Steve Cohen steamrolls rival owners for not spending enough money

New York Mets owner Steve Cohen doesn’t have time for complaints from rival CEOs. He runs his team how he prefers, and there’s no luxury tax to stop him.

The Mets have the No. 1 payroll in baseball for a reason, as Steve Cohen has put his money where his mouth is. That has yet to quite literally pay off with a World Series win, but Cohen’s spending habits have rubbed rival owners the wrong way.

Running a baseball team like a business is rather impossible, in part because sports franchises are not your typical enterprise. Typically, the more an owner invests in his/her sports franchise, the better that team will perform, and therefore drive more fans and revenue to the owner. It’s cyclical.

In baseball, though, owners act as though money is always tight. They don’t value their assets as much as they should, leading to labor conflicts and even a recent lockout. The lack of spending, prior to this offseason, led some to believe in a mass conspiracy, though that was never proven.

Steve Cohen fires back at rival owners

“I’ve heard what everyone else has heard: that (owners) are not happy with me,” Cohen told ESPN’s Jeff Passan. “I hear things from people who are maybe more neutral – that they’re taking a lot of heat from their fans. I kind of look at that like, you’re looking at the wrong person. They’re putting it on me. Maybe they need to look more at themselves.”

Cohen bought the Mets for $2.4 billion two years ago. Their payroll is over $369 million, as they spent $500 million in new contracts this offseason. Meanwhile, the lowest payroll in baseball is the Oakland Athletics, at just over $40 million total.

“I’m not responsible for how other teams run their clubs,” Cohen continued. “I’m really not. That’s not my job. And there are disparities in baseball. We know that to be true. I’m following the rules. They set the rules down, I’m following them.”

Money cannot buy championships, but it can often field a competitive team. Failing to do so is ignorance towards any fanbase, and Mets fans should be thrilled to have a frivolous owner.