Survey Shows Fans Love MLB Owners Who Spend Big

The baseball teams with the highest player payrolls also have the most popular owners, according to a new survey by casino.ca.

After announcing its survey of 4,000 baseball fans, casino.ca found the most popular owners to be Mark Walter of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Steve Cohen of the New York Mets.

According to Roster Resource, their projected 2025 payrolls are $390 million and $332 million, respectively. No other team tops $300 million.

Deferred Dollars

The Dodgers, who signed nearly a dozen free agents during the off-season, not only own a record payroll for this year but huge future commitments caused by deferred contracts.

Roster Resource figures show the Dodgers have $299 million in financial commitments for 2026 and $302 million for 2027. And that’s without signing any more free agents.

The casino.ca survey ranked owners by scores, asking respondents whether they thought they could do a better job as owners themselves. No one achieved the 10.0 maximum but Walter wound up with 8.6, just ahead of Cohen’s 8.5.

Just behind them were Philadelphia’s John S. Middleton (8), Houston’s Jim Crane (7.8), and Atlanta Braves Holdings, Inc. (also at 7.8).

Surprisingly, New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner ranked only ninth in popularity at 6.7. The late George M. Steinbrenner, his father, was an outspoken owner who inspired a variety of emotions from adulation to consternation.

No Plaques

None of the current club owners are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, though Cooperstown does contain plaques for former owners Walter O’Malley, Charlie Comiskey, Clark Griffith, Bill Veeck, Tom Yawkey, and Connie Mack, among others.

Fans of the struggling Colorado Rockies placed their owner in the same place as their sad-sack team: last.

Charlie Monfort polled only 3.9 out of 10 in the casino.ca survey. Even Jerry Reinsdorf, whose Chicago White Sox lost a record 121 games last summer, proved more popular (4.5).

Miami Marlins owner Bruce Sherman, whose front office has undergone a myriad of personnel changes in recent seasons, drew a 5.3 rating from South Florida fans – even though his team has been quiet on the free-agent front in recent seasons.

The only team without a pennant, the Seattle Mariners, have done better this season but still aren’t winning many admirers in the Pacific Northwest. Owner John W. Stanton drew 3.9, tied with Monfort for the worst in the major leagues.

Traditionally, owners are money men who approve budgets submitted by team presidents or general managers. Only occasionally do they get directly involved in negotiations.

Activist Owners

Although hands-on owners are rare, they have existed in baseball history. The list includes Horace Stoneham (Giants), Gene Autry (Angels), Charlie Finley (Athletics), P.K. Wrigley (Cubs), and Ted Turner (Braves) in addition to Veeck and Steinbrenner. Of that half-dozen, only Veeck has made it to the Hall of Fame.

Had the casino.ca survey invited fans to vote on owners outside their host cities, results would have been considerably different.

Steve Cohen, a hedge fund billionaire, was widely disliked by fans in Atlanta and Philadelphia, his team’s biggest rivals, because they feared he would buy all the best players. That fear came to pass when he signed Juan Soto to a 15-year, $365 million contract last winter.

Likewise, the Dodgers – and an ownership group that includes former basketball star Magic Johnson – were the source of derision from San Diego, San Francisco, and Arizona fan bases during the winter as they monopolized the free-agent market, landing such players as star pitchers Blake Snell and Tanner Scott plus prized Japanese League star Roki Sasaki.

The 10-year-old casino.ca site, which appears online in both French and English, allows users to find the best online casinos in Canada. It claims to be completely independent.