TheOak

The fan-side and the business-side rarely see eye to eye.

2005-2006 brought a lot of changes to this team and in the end it seems all were for the best but I can not begrudge a business owner of a $750M franchise for trying to protect his investment. 2005 Post-Katrina New Orleans was anything but stable and lets be real here, neither the city or state has deep coffers. The city wasn't able to host a game much less a team and if you think Tom Benson took a roasting for exploring the option of moving the team, imagine if a single dollar would have gone into that dome before rebuilding the city's infrastructure.

Today Loomis is heralded as the mastermind behind rebuilding the team but he was as much a part of the San Antonio exploration as anyone was as the GM...

As far as for writing heirs out of a Last Will and Testament... A Will is nothing more than the wishes of a person, and no one in it has any rights to anything until that person says so, and dies. I have seen family's absolutely destroyed by greedy children wanting what isn't their yet. Any child that attempts to declare their parent mentally incapable of managing their affairs to gain control over an empire is nothing more than a greedy ****. As far as for his wife, again.. that was his choice to make and the children only hated it because of his wealth. If Tom Benson would have lived on Charity Street in Abbeville Louisiana and had $27 in his checking account no one would have tried to declare anything or allowed their greed to drive them to turn on their father... No one would care who he married or why..

Uncomfortable a truth as this is, after being born and raised in Louisiana; I was relocated out in 2009 for work and it took a few years for the fog to lift. There is no disillusion here, a large percentage of the residents of that state harbor a lot of bitterness and anger towards anything they remotely don't care for or that doesnt agree with them. Even now when we go back to visit family it doesn't take more than an hour for the discussion to turn into a *****-fest and pity-party.

For the record, if the team had moved to San Antonio it would have made it a lot easier for me to go and see a game but I am glad they didn't move. Again, I was born and raised there and my heart will always reside in South Louisiana; I am just glad that my ass no longer does, it's better for my soul.

I could NEVER fathom the day that I would seek legal action against one of my parents for monetary gain, especially for money that THEY made.

FYI Benson saved the team from being the Jacksonville Saints which is exactly where Mecom was selling to.

If you are about to blow up on this post you are making my point.

burningmetal

I'm not sure how many places you've been to, or how well you have paid attention, but there are people who harbor bitterness everywhere. The idea that this is somehow an epidemic in the state of Louisiana seems to come straight from your own personal relationships and not an actual reflection of the people of this state, as a whole. So, I take exception to that comment.

As for Benson, you can describe my opinions of him as bitter, if it feeds your narrative, but I, as well as others in this thread, just see his actions for what they were. I'm not condemning his soul. That isn't my place, or will, to do. But the phony heroism that is often attached to his decision to keep the team here is, in my opinion, short sighted. He stayed because the state ponied up an enormous amount of money to keep them here. Or did you forget that?

And where does the state get that money? The tax payers. And please don't go with the "it's a business" line. Nobody needs to be condescended to, in order to understand that. We're not talking about a person making 10, 20 or even 70 or 80 dollars an hour, looking for a way to make more money. When you become a billionaire, the question is no longer about "do I have enough money", it becomes about what you DO with that money. Tom Benson and his family were beyond set, and it isn't as if they weren't going to keep making money. New Orleans was always going to be rebuilt. It was just a matter of time.

The biggest issue was the emotional loss that so many endured at that time. So the very idea that a billionaire would even entertain the idea of abandoning those people when they were at their lowest point, is what is greedy. I can understand a team wanting to leave a market that just doesn't support them. That was not an issue here. That was further proven by the money put forth to keep them here.

As for his family, I know that at least Rita, and I believe others, had been involved for some time in the organization. They were handling a lot of the things that he was too old to keep doing. So it isn't as if they were just sitting there, hands open, waiting for a hand out. They worked in that organization and were promised a substantial amount. Imagine being promised all of those things and making plans for years, only to suddenly be cut out because some woman comes along and decides she wants to pull it all out from underneath them.

Yeah, they made some claims about his mental health... After the fact. So what happened beforehand to suddenly make Tom cut them out of his will? I don't think it takes a genius to figure it out. It's terrible to see a family break themselves apart, but you make it sound as though Tom is blameless. You're upset at his kids/grandkids for taking legal action against him, but for some reason you dismiss the fact that he turned his back on them first.

As for "saving" the team from becoming the Jacksonville Saints, you can say that if you want to look at it that way. But it was just an investment for him. When it suddenly became inconvenient, for a little bit, for him to be here he was ready to go.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.

