Malcolm Glazer
Encyclopedia
Malcolm Irving Glazer is an American businessman and sports team owner. He is the president and chief executive officer of First Allied Corporation, a holding company
Holding company
A holding company is a company or firm that owns other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow...

 for his varied business interests, most notably in the food processing industry. He holds controlling stakes in Manchester United Football Club
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...

, and owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football franchise based in Tampa, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the Southern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League – they are the only team in the division not to come from the old NFC West...

, a National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 team in Tampa
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....

, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

.

Biography

Glazer was the fifth of seven children in a Jewish household. He inherited his father's wholesale jewelry business. At that time, he had just $300 to his name.

The business first expanded into property, buying several mobile home (or "trailer") parks in the 1970s, mainly in the Florida area. He went on to become president and chief executive officer of First Allied Corporation, a United States holding company for his various business interests, such as food processing, marine supplies, health care, real estate, energy exploration, and broadcasting.

Malcolm Glazer now lives in Palm Beach
Palm Beach, Florida
The Town of Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth...

, Florida. He is married to Linda and has five sons and one daughter: Avram
Avram Glazer
Avram "Avi" Glazer is part of the Glazer family, he is the son of Malcolm Glazer, who control First Allied Corporation, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL, and who own the English football club Manchester United. The family is based in Florida....

, Kevin, Bryan
Bryan Glazer
Bryan Glazer is part of the Glazer family, who control First Allied Corporation, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL, and who have purchased a controlling interest in the English football club Manchester United. The family is based in Florida....

, Joel
Joel Glazer
Joel Glazer is part of the Glazer family, who control First Allied Corporation and the Zapata Corporation, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL, and England's Manchester United Football Club...

, Darcie and Edward. Three of them (Joel, Bryan and Edward), are vice-presidents in First Allied. He runs a wide-ranging business empire that includes shopping centers and nursing homes.

On April 16, 2006, Glazer suffered a stroke causing impaired speech and loss of mobility in his right arm and leg. At the time, his son Joel said "My father's spirits are high and doctors expect his condition to improve with rehabilitation," but after spending much of the intervening period in the hospital, Glazer suffered a second stroke in May 2006.

Business history

Glazer’s first attempt at a corporate takeover was in 1984, when he launched an unsuccessful $7.6 billion bid to buy the bankrupt freight rail company, Conrail. He also failed in an attempted takeover of kitchen designer Formica
Formica (plastic)
Formica is a brand of composite materials manufactured by the Formica Corporation now based in Newcastle, Tyne & Wear, a division of the New Zealand company Fletcher Building. In common use, the term refers to the company's classic product, a heat-resistant, wipe-clean, plastic laminate of paper or...

 in 1988 and, later, with motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson , often abbreviated H-D or Harley, is an American motorcycle manufacturer. Founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the first decade of the 20th century, it was one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depression...

.

One of the companies that Glazer did purchase successfully was the nearly bankrupt Zapata Offshore, a remnant of Zapata
Zapata Corporation
Zapata Corporation is a holding company based in Rochester, New York, and originating from an oil company started by a group including the former United States president George H. W. Bush. Various writers have alleged links between the company and the United States Central Intelligence Agency...

, an oil and gas company founded by George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

, which was left over after the latter's takeover by South Penn Oil to create Pennzoil. Glazer successfully diversified it into fish protein and Caribbean supermarkets.

Glazer has owned a diverse portfolio of nationwide investments which include food service equipment, food packaging and food supplies, marine protein, broadcasting, health care, property, banking, natural gas and oil, the Internet, stocks and bonds.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

In 1995 Malcolm Glazer purchased the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football franchise based in Tampa, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the Southern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League – they are the only team in the division not to come from the old NFC West...

, a National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 franchise, for a then-record $192 million following the death of former owner Hugh Culverhouse
Hugh Culverhouse
Hugh Franklin Culverhouse, Sr. was the longtime owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League . He was a successful tax lawyer, and his real estate investments made him one of the nation's wealthiest men...

. The front office staff of the team includes sons Bryan Glazer
Bryan Glazer
Bryan Glazer is part of the Glazer family, who control First Allied Corporation, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL, and who have purchased a controlling interest in the English football club Manchester United. The family is based in Florida....

