Texas businessman, sports teams owner dies at 79
DALLAS (AP) — Tom Hicks, the Texas businessman and philanthropist who owned two Dallas-area professional sports franchises and an English Premier League soccer team, has died. He was 79.
Spokesperson Lisa LeMaster said in statement that Hicks died peacefully Saturday in Dallas surrounded by family.
Hicks owned the NHL’s Dallas Stars from 1995-2011, winning the Stanley Cup in 1999. He also owned baseball’s Texas Rangers from 1998-2010, a period when they won three American West Division titles and made their first World Series appearance just months after the team was sold. In 2007, he acquired a 50% stake in Liverpool.
Hicks co-founded Hicks & Haas in 1984 and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst in 1989, helping reshape private equity and investing strategy.
One of Hicks’ most notable moments with the Rangers came 25 years ago at baseball’s winter meetings in Dallas, when the team signed Alex Rodriguez, then a 25-year-old All-Star shortstop, to a $252 million, 10-year contract in free agency.
A-Rod’s deal at the time was $2 million more than Hicks had paid to buy the entire team only 2 1/2 years earlier. It also then doubled the previous record for a sports contract, the $126 million, six-year agreement in October 1997 between forward Kevin Garnett and the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves.
Rodriguez led the American League in homers in all three of his seasons with the Rangers. He hit 156 homers in that span while the team’s overall record was 216-270.