Meanwhile, the stadium's 572 cash registers ring up sales of food, drink and souvenirs. Additional millions from in-stadium advertising, national TV rights and revenue that flows from the sweetest stadium deal in NFL history make the Bucs one of the most profitable franchises in the league. In all, the team earns an estimated $35 million a year on sales of about $141 million.
Presiding over this cash flow kingdom, high above the playing field in his own luxury box, is 71-year-old Malcolm I. Glazer, perhaps the NFL's most improbable owner. A most private man operating in one of America's most public venues, Glazer has the bank account of other NFL team owners but otherwise seems a world apart. Unlike the Jacksonville Jaguars' Wayne Weaver and the Miami Dolphins' Wayne Huizenga, Glazer maintains a low profile both in Tampa, the Bucs' home, and in Palm Beach, where he lives.
Reticent and plainly dressed, with ruddy cheeks and a mustache-less beard, Glazer has only a few trappings that reveal his considerable wealth; his ocean-front mansion is one. A regular at the Bucs' home games, he's been spotted commuting between his Palm Beach home and Tampa, alone, aboard low-fare carrier Southwest Airlines.
Those who have had business dealings with the Glazers over the years say the patriarch is, at his core, a family man who dotes on his wife, Linda, and relies heavily on his children. His oldest son, Avram, is chief executive officer of Zapata Corp., a publicly traded company that is controlled by the Glazers. Three younger sons -- Joel, Bryan and Ed -- run the Bucs. Daughter Darcey is an investment analyst at Zapata, which operates out of Rochester, N.Y. "Everything they do is extremely family-oriented," says Steve Story, a Tampa attorney who for years worked for the Bucs' previous owner, the late Hugh Culverhouse, and helped negotiate the sale of the team to Glazer. "They keep their own counsel."
Above all, Glazer is private. He rarely grants interviews, and neither he nor his sons would talk with Florida Trend. As to why such a low-key, private man would step so eagerly into the high-intensity spotlight of NFL ownership, there are only a few clues. Glazer told a reporter several years ago that his father, a watch repairman, had died leaving the family $300 in a shoebox. Apparently insecure about the durability of his wealth -- "I'm always telling my kids, 'Tomorrow the end is coming,' " he told the reporter -- he nonetheless appears to have decided to enjoy some of it. When he bought the Bucs in 1995, he told Forbes magazine, "It's time I got a little fun out of life."
And as unlikely an NFL owner as he may seem, Glazer and his family have turned what had been the NFL's laughingstock under the notoriously tight-fisted Culverhouse into what has been a successful team -- and a business success to boot.
Humble beginnings
Malcolm Glazer's business career began in the early 1950s, as a watch and jewelry salesman in his hometown of Rochester. He eventually branched out, owning trailer parks and nursing homes and investing in the stock market. In 1992, he acquired Zapata, the Houston-based oil-drilling firm co-founded in the 1950s by former President George Bush. The Glazers eventually sold off the oil business and now use Zapata as a diverse holding company. Today, Zapata owns 61% of Omega Protein, a fishing operation that supplies fishmeal as protein for cattle and pigs. The company owns 40% of Viskase, a sausage casing maker, and holds a 98% stake in an Internet firm called Zap.com.
Over the years, the Glazer family has owned everything from television stations and shopping centers to Houlihan's Restaurants and the company that supplies McDonalds with its grills and milkshake machines. Along the way, the Glazers have generated their share of detractors, as they sold family-owned businesses, including Houlihan's, to the publicly traded Zapata. One episode that particularly galled Zapata shareholders involved Houlihan's and the Bucs. After Glazer acquired the team, Houlihan's, with only two restaurants in Florida, agreed to pay the Bucs $10 million for the naming rights to Tampa's old stadium -- effectively passing money from a Glazer-controlled public business to a Glazer-controlled private business.
Meanwhile, Zapata pays Malcolm Glazer $1.4 million to serve as its chairman. "It's ridiculous," says Jeff Gates, a New York hedge fund manager who nonetheless owns Zapata shares because he thinks they're undervalued. "It's a de facto dividend paid to Malcolm. But what can you do about it?"
Ridiculous or not, Glazer knows how to cut a deal. In 1995, he paid a then-record-setting $192 million for the Bucs, but the family made it clear the purchase wouldn't work without a new stadium. Until recent years, the rule of thumb in NFL ownership was that a team's share of the league's national TV rights would cover the cost of paying the team's players. But as revenues escalated, players have demanded a bigger piece of the pie, and owners have turned to stadium and other revenues to keep profits up.
Under league rules, teams share general seating and club seat ticket revenues: 66% for the home team, 34% for the visiting team. But revenues from luxury boxes are exempt from the revenue-sharing agreement, prompting a push by many owners for new stadiums with the appropriate configuration of amenities.
Raymond James Stadium, the Bucs' new home in Tampa and home to the Super Bowl next month, actually has 8,000 fewer seats than the old Tampa Stadium, which fans called The Big Sombrero, but the new field has 105 more luxury suites and 12,332 club seats, which cost an average $175 a game. General seating totals 52,000.
