Q&A with David Sampson...

08/27/2003 12:39 PM ET

Q&A with Florida's David Samson

By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com Get tickets

By increasing the Marlins' payroll, David Samson (left) enabled his team to sign Ivan Rodriguez. (Alan Diaz/AP)

MIAMI -- The Florida Marlins were purchased by Jeffrey Loria and his group of investors in February 2002, becoming the team's third ownership group since the Marlins won the 1997 World Series.

To buy the Marlins, Loria sold the Montreal Expos to Major League Baseball. John Henry, the previous owner of the Marlins, became principal owner of the Boston Red Sox.

David Samson, the president of the Expos during Loria's two years in Montreal, inherited the task of re-energizing the South Florida baseball community. He started the process this past offseason by giving general manager Admin Beinfest the opportunity to add a big-name player like Ivan Rodriguez to a roster replete with up-and-coming stars.

By hiring Jack McKeon to manage the team after a 16-22 start, the Marlins have fought their way into the National League's Wild Card race. And the fans have noticed. Attendance at Pro Player Stadium has increased by over 30 percent since last year. But the team's future in Florida is hardly secure. They'll lose $23.5 million this season, Samson said.

The Marlins president took some time out recently to sit down with MLB.com and discuss his tenure with the Marlins and the Expos.

MLB.com: This is only the second season your group has owned the Marlins. The progression toward success on the field has been pretty quick.

Samson: We had to do it quick. We knew it was going to bottom out last year. It was a very tough, fast transition, both for us and the fans here in South Florida. They went through so much: Different ownerships, no real stability. We wanted to bring stability immediately. So we started planning for this year, last year. We've increased attendance. We've had good play on the field. It was important this year because we're doing so many initiatives both off and on the field.

MLB.com: What kind of initiatives are you talking about?

Samson: Off the field it is simple -- we engaged South Florida. And we recognized it was impossible to do it last year. We didn't want to do it wrong. So we had to survive the rocky beginning, knowing that it was going to get better, which it has. We increased our marketing budget and our advertising budget. We increased our community appearances. We really just started from ground zero, if you will, grass roots, getting the community back in line. And that's why our ratings are up. People are talking about our ads. Even before we started winning this season, people were coming back. Now, with the moves Admin Beinfest made, which recently earned him a contract extension, our product on the field has come around after a bumpy start. Now, people are really behind the Marlins. There's a momentum. You hear it from people. They tell us that it has been good like this around here for years and years. That's what we wanted. You can't guarantee wins and losses. But you can guarantee entertainment and affordability.

MLB.com: You took over so late last year and had to hit the ground running.

Samson: It was Feb. 15, 2002, the day before Spring Training opened. It was a remarkable transaction in that we worked so hard to buy the Marlins. Jeffrey gave the mandate to me and Joe Mael, our vice chairman, to sell the Expos and buy the Marlins. Jeffrey looked around at all kinds of teams and he decided this is where he wanted to be. Coincidentally, I couldn't be happier living here full time. My family is extremely happy. This is a place we want to be forever.

MLB.com: Why did Loria choose South Florida?

Samson: Because he thought this was the most underperforming market he'd ever seen. He knows South Florida very well and he knew these fans just needed stability. It is a baseball town. People loved the Marlins.

MLB.com: There was a reason for that recent underperformance, wasn't there? The 1997 World Series championship team was immediately broken up by former ownership.

Samson: That was the first thing. Then the last ownership group came in, promised a stadium and didn't deliver. So we immediately took the stadium issue off the table. You haven't heard us say one word about it in an entire last year and a half. We're not about to say that Pro Player Stadium is the worst place to watch baseball. We don't talk about our lease terms, which just happen to be the worst in baseball and maybe all of sports. Fans don't care about that. They just want to come here and watch baseball. They don't want to worry about contraction or relocation or anything like that.

MLB.com: Pro Player seems to be pretty far from the worst facility to watch a baseball game.

Samson: The facility is first rate. We have lost over 300,000 fans (this season) because of weather, though. When it rains every day in the middle of the day it does impact the decision about whether people are going to come to a game. The temperature and the humidity do the same thing. So I don't blame people when they don't come. That's why we don't threaten with attendance numbers, that we need a certain amount of season ticket holders to keep the team here. We don't go down that road at all.

MLB.com: Do you ultimately feel that you need to have a domed stadium here so you can at least guarantee that a game is going to be played every day?

Samson: I'm not going to talk about a stadium right now. I will only say that we are working very hard to secure the future of the franchise and we don't plan on failing. Conceptually speaking, the answer is we need more local revenue. To get more local revenue, you need more stadium revenue. If we had more stadium revenue at Pro Player, that may take away the need to get more stadium revenue elsewhere.

MLB.com: They talk about this concept having the moveable roof on Safeco Field in Seattle. People in the Pacific Northwest, no matter where they are coming from, know there will be a ballgame played no matter how bad the weather is.

Samson: There's nothing like a guarantee. We talk about Seattle all the time. If you remember, in 1995, they weren't drawing anybody. No stadium plan, no fans, relocation on the horizon. All of a sudden they start winning and contending for the playoffs. They make the playoffs. The next thing you know they have Safeco Field and they've gone from low revenue to high revenue. We're not a small market here in Miami. But right now, we're a low revenue team. But we are on our way to eventually being a high revenue team.

