Malcolm Glazer dead, Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner was 85

TAMPA, Fla. -- Malcolm Glazer, the self-made billionaire who owned English Premier League club Manchester United and the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has died. He was 85.

The Bucs said Glazer died Wednesday.

The reclusive Palm Beach businessman had been in failing health since April 2006 when a pair of strokes left him with impaired speech and limited mobility in his right arm and leg.

Glazer raised his profile in 2005 with a $1.47 billion takeover of Manchester United that was bitterly opposed by fans of one of the world's richest football clubs. Before that, his unobtrusive management style helped transform the Bucs from a laughingstock into a model franchise that in 2003 won the Super Bowl 48-21 over the Oakland Raiders.

The thoughts of everyone at Manchester United are with the family tonight," Manchester United said in a statement

Born Aug. 25, 1928, in Rochester, New York, the son of a watch-parts salesman, Glazer began working for the family business when he was 8 and took over the operation as a teenager when his father died in 1943.

As president and CEO of First Allied Corp., the holding company for the family business interests, he invested in mobile-home parks, restaurants, food service equipment, marine protein, television stations, real estate, natural gas and oil production and other ventures. In March 2010, Forbes ranked him as tied for the world's 400th richest person, estimating his net worth at $2.4 billion. The magazine's separate ranking of Americans put him and his family at 139th in fall 2008.

He purchased the Bucs for a then-NFL record $192 million in 1995, taking over one of the worst-run and least successful franchises in professional sports. And while Glazer once said he probably overpaid by $50 million, the value of the team has more than quadrupled since he assumed control.

In an era when many owners of professional teams attract nearly as much attention as the athletes, Glazer was content to allow three of his sons handle daily operation of the Bucs and rarely granted interviews or visited the team's offices and training facility.

But he was a fixture at games before his health became an issue, and he spent generously to acquire players and provide coaches and front office personnel with the resources to do their jobs. To fans accustomed to the frugal ways of original Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse, Glazer was a savior.

"With our major investment here, we didn't come in here to have a loser," Glazer said after acquiring the Bucs.

In one of its boldest moves as NFL owners, the Glazer family fired Tony Dungy as coach after the 2001 season and paid a hefty price -- four draft picks and $8 million cash -- to the Raiders for the opportunity to sign Jon Gruden to a contract.

The move paid off right away. Gruden led the Bucs to their first NFL title the following season, and Glazer joined in the celebration in the locker room.

"He came from heaven and he brought us to heaven," Glazer said. "We were waiting for the right man and the right man came -- Jon Gruden."

The family fired Gruden and general manager Bruce Allen after the 2008 season, when the team completed one of the biggest collapses in NFL history, losing four straight games following a 9-3 start to miss the playoffs. The slide continued in 2009 under new coach Raheem Morris as the Bucs went 3-13, their worst record since 1991.

The family didn't get a warm reception in the United Kingdom, where United fans protested and burned Glazer's likeness in effigy because they feared the American was acquiring the storied British football club franchise purely for financial gain.

At the time, Mark Longden of the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association, said his group was "calling on all supporters to wear black. If they can get hold of black flags, they should wave them because it represents what is happening to the club."

But the club had success on the pitch, winning the League Cup in 2006, 2009 and 2010, the English Premier League from 2007-09, 2011 and 2013 and European Cup and Club World Cup titles in 2008.

But the team has been saddled with debt.

Since 2005, more than $1.1 billion has been spent servicing the club's debt, which is currently around $600 million. Despite its worst league finish in 24 years, United has been generating record revenue, each quarter, with turnover set to exceed $700 million in the 2013-14 financial year.

Before he bought the Buccaneers, Glazer made failed bids to land an NFL expansion franchise for Baltimore and purchase the New England Patriots, San Diego Padres and Pittsburgh Pirates. He also tried to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers from Rupert Murdoch before turning his attention to Manchester United.

An intensely private man who cherished maintaining a low profile and spending much of his free time with family, Glazer also bickered with four older sisters over his mother's estate -- a legal battle that lasted more than a decade.

As Bucs owner, he was one of the driving forces behind construction of a state-of-the-art stadium built mostly with taxpayer money and also sank millions of his own into a new training facility and team headquarters that opened in August 2006.