FanHouse Bill Bidwell

So, I'm driving around running some errands and decide to listen to the local sports talk radio. I live in Cincinnati now, so most of the talk is pretty bad. Fans are tired of talking about all the little reasons why the Bengals are bad. The main reason is something that cannot be fixed: owner Mike Brown.

Brown is one of those cheap owners who inherited his organization (from his legend of a father) but doesn't know how to organize it. The story keeps on going, but it just ends with him being a bad owner (just one winning season in the 16 full seasons he has owned the team). Even his Wikipedia page says he is one of the worst owners in professional sports.

On the radio today, they were discussing the sad fact that fans would actually be cheering Mike Brown dying and the team being run by someone else. What? You'd cheer a man's death just so your football team can be better?

It happens. Remember how fans booed during a moment of silence for Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz a year ago? Wirtz was very unpopular and fans viewed his death as a great moment for their hockey club.

Over at The Politico, reporters Ken Vogel and Matt Lindsey did plenty of scout work to determine that when it comes to owners of major league sports franchises, Republican Senator and presumptive GOP Presidential nominee John McCain is doing far better than his Democratic Party counterpart Barack Obama in the fundraising department:

Through the end of June, team owners in the four major sports and their families have given to or raised as much or more than $3.2 million for McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, compared with as much as $615,000 for his Democratic rival Obama, according to a Politico analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission, the campaigns and interviews.

Not only did McCain raise more than Obama from the owners in each of the four major professional sports leagues analyzed, but McCain even raised six times more from the owners of teams in Obama's hometown of Chicago.

As you might expect, there are a lot of familiar names thrown about here. But the most stunning revelation isn't revealed until far deeper into the piece -- apparently, most of the team owners who were big donors to the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, have yet to make a contribution to the Obama campaign, perhaps an indication of some lingering resentment after a bruising primary season. Just one example is New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who donated $2,300 to Clinton's primary campaign, but has since made donations to McCain's join presidential campaign committee.

One notable exception to that seems to be Charlotte Bobcats owner Bob Johnson, who donated the $2,300 maximum to Clinton's campaign while "bundling" another $100,000 in contributions -- efforts that Johnson has since matched and then exceeded on behalf of the Obama campaign. And for those of you who might be wondering, Bobcats minority owner Michael Jordan donated $2,100 to Obama's primary campaign, but has yet to make a contribution to his general election bid.