, Edward Glazer and Joel Glazer
Joel Glazer
Joel Glazer is part of the Glazer family, who control First Allied Corporation and the Zapata Corporation, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL, and England's Manchester United Football Club...

.

Immediately upon purchasing the Bucs in 1995, Glazer declared the team's home field, Tampa Stadium, inadequate and began lobbying local government for a replacement. Glazer entertained relocation offers from other cities, but kept the Bucs in place after the local government agreed to build the franchise the $200 million state-of-the-art Raymond James Stadium
Raymond James Stadium
Raymond James Stadium, also known as the "Ray Jay", is a multi-purpose football stadium located in Tampa, Florida. It is home to the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers as well as the NCAA's South Florida Bulls football team. The stadium seats 65,857 , and it is expandable to 75,000 for special events...

, construction of which was funded by a local sales tax increase. Due in large measure to a very favorable lease agreement in which the team collects most of the revenue from the stadium while the local government must pay almost all of the expenses, the franchise was valued at $963 million by Forbes magazine in 2007.

For the first several years, the Buccaneers experienced improved success on the field during Glazer's ownership. After suffering through over a decade of consecutive losing seasons, the Bucs made the playoffs in 1997
1997 NFL season
The 1997 NFL season was the 78th regular season of the National Football League. The Oilers relocated from Houston, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee...

 and the NFC championship game in 1999
1999 NFL season
The 1999 NFL season was the 80th regular season of the National Football League. The Cleveland Browns returned to the field for the first time since the 1995 season...

 under coach Tony Dungy
Tony Dungy
Anthony Kevin "Tony" Dungy [DUN-jee] is a former professional American football player and coach in the National Football League. Dungy was head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1996 to 2001, and head coach of the Indianapolis Colts from 2002 to 2008...

, and won their first Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...

 in 2002
2002 NFL season
The 2002 NFL season was the 83rd regular season of the National Football League.The league went back to an even number of teams, expanding to 32 teams with the addition of the Houston Texans. The clubs were then realigned into eight divisions, four teams in each...

 under coach Jon Gruden
Jon Gruden
Jon David Gruden is an American football analyst and former head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for seven seasons and prior to that the Oakland Raiders for four seasons. In his first year as the head coach of Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers won Super Bowl XXXVII, defeating the Raiders whom he had...

.

After Glazer began to take control of Manchester United in 2003 (see below), the Bucs' fortunes faded, as they spent far less on player salaries than allowed under the NFL's salary cap
Salary cap
In professional sports, a salary cap is a cartel agreement between teams that places a limit on the amount of money that can be spent on player salaries. The limit exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both...

. Media observers and local fans have expressed their suspicion that Glazer has diverted funds from the Bucs to reduce the debt accumulated in the Manchester United purchase at the expense of the Bucs' continued success.

As the economy in the Tampa Bay area began to go down, the possibility of TV blackouts
Blackout (broadcasting)
Blackout usually relates to the broadcasting of sports events, television programming, that is prohibited in a certain media market.The purpose is theoretically to generate more revenue by obliging certain actions from fans, either by making them buy tickets or watch other games on TV...

 began to surface. The first blackout scare occurred before the Bucs hosted a Wild Card game against the New York Giants during the 2007 season. The team had originally banned non-Florida residents from ordering tickets through Ticketmaster. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo stepped in telling the Associated Press "There are constitutional prohibitions against states discriminating against other states' residents or impeding businesses by other states. There are possible discrimination issues." The Bucs would eventually drop the non-Florida residents ban and the game had the blackout lifted. The following offseason, the Glazers had announced that ticket sales would increase by an average of $15 per ticket although fans who had expiring PSLs did not have to pay another deposit to keep their seats at Raymond James Stadium and had the option to renew by signing a three-year agreement for which those who do will continue to receive an annual rebate of 5% on their original deposit fee. The price increase in tickets marked the sixth consecutive year the Glazers have raised prices causing their once-lengthy waiting list for season tickets to disappear. Regardless, all Buccaneers home games – preseason and regular season – had the blackout lifted in 2008 and in 2009.