A bluff pays off
Getting that new stadium involved an exercise in brinksmanship by the Glazer family. When Tampa balked at building a new football field, the Glazers threatened to move the team, indicating that they had an offer from another city. But according to documents from a subsequent lawsuit aimed at blocking the construction of the new stadium, there was no firm offer.
No matter, the tactic worked. Hillsborough voters passed a half-penny sales tax increase, with $168 million from the new tax earmarked to build a stadium for the Bucs. And what a deal it was for the Glazers. The team didn't have to pay for any of the stadium construction costs. The Tampa Sports Authority pays all of the game-day expenses, but the team keeps all revenues generated during games from tickets, concession sales and parking. The Bucs even get the first $2 million of net revenues from non-NFL events, such as college football games and concerts, and 50% after that.
Former Tampa Mayor Bill Poe thought the deal was so one-sided that he filed a lawsuit to block the stadium construction but lost the fight. "They got a hell of a deal," Poe says. "The Glazers didn't pay one damn dollar for the construction."
Meanwhile, the Bucs retained all of the revenue from in-stadium advertising and the stadium naming rights, for which St. Petersburg-based brokerage Raymond James & Associates paid nearly $40 million. In return, the Bucs pay a relatively paltry $3.5 million each year to lease the stadium from TSA; that sum is fixed for 30 years and won't escalate no matter how much the Bucs take in. The only other money the Bucs give TSA is a surcharge on tickets, which amounts to about $1.5 million a year. "It's one of the most advantageous stadium deals for any of the NFL teams," says William Rhoda, director of C.S.L. International, a sports consulting firm in Dallas.
Story, Culverhouse's former attorney, and others also credit the Glazers for knowing their limitations -- while they may have good business and negotiating smarts, they knew little about running a professional football team. "Malcolm said he didn't understand this business," Story says. Wisely, say Story and others, the Glazers retained Bucs General Manager Rich McKay, who had guided the team under Culverhouse. And the additional revenue from the Glazers' deal with Tampa meant McKay had more to spend on better players and Coach Tony Dungy, creating a winning team.
Despite the voters' willingness to build a stadium and the team's subsequent success, the Glazers' relationship with Tampa is still somewhat spotty. Some still feel the Glazers played hardball on the stadium deal. And when several Bucs longtime season ticket holders sued the team over new seating arrangements in the Raymond James Stadium, the team retaliated by filing slander suits against the fans. The litigation is ongoing. The Glazers' loyalty to Tampa also came into question with reports that they explored selling the Bucs in order to buy the New York Jets.
The Glazers, while remaining private, recently have taken pains to burnish their image in Tampa Bay. They've created the Glazer Family Foundation. Focusing on helping area children, it hands out tickets to Bucs games and has been giving sick children in Tampa Bay hospitals Bucs teddy bears. The family also donated 1,000 uniforms to local Boy Scouts. In the beginning "they were not astute in terms of community relations and p.r.," says one longtime Tampa Bay community leader. "But they've learned they needed to do a better job."
Bucs fan Minear observes that the Glazers "have become less visible than the previous owners used to be. But they are good businessmen out to make a buck."
Stadium Deals
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Stadium name: Raymond James Stadium
Year built: 1998
Cost: $168 million
Owned by Tampa Sports Authority
Team's share of cost: Zero
Seating capacity: 67,000
Number of luxury suites: 167
Number of club seats: 12,332
Who gets the revenue: Bucs collect all game-day revenue; all stadium advertising, including naming rights; the first $2 million of net revenues and 50% beyond that from non-Bucs events. Bucs pay annual $3.5 million in rent.
Jacksonville Jaguars
Stadium name: Alltel Stadium
Year built: 1995
Cost: $140 million
Owned by City of Jacksonville
Team's share of cost: $19 million
Seating capacity: 73,000
Number of luxury suites: 90
Number of club seats: 11,000
Who gets the revenue: Jaguars keep all stadium revenue it receives -- including in-stadium advertising -- and pays the city $2.25 million a year in rent. The team and the city split the $577,000 annual stadium naming rights fee. City keeps all stadium sales for non-Jaguar events.
Cincinnati Bengals
Name: Paul Brown Stadium
Year built: 2000
Cost: $300 million
Owned by Hamilton County
Team's share of cost: $50 million
Seating capacity: 65,300
Number of luxury suites: 114
Number of club seats: 7,600
Who gets the revenue: Bengals keep all revenues from ticket sales, concessions and parking but pay all game-day expenses. The team shares revenue from non-Bengal events with the county. No stadium corporate naming fees.
Tennessee Titans
Name: Adelphia Coliseum
Year built: 1999
Owned by City of Nashville
Cost: $292 million
Team's share of cost: Zero, but guaranteed enough "permanent seat licenses" would be sold to pay for construction
Seating capacity: 68,500
Number of luxury suites: 165
Number of club seats: 12,000
Who gets the revenue: Titans pay an undisclosed annual rent. The team keeps all game related revenues and stadium naming rights fees but pays all operating expenses. Team splits revenues from non-football events with the city of Nashville on an event-by-event basis.