MLB.com: What's the Marlins' financial situation right now?

Samson: This team will lose $23.5 million. Those are not book losses. Those are cash losses this year. I'm in charge of the wiring out of Jeffrey's account so I know. That includes our revenue sharing and everything. We have to put fresh capital into the team every two weeks. My view is that has to end. Jeffrey is not looking to get rich on the Florida Marlins. He's looking to provide baseball to Florida. When he took over the team he recognized that this is what he'd have to do for the first two years.

MLB.com: How long is he committed to go beyond that?

Samson: This was a very important year for us to get on the road to recovery. We were on that road last year, but you couldn't recognize it. We're now on that road to recovery and we need to solidify it.

MLB.com: If you maximized your revenue playing in Pro Player Stadium, could the Marlins break even?

Samson: We did a calculation. And I think with our payroll today, we'd need to average about 72,000 people a game. It's not a revenue model I'm comfortable going to Jeffrey with and saying we're going to do it.

MLB.com: Let's talk about your old team. What's your assessment of the Expos' situation?

Samson: It's a continuation of what was going on when we started in 1999. It started long before we got there and continued long after we left. Again, Montreal is not a small market, but it's a low revenue market. In my opinion, and the difference in our situation now, is that there's no foundation in place where you can go from low revenue to high revenue. We found in Montreal that even in a new stadium, we still wouldn't be able to generate the revenue to compete. And we're not finding that here in Florida. It's a tough situation there right now. It's something baseball will take care of as soon as it can. We want to do it right when it makes sense. You're seeing a ground swell of support among owners, the Commissioner and the fans to take care of this situation as soon as possible. But to do it right.

MLB.com: How do you think it will turn out? None of the three communities -- Washington, Northern Virginia and Portland, Ore. -- vying for the team have the components all in place to a build a new ballpark.

Samson: It's a very interesting chicken and egg game going on right now. Baseball has indicated that it wants to see certain revenues, and municipalities have said they want to see a certain 25 guys. They want to know they're making an effort for a reason. So eventually, there will be a compromise or a blink because the communities will realize how great it is to have Major League Baseball. There are only 30 Major League Baseball cities in the entire world. And it's an honor to have one of them. I think Miami realizes that. Whatever city going after the Expos recognizes it first will end up being the beneficiary, either of the Expos or some other situation. Not the Marlins, though.

MLB.com: What about the short-term, for 2004, at the least?

Samson: They're working on something now, I assume. We do not have a schedule for next season yet so we've been unable to plan. We obviously would like to have our schedule as soon as possible. Wherever they play, it doesn't matter to our guys or to us. We'll play them there nine times and try to win as many as we can. If I had to guess, I think geographically speaking, Montreal and San Juan make a little bit more sense than Monterrey, Mexico. Without realignment I think going to Monterrey is tough. I don't know that realignment will happen next year.

MLB.com: Why can't the Expos survive in Montreal if they had a new ballpark?

Samson: The TV revenue isn't there. The currency difference (between the U.S. and Canadian dollar) is staggering. You can't close your eyes to that. It's a major fact. When we sold the Expos and bought the Marlins we did a good deal for our partnership. My job as the president is to maximize partnership value while managing a community asset.

MLB.com: Getting back to your current team, what was the inspiration behind hiring Jack McKeon as manager?

Samson: We had to contend this year. It was critical to our success moving forward. And we weren't getting the job done. The team was 16-22. Who do you blame? As a fan I used to read, do you get rid of 25 players or do you get rid of the manager? As an executive, it's the same concept. You can't really get rid of 25 players. They were underperforming. When Admin said he thought we could do better, that indicated there was a problem. When Admin went to Jeffrey and said he had a solution, my first question was track record. It's like buying a stock. We needed to buy a stock that had turned around in the past. And that's Jack McKeon. It's no longer a trend with him. It's a certainty. He hasn't turned around a team once. Now he's done it three times. Whatever we do from today forward, he turned around the Marlins.

MLB.com: What's his long-term here? He keeps saying he doesn't want to deal with that until the end of the year.

Samson: That's where we also stand. The reason for Admin's extension is that we felt it was worthy right now to reward him. I hate to brag because he's our guy, but what he's done with this franchise is unparalleled. He's worked within the constraints of a budget. He hasn't complained that it would be much easier if he just had $20 million more to work with. That's not an acceptable statement from anyone who's in charge of anything in any business. And he's made decisions that have all worked. He surrounded himself with great people who helped him.

MLB.com: So why leave McKeon's situation open-ended?

Samson: That's how Jack and Jeffrey want it. They want to wait and deal with next year, next year.

MLB.com: So what's the long-term prognosis of the team in South Florida?

Samson: You can't create a large market. We have that. You can create high revenue. We don't have that. We're committed to this community. You can't say that enough. Our actions show that. But it will be done with a plan to survive going forward. We don't want to be in a position where we go from low revenue to high revenue and two years later we have a problem again. Like I say, we're committed to this community always. But committing to those types of losses, I wouldn't say that.