Even in Super Bowl-winning Tampa, the Glazers are far from loved

The United owners are not as reviled in Florida as they are in Manchester. But US fans rarely erupt into mass protest – especially if the team is successful

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 front man, 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 just 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 out of bounds.

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 Bucs lost the 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 Tom 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.

“I wouldn’t say the Glazers are beloved or hated around there,” John Romano, a sports columnist for the Tampa Bay Times, told the Guardian this week. “I think most people are indifferent toward them because, even 25 years later, the Glazers are still a mystery. And that’s a shame because they took a franchise that was a complete joke and brought two Super Bowl titles to Tampa Bay.”

Supporters of Manchester United, who the Glazers bought in 2005 and immediately saddled with huge debts, don’t appear to feel indifferent about the Glazers, judging by the protests over the weekend that led to the postponement of their game against Liverpool. But United fans have never been thrilled about the Glazers’ ownership for several reasons: the Glazers are Americans (or, perhaps more accurate, not British) who loaded the club with debt and, just as important, have overseen United’s relatively barren Premier League run in recent years from an ocean away.