock had lost their teams. "A manager can only be effective in the pros for a finite period of time." Rangers GM Doug Melvin couldn't "get us to where we wanted to go." Gainey, who had told Hicks he would step down two years ago, had become a lame duck.

But even as he ticks off the changes and the reasons for them, Hicks has to know that so much turnover can't be good. Three levels of management have been changed in a business where stability usually translates into championships. Meanwhile, both the

Stars and Rangers finished poorly last year, with an aging nucleus of key players. With both labor contracts in both leagues coming due in the next two years, the prudent thing to do, some sports columnists have argued, would be to tear down the teams and trade veterans for younger players.