Levi's Stadium vs. The Lemonade Stand: A Tale of Two 49ers Ownerships

According to President of 49ers Enterprises and Executive Vice President of Football Operations Paarag Marathe, the Eddie DeBartolo/Bill Walsh 49ers were "a lemonade stand" as a business operation. Arrogant but revealing words that show how Marathe sees the world, and part of why the 49ers Quest for Six is entering Year 28.

In an interview with Sports Business Journal, Marathe said, “We feel like we have pretty good experience in running a sports organization. We feel like we’ve done a pretty good job in transforming the 49ers, from an asset value standpoint, commercial revenue standpoint, and on the field. We know how to transition from a lemonade stand to a more sophisticated business operation.”

The current 49ers regime has Levi’s Stadium, the lemonade stand has five championships, and neither would switch.

Which is why the current regime has gone ringless.

From one of my MBA professors, “To know an organization, look at the mountaintops of its leaders.”

We now see Marathe’s mountaintop. Asset valuation at the summit, followed by commercial revenue, and on the field as an afterthought. Note that he never says championship.

The current regime competes within a business setting, the old one competed on the field. Jed York deserves credit for his willingness to invest in what the team needs to compete. However, unlike his uncle he is not willing to apply accountability for the lack of a championship. His primary job, optimizing Levi’s financially, is helped by a team that is “in the mix” perennially, as opposed to the L.A. Rams arc of ring and crash.

Marathe can point to many successes in his 22-year tenure with the 49ers. The team roster is one of the league’s best as he worked the nuances of the salary cap and handled contract negotiations. Marathe spearheaded the team’s emphasis on obtaining compensatory picks in the draft. That enabled the trade at last year’s deadline for Christian McCaffrey. The team had comp picks to fall back on. Without them, could they have made the trade for CMC? Probably not. The Niners don’t have a draft this year without the comp picks.

It’s not all roses for Marathe, though. Leading into the 2018 Draft, Trent Brown was asking for more money than Marathe was willing to pay, the 49ers traded him to New England and used the draft as a cap management tool to take his replacement. 

Just one problem. With the 9^th pick in a loaded draft, they chose Mike McGlinchey as the plug-and-play replacement and passed on All-Pros Minkah Fitzpatrick and Derwin James, and a few other Pro Bowlers. Business made the decision over football, and the team paid for it on the field. Marathe would repeat that mistake in letting go of DeForest Buckner and replacing him with Javon Kinlaw.

One wonders if the context could be flipped, what Eddie DeBartolo and Bill Walsh would think of the 49ers current football operation going ringless for decades. It’s a safe bet that DeBartolo would have moved on from Kyle Shanahan.

As for Walsh, what would he think of Shanahan’s current championship formula of a rookie contract quarterback, behind a cheap right side of the offensive line, who were selected for their run blocking? We might have heard something more colorful than "lemonade stand."

Yes, the salary cap changes the competitive context, but I’d argue Walsh would say if you’re going cheap at quarterback you can’t compound that with a cheap line of run blockers on the right side. Not that Walsh would go cheap at quarterback.

I expect Marathe will walk this back and claim it was taken out of context. But the furthest he can take that context is he meant in terms of a modern business only. Which is still damning.

Some wonder if Marathe will remain with the 49ers or move on as Primary Owner of Leeds Utd. exclusively. A statement like this tends to be made with a foot already out the door. The problem is Marathe put the other foot in his mouth.