TheOak

You are making my point for me. You start off stating that you 'aren't sure where I have been' then explain how I must be wrong. At present the number of countries that I have lived for more than a year in is 5, and a handful of countries that I have spent more than a couple months in. I have lived in 3 of 7 continents and while I am no global jet setter, my sample size and duration is larger most.

I made no condescending statements, fans often forget that the NFL is an entertainment brand as much as a sport and team owners are entrepreneurs wanting a return on investment more than lifelong fans of a team.

You played class warfare with the rest of your comment and I am not down with that, if you want to place someone on a pedestal or down in the dirt because of their financial status, that is your game.

Back to my point, which you have proven; because you do not agree with me you must some how be emphatically correct and feel a need to defend your position. I didn't ask for a debate, just shared my thoughts and experiences. At no time did I state "everyone" is X or "everyone" is Y...

You seem to have a knack for taking something said and turning it into something completely different and personal. You have a super fantastic day!

burningmetal

Let me first start off by calling out your attempt to shut down any dissenting opinion from your own, by stating that any dissenting opinion against yours is automatically a sign of bitterness, and therefore wrong.

Do you see your double standard right off the bat? You don't get to dictate the terms of conversation or debate. You stated your opinion. Fine. So that means you're right? No, having an opinion does not automatically make you right. I have every right to disagree with and question your opinion. If you don't want to defend your point , and instead paint yourself as the victim of some ruthless "attack" on my part, then why are you even telling us what you think? Do you think an open forum is just an echo chamber, where everyone bounces your exact opinions right back at you?

I call out comments of yours fairly often, because pretty often you say things that I see as being way off base. And every time I do, you start telling me that I don't understand you. Did you stop to think that maybe that is why I question you? You just have your own way of looking at things, and it rarely adds up to me.

The next point, where you said "You are making my point for me. You start off stating that you 'aren't sure where I have been' then explain how I must be wrong", I did say I wasn't sure how many places you've been to (not just where you've lived), but I then explained my impression of how you came to your conclusions on the supposed bitterness of the people in this state. I didn't say "I know", I gave you my opinion. Now, if I'm wrong, the logical thing for you to have done would be to explain to me just exactly how you DID come to your conclusions.

Instead, you just skipped right past that, into the "I don't want to answer you, so I'll accuse you of being a bully who won't let me be right" theme.

Because, you see, even if you've lived in 100 countries, I've lived in Louisiana for most of my life. I know a lot about the people here, too. And what you say about this being a bitter bunch of people doesn't add up. If you're going to make such a statement, then back it up. If you can't, or won't, don't be surprised when your opinion isn't respected.

You are also an extreme hypocrite, considering you play the victim every time you are met with disagreement. It's as if a disagreement is only the fault of one side, in your eyes. If you want to prove how agreeable and, I guess "not bitter" you are, then maybe you should just agree with everything I say. Afterall, you came in here to disagree with those of us who think Benson was a greedy car salesman.

And when you say I played "class warfare", I take extreme exception to that. I'm not sure you know what you mean by class warfare. I didn't put anyone on a pedestal, nor did I place anyone down in the dirt. I said that when you become a billionaire, you are no longer in a situation where you need more money. I'm not saying that he should stop making money. I'm a capitalist, and I'm all for allowing people to work their way as high as they can.

But you missed my point. Sometimes, there are more important things than business. This man already had a fortune of several lifetimes, for most people. Why would you threaten to take something away that means a lot to so many who were already going through hell? I know football is entertainment. I know people have blurred the lines between their own lives and the teams they now live vicariously through. I've done my share of speaking against putting sports ahead of principles. But the fact is that these people, after Katrina, needed whatever positive distraction they could get, and we both know how much the Saints mean to that community. It takes a tremendous lack of heart to look those people in the eye and say "well, sorry, it's just business".

If you think that's class warfare on my part, then you must be a robot. Because I don't care about what class of people are involved. YOU are the only one making that distinction for me. I'm just talking about being a decent human being in the face of fellow Americans in a crisis. Over a 100 million dollars of FEMA money went into the repairs of the Superdome. Why didn't Benson pay for that? You want to tell me it wasn't his responsibility? That he's just a businessman?

I don't care if someone is an entrepreneur. That's terrific. But at what point does something take precedent over pure dollars and cents? The point I'm making isn't complicated. It isn't layered, or about one side versus the other, or upper class versus lower class. I'm talking about the right thing to do. You apparently don't think there is such a thing. What does that make you?

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.