Even in Super Bowl-winning Tampa, the Glazers are far from loved
Not that this will make Manchester United fans feel any better, but the Glazers are barely visible in the Tampa Bay too, even though the family has owned the local NFL team since 1995 and won the Super Bowl three months ago (thanks mostly to Tom Brady and a turbocharged defense).
The family frontman, if he can be called that, is Joel Glazer, one of six children of the late Malcolm Glazer. Joel Glazer typically makes himself available to Tampa media only once a year, and although he has a pleasant demeanor, he is hardly expansive on his family’s dealings with the club.
Because of the pandemic, Glazer’s availability to Tampa reporters this year consisted of a 20-minute Zoom call in March. But even in a typical year, four or five news outlets get 10 minutes each with Glazer, and questions about the family’s ownership of Manchester United are off-limits.
This year, keeping in character, he was bland and vague when lobbed softballs about his favorite moment of the Super Bowl season (“It was just more the whole environment,” he said) and about how the roles of the family on the team had changed in recent years. “We all have different areas that we focus on,” he replied, “but it’s a collective effort, a collective organizational effort. No big changes there.” Imagine how ebullient he would have been had the Buccaneers lostthe Super Bowl.
Tampa Bay became an American sports centerpiece in the span of four and a half months, with the Lightning winning the NHL’s Stanley Cup last September and the Rays advancing to the World Series in October (and losing to the Dodgers) before the Brady-led Bucs beat Kansas City in Super Bowl LV, the first time a team had won an NFL title in their own stadium.
Someone else besides a Glazer, though, will have to serve as the city’s pitchman. Even in Florida, the Glazers’ way is to get out of the way, which often does not help them.