Before the 2010 NFL season began, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had sold out every preseason, regular season and postseason game at Raymond James Stadium. It was revealed recently that the Glazers have bought up unsold tickets in recent years in an effort to have the blackout lifted. But blackouts were eventually becoming a reality when Bucs co-chairman Joel Glazer warned of the possibility that Buccaneer home games could get blacked out. The blackouts officially became reality first when the Bucs confirmed well before the 72-hour blackout deadline that the team's preseason opener against the Kansas City Chiefs would be blacked out marking the first ever blackout at Raymond James Stadium and the first blackout of any kind overall since an October 26, 1997 game against the Minnesota Vikings at Tampa Stadium failed to sell out before the deadline. The Bucs later had their first regular season game blacked out when the home opener against the Cleveland Browns failed to sell out in time to allow for local television. There were hopes that home games against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the reigning Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints games might sell out in time to have the blackout lifted but those hopes would soon be dashed when the Steelers game was blacked out and the Bucs announced well in advance through an e-mail to the Tampa Tribune by Chip Carter, sports director at FOX affiliate WTVT which would have aired the home game against the Saints, that the Saints game would be blacked out as well. Every Tampa Bay Buccaneers home game in 2010 has been blacked out for the first time since the 1996 season. The blackout streak continued into 2011, as the first two home games that season were blacked out as well (against Detroit and Atlanta).

Manchester United

Between 2003 and 2005, Glazer gradually bought out the shareholders in English Premier League soccer team Manchester United
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...

 in a deal that valued the club at around $1.47 billion. The takeover was fiercely opposed by many fans of Manchester United, who organized themselves in the form of the independent Manchester United Supporters' Trust
Manchester United Supporters' Trust
Manchester United Supporters' Trust is the official supporters' trust of Manchester United F.C., as recognised by Supporters Direct. The group, like other supporters' trusts, seeks to strengthen the influence of supporters over the destiny of their clubs through democratic supporter ownership...

 (formerly Shareholders United), partly because the Glazer takeover saddled the club with a large debt (over $850m) and interest that comes with it (approx £60 million a year). The mainly match-going fans object to the escalating ticket prices at a time when the club receives more money than ever from TV and sponsorship deals.
In anger at the takeover, thousands of fans failed to renew their season tickets. Many of these got together to set up a new club called F.C. United of Manchester
F.C. United of Manchester
F.C. United of Manchester is an English semi-professional football club based in Bury, Greater Manchester that plays in the Northern Premier League Premier Division. It was formed in 2005 by Manchester United supporters opposed to American businessman Malcolm Glazer's controversial takeover of the...

. The new protest club has had great success which includes three successive promotions in three years while attracting gates of well over 2000 fans each week, with a record attendance of 6023. Anti-Glazer songs and chants are still regularly heard at away games across the country. Since 2005, the ticket prices at Old Trafford have been increased by over 42% (12.3% then 14% then 11%).

The protests were evident on March 10, 2010, with the Champions League match, and with the soccer business successfully concluded, United's supporters conducted a protest against the Glazer family, with huge banners unfurled around Old Trafford and thousands of green and gold scarves, the symbol of their discontent, on display. Joel and Avi Glazer were in attendance at Old Trafford. Fletcher's goal interrupted the well-orchestrated demonstration.

In March 2010, a group, which became known as the Red Knights and led by Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational bulge bracket investment banking and securities firm that engages in global investment banking, securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients...

' chief economist Jim O'Neill, announced it was preparing a bid to buy the club from the Glazer family. However, a spokesperson for the club said that the Glazers were not interested in selling.

More support for the protest movement seemed to come from Manchester United fan and former England captain and United player David Beckham
David Beckham
David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE is an English footballer who plays midfield for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer, having previously played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, and A.C...

when he put on a green and gold scarf which had been lying on the pitch. This came after Manchester United beat Beckham's club Milan 4–0 in the Champions League in March 2010. Although Beckham subsequently denied that his action had any significance, it was taken by many to indicate that he was in support of the anti-Glazer protest and was described as "an iconic moment" by the Manchester United Supporters Trust. In early 2011, Glazer refuted a rumor that he was to sell Manchester United for a reported £1.6 billion to the Qatari royal family, stating that the club was not for sale at any price.

External links

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