John Sherman made pretty good first impression as third owner in KC Royals history
The new owner of the Kansas City Royals is a self-made billionaire who chose his old business on a bit of a lark.
He grew up as an Air Force brat and then played quarterback at Ottawa University. He had no connection to the Kansas City area before that, but some 45 years after arriving here, he wore socks with baseballs on them to a news conference marking his official ownership of the team in the city he’s now called home for virtually his entire adult life.
John Sherman joked that he came “out of hiding” for this moment. He’s never sought the spotlight but also never had reason to shun it until three months ago, when news broke that a group he’s leading would buy the Royals for about $1 billion.
“This is a business and a cause,” he said.
Sherman has been one of Kansas City’s leading civic philanthropists for years, but his hometown will now get to know him in a deeper way and on a much grander scale. There is no hiding once you buy something as public and shared as a Major League Baseball team.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “you can hold me accountable.”
Sherman, also promised to be available in his new role, and to let Kansas Citians in general and Royals fans in particular hear his voice and understand his priorities.
Each time he mentioned the purpose of his new job, winning a championship came first. He talked of falling in love with the magic of baseball as a kid and becoming fascinated by the innovation he saw in his four seasons as a minority owner with the Cleveland Indians.
He had a path to become the controlling owner there, too, an investment that is now essentially held in a blind trust. In Cleveland, he worked with and for Paul Dolan. In Kansas City, he’ll be the boss, with an announced roster of 17 investors who each have a local tie.
“I could see the joy of getting to do this in your hometown,” Sherman said of working with Dolan. “I could tell how meaningful that was for him to get to do that in his hometown.”
Sherman talked about the need to lose money on bigger payrolls when the roster is ready and supporting his baseball people with the best technology and behavioral science methods available.
He deferred to general manager Dayton Moore when asked about a timeline to win a championship, and told a story he’s told before about flying back from a vacation in Europe to watch the World Series in 2014. When asked what he loved about Kansas City, he immediately looked at his wife, who grew up here and stayed here. Together, the couple raised four kids here.
Sherman has not signed a free agent or answered a question after a loss.
But he did just make one hell of a first impression.
“As you achieve success, I think it’s important that you become a good corporate citizen,” Sherman said. “It’s not just altruistic. I think it’s smart for your business. If it’s a more meaningful place to work, it does a lot for your business. That’s not why you do it, but it’s a byproduct.”
The Indians have seven consecutive winning records and made the playoffs three times in Sherman’s four years with the club, but their ownership group has been consistently criticized in Cleveland for not spending enough.
When baseball commissioner Rob Manfred last week confirmed The Star’s reporting that Sherman was in line to become the controlling owner there, many Indians fans reacted with disappointment.
But there are no guarantees of what Sherman’s ownership here will look like. MLB typically doesn’t like ownership groups as large as Sherman’s, but what if that’s what was needed to have enough money for both the purchase and operation?
Sherman remains a bit of a blank slate, then, at least in terms of what he’ll be as a baseball owner. He will take some time to decide if he should hire a club president, for instance.
Sherman was involved in the negotiation of a new television contract that should be finalized soon. In that way, it’s a good time to get in on the team. The value of the Royals’ TV rights will still rank in the league’s bottom five but should more than double to $55 million or more annually.
Even if Sherman isn’t willing to take routine and sizable haircuts in yearly operations — he indicated he’d be OK losing money some years depending on the roster — this looming injection of TV money could give the Royals more flexibility than they’ve had in many years.
The courtship from former owner David Glass included many deep conversations with Moore, senior vice president for business Kevin Uhlich and others. For now, at least, Sherman talks of his role as being more supporter than director.
“I’m an investor,” he said. “These guys are baseball professionals. Every day I’m trying to learn more about the game so I can help them be successful.”
Sherman is already helping in at least one significant way. The Indians have long been among the sport’s forward thinkers in terms of technology and data; the Royals have long been among the sport’s most traditional.
Some of that reputation has been exaggerated — the size of the Royals’ analytics staff is thought to be in line with the league average, for instance — but the Royals have begun transforming their infrastructure in significant ways.
That’s included new job titles and emphases for some executives, a fresh look at how data can inform decisions on and off the field, and a heavy push into behavioral science.
That last part is particularly compelling because it melds the best intentions of Moore’s scouts with some of the best of what Sherman learned with the Indians. Everybody has data, the thinking goes, so perhaps the next edge will go to the franchise that can most effectively use technology to get its players in the best mental and emotional states possible.
This is a good place to mention something that’s been said in many baseball circles these past few months, by people who work with the Royals and other organizations.
The general consensus is that the Royals needed this. They needed a new voice, a fresher look at the game. That Moore, in fact, needed someone to push him in new ways and toward new solutions. That the franchise was not positioned to build its way back up with the same people using the same methods as last time.
If that’s true, then Sherman truly is the perfect man for the job at the perfect time.
The Royals are never going to have the most money, or the biggest payroll. But what if they can have the same data, with better scouting and a modernized player development and support system that relies on both technology and human analysis to get the best from its ballplayers?
What if all of that is coupled with a renewed vigor from the top, pushed by a group of Kansas Citians who view their new venture as less investment and more cause?
Maybe we’re about to see those answers.
We still don’t know a lot about Sherman, or how he’ll spend. That picture will focus with actions, not words. But it’s hard to imagine a better new beginning, for both Sherman and the franchise he now leads.
This story was originally published November 26, 2019 at 4:22 PM.