COURTESY WARNER BROTHERS Christina Pagniacci, played by Cameron Diaz, gives female owners a bad rap in Oliver Stone's 'Any Given Sunday.'

From the Sidelines: A new Frontiere for women in sports

Earlier in the broadcast, Michaels made sure to inform the national audience about Frontiere's past. "She took the name of her seventh husband after inheriting the team from her sixth husband," he said. Frontiere did not, indeed, acquire the Rams through her own powers. But this does not change the fact that she is a trailblazer: of the 118 professional sports franchises in America, only the Rams have a female owner. And on Sun., Jan. 30, for the first time ever, a woman accepted the Super Bowl trophy for her team. Could this be the wave of the future?

Ten years ago, another woman was hoisting a championship trophy above her head—the only other female majority owner in professional sports history to do so. This woman was Marge Schott, the dog-loving car dealer who bought a controlling share of the Cincinnati Reds in 1984. Schott always did things her own way. She and her dog Schottzie roamed Riverfront Stadium, and Schott would introduce the dog to the most famous opposing players. Mark McGwire courteously said hello to the pampered St. Bernard. Albert Belle turned away, saying "The hell with her."

The hell with her indeed. She showed shockingly scant knowledge of baseball, once calling the New York Mets the Reds' biggest rival for the National League West title. She forbade her players to wear earrings, saying, "only fruits wear earrings." She defended Hitler and insisted that her swastika armband was not meant to offend anyone. She was a disgrace to the game. Under extreme pressure to resign, she ceased involvement with her team's day-to-day operations in 1996. In April 1999, she sold her shares in the Reds.

The sale made Frontiere the lone female principal owner in the nation. That is, unless you count Christina Pagniacci, the "hardass" owner portrayed by Cameron Diaz in Oliver Stone's football film Any Given Sunday. Young, tough, and drop-dead gorgeous, her relentless pressure on her coach drives the fictional Miami Sharks to playoff success. The movie's website describes Pagniacci as a woman "who will do anything to win in order to make money. She knows a losing team makes a losing investment."

However, the fictional Pagniacci isn't much better than Schott. Like the movie trailer says, she'll subvert any principle to win. And she doesn't win for the glory or the sentiment—she wins for the cash. She'll trade away the aging quarterback in favor of the popular new star. She'll move the team to the city that turns in the highest bid. She'll talk her way onto any committee. She may cry about it, but at heart she has fewer scruples than the most cutthroat male owner in the business. Stone may have visualized Pagniacci as the future of women in sports management, but I sure hope no one else turns out like she did.

Besides the incompetent Schott and the despicable Pagniacci, Frontiere is the closest women have come to installing one of their own in the highest ranks of professional sports. After her Rams clinched the National Football Conference West title in the pouring rain, she offered her coat to her drenched quarterback Kurt Warner. "She didn't want me to catch cold," Warner later told reporters. "It was funny to see an owner do that. But sweet, too."

Warner, the quarterback who got his start bagging groceries, felt a connection with Frontiere, who got her start singing in bars. She's come a long way since then. Yes, in a Pagniacci-like move, Frontiere did move her team to St. Louis when it promised her a brand new stadium. But St. Louis was where she had grown up, and where she wanted to return. No accusations of money-grubbing were going to stop her.

She takes the hits gracefully. "I guess I'm an easy target," Frontiere told the New York Daily News earlier this week. "I can live with that. We live in a society where men still feel threatened when a woman steps into their world. I keep waiting for it to change, but I don't know if it ever will."

Until the Schotts and the Pagniaccis of the world disappear, things won't change. Women shouldn't have to stoop to the current standards of sports management. As Frontiere proved on Sunday, an owner who pauses to lend her star player a coat in the rain isn't any less likely to win it all.

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