By Business Of Baseball.com


May 7, 2006 - Stan Kasten is back in the game.

This past Wednesday at 4:45pm, Commissioner Selig announced the winning bid
for the Washington Nationals. Theodore Lerner, a Washington, DC area real
estate magnate, became the principle owner, but Kasten was the straw that
stirred the Nationals deal —bringing his background with the Braves and the
development of Turner Field into the mix. His merging into the Lerner's group
was the tipping point that pushed that bid over the Zients/Malek group (use
these links to read profiles on the groups that were considered long-shots,
and the groups that were considered front-runners in the Nationals bidding
process). He is considered to be a visible and crucial part of the new
ownership.

In November of 2003, Kasten resigned as the president of the Atlanta Braves,
Thrashers, and Hawks.

That's right, Kasten was president of not one, not two, but three
professional sports franchises. He is the only sports executive to have ever
run three franchises at the same time.

Kasten became president of the Atlanta Hawks in April of 1986, president of
the Braves in November 1986 and president of the Thrashers in November 1999.
When he joined the Hawks, at the age of 27, he became the youngest GM in the
history of the NBA.

Kasten's introduction to professional sports management came as a result of a
1976 meeting at a Braves-Cardinals game, with Braves owner Ted Turner, where
Mr. Kasten was celebrating his law school graduation with a tour of major
league ballparks. Soon after, he was appointed legal counsel for the Hawks
and Braves, and one year later (1977-78) became the Hawks’ assistant General
Manager.

Born February 1, 1952 in Lakewood, N.J., Mr. Kasten attended Rutgers
University before transferring to New York University where he graduated in
1973 with a degree in psychology, earned Magna Cum Laude honors and was
chosen Phi Beta Kappa. He received a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law
School in 1976, playing in the Jersey Shore summer Baseball League during his
law school years.

He is a recipient of New York University’s distinguished Alumnus Award in
2003, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Sports Lawyers Association,
which awarded him their coveted “Award of Excellence” in May 2000. Mr.
Kasten and his wife, Helen, have four children and live in Sandy Springs, GA.

Now, Kasten may have his biggest challenge yet, which, as this interview
shows, is a large reason why he took up the challenge. It is the enticement
of building a franchise from the ground up that he sees as the biggest
national, as well as international market that is so intriguing.

The following interview took place on the Friday after the award to the
Lerners. Kasten was understandably upbeat, and engaging. This interview
touches on how and why he merged with the Lerners, how his relationship in
the past with the Lerners made for an easy transition into the group, whether
the formation of the Red Sox ownership group in 2002 had any bearing on the
Nationals ownership creation (Selig moving individuals from the groups around
to get a "super group"), what steps will need to be taken to help market the
team, the issue with MASN and Comcast being in dispute, whether the new
owners will address improvements to RFK, what Kasten learned in the
development of Turner Field that can be applied to the new Nationals stadium,
the philosophy that Kasten has on player development, what National fans can
expect of the new owners, and much more. – Maury Brown



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BizBall: First of all congratulations on landing the winning bid along with
the Lerners for the Nationals. How does it feel to be back in the saddle
since stepping down as president of the Braves, Thrashers, and Hawks in
November of 2003?

Kasten: I’ve had a blast the past couple of years doing what I was doing,
looking for a perfect deal and a perfect situation. So let me say that all of
that time was well spent because I really have found that when I left my job
in Atlanta, I said “take your time and find something bigger and better than
I had ever done before” and I can tell you that after all this time, I
actually have found it. I was ready to build the stadium from scratch, build
a team from scratch, and in the most important city in the world is just—for
what I do—it’s the top of the mountain.

BizBall: Ted Lerner contacted you just after you stepped down as president of
the Braves, Thrashers, and Hawks. He had just missed the purchase of the
Redskins at the time, and mentioned that he wanted own a sports franchise.
Did you stay in touch during the stretch between then and the bidding for the
Nationals?

Kasten: I had a great talk with him. Sometime later—each time I was in DC, I
would stop by and see him. I spent some time with him, and he was delightful.
Maybe 9 months or a year later, when the Nationals thing happened, I got
another call from him, and chatted and spent some more time with him. His son
was terrific; he’s a wonderful gentleman. We all decided to put in our own
bids. We didn’t know how it would end up, but it was just serendipity that
we wound up coming together at the end the way we did.

BizBall: Who contacted who about merging the two groups -- yours and the
Lerners?

Kasten: In the last month of the process it was really clear to me that my
group, although terrific, wasn’t going to prevail in this case because the
principal financial backers weren’t from Washington and there were some very
good alternatives in Washington. So I understood that once I learned that, I
almost was encouraged by baseball to consider staying available for the
possibility of joining another group, if that’s what I wanted to do, then
they would certainly like to see that. So I thought about that and it was I
who reached back out to Ted’s group—we had mutual friends in the group (in
each other’s group) and through some of those friends we got back together
and had some more chats and very, very quickly decided it would be a good fit
with each other.

BizBall: On the formation of the group... How much influence do you feel the
Red Sox ownership structure that was negotiated by Commissioner Selig played
in how the selection of the Nationals ownership occurred?

Kasten: Oh, I think there’s a mythology built up around that—about how Bud
manipulates
things and really moving pieces around. I think that Bud encourages, and
helps that criteria, and things come together organically in the way that
makes the most sense. That’s probably a closer decision of what happened in
Boston, than any other perception.

I think a similar process was used here. The criteria kept getting clarified
as the process went on. As the different mileposts, different targets,
different goals from baseball came in sharper focus, pieces started moving
around, and as I said, organically, in a way that would kind of help better
meet these targets they picked. That’s what happened here.

The Lerners thought, when I became available, that I might be a strength,
that could enhance their group. I thought, that if I joined any one of the
groups—if I had a chance to join the Lerner group, that would put me in a
better position because of what I might be able to contribute. So, again, it
was more the organic movement of things as the process unfolded. It certainly
wasn’t any direct intervention or manipulation. That never happened, even
though there certainly is a little mythology around that.