Fans Take Aim At Loria With White House Petition
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami Marlins don't have many avenues to try to force team owner Jeffrey Loria to sell the team. But, at least one Marlins fans has decided to go right to the top and petition President Barack Obama.
A petition has been created on the White House website asking the Obama administration "to create legislation that would force Jeff Loria to sell the Miami Marlins and leave town."
The petition goes further asking Congress to require any major league sports franchise that operates in the U.S. and take public tax money to help build a stadium or arena, must maintain a competitive payroll at all times, "of at least 90% of the entire league's opening day payroll for the previous five years, for the first ten years after taking said money."
This year the Marlins are operating with a payroll in the neighborhood of $35-40 million while the average payroll across Major League Baseball is approximately $90 million.
According to the petition, if a team violated the requirement, "failure to do so would invoke proceedings upon which the governing body of the league, in which the franchise in question resides, would be forced to immediately buy said franchise for fair market value, and the ownership group in question would be forced to sell it to them without dispute."
The petition is an interesting proposition and would likely win favor with almost all sports fans. Whether it can garner 100,000 signatures by May 8 to require a White House response and pull in enough attention to actually get legislation moving remains to be seen.
