GLAZING HIS OWN TRAIL BUYING DODGERS WOULD BE LATEST BOLD MOVE.

Byline: Matt McHale Staff Writer

Malcolm Glazer flies coach and buys off the rack.

He didn't mind when NFL insiders called him a lightweight for walking away from deals to buy the New York Jets and the New England Patriots in the early 1990s.

He dismissed the snickers when he paid a then-record $192 million in 1995 to purchase the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, at the time perhaps the worst franchise in professional sports.

And 18 months ago, he weathered the laughter for six weeks when he did not hire a new Bucs coach to replace the fired Tony Dungy.

``His success is understanding real value,'' said Dean Bonham, a Denver-based ownership consultant who worked on projects with Glazer a decade ago. ``He's always had a long-range plan and knows it is more important to be right than popular.''

Today, the only thing bothering Glazer, 74, is that he can't walk down the street without drawing a crowd. His Bucs are Super Bowl champions and worth $600 million.

And with Glazer on the verge of purchasing the Dodgers, as first reported by the Daily News last week, no one is laughing anymore.

He also pressed the city of Tampa, Fla., to build a new $200 million stadium and got one. His coach, Jon Gruden, is considered a genius, a steal for the four high draft choices and $8 million it cost Glazer to get him from Oakland.

``They're the perfect owners,'' Bucs general manager Rich McKay said during Super Bowl week. ``They never dabble in personnel except where a budget decision of some kind is involved. They let Jon and I handle the football operations.''

For the Dodgers, who have lost a reported $80 million the past two years and have operated in a state of constant turmoil since Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought the club five years ago, that will be welcome news.

The Dodgers have not won a postseason game since 1988. Their bloated $120 million payroll has failed to restore the club's glorious past, and the farm system has few prospects.

They traded top player Mike Piazza and signed Kevin Brown to a seven-year, $105 million contract, $45 million more than the next-highest bidder. They brought in movie executive Bob Daly as day-to-day chairman, but the club has gone through four managers and five general managers during Murdoch's reign.

Meanwhile, 41-year-old Dodger Stadium is growing old and unprofitable next to the more than dozen new stadiums in baseball.

In a way, it sounds a lot like the Bucs just a few years ago.

Glazer brings more than his sandy-red beard and wire-rimmed glasses to the table. His personal wealth is valued at $750 million. He runs First Allied Corp., a conglomerate of businesses with an estimated worth of $1.5 billion.

He and sons Bryan, 37, Joel, 35, and Edward, 33, run the Bucs and the Glazer Family Foundation among their interests. Glazer lives in Palm Beach, Fla., and has a house in Beverly Hills. Edward lives in Los Angeles and could emerge as overseer of the Dodgers operation, which also includes 315 acres in Chavez Ravine.

Malcolm Glazer's ties to football also have sparked speculation he one day will sell the Bucs, whose value might never be higher, and use the money to put a football team in Los Angeles for the first time since the Rams and Raiders left in 1995.

The Dodgers deal, expected to be worth $350 million to $400 million, could be completed within a month and approved at the major-league owners meeting in August.

The NFL has waived rules prohibiting joint ownership of professional franchises, as long as the club revenues and management are separate. But insiders say the cost of operating a baseball team and a football team is about $1 billion, even a little rich for Glazer's blood. For now.

Glazer is a member of the NFL's powerful finance committee, but moving the Bucs to Los Angeles is unlikely. He has a 25-year lease at the new stadium in Tampa.

``He is looking at L.A. as beachfront property,'' one NFL owner said.

The Glazers are a reserved family who have not spoken publicly since news of their Dodgers interest broke in early April.

They originally hail from Rochester, N.Y., where Malcolm Glazer took over the family watch-repair business at age 15 when his father died. In a rare interview, he told New York's Village Voice he shops at J.C. Penney.

``I think I've seen him one time,'' former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo and Tampa resident told USA Today. ``It's not just him. The boys keep to themselves, too.''

But those close to the situation say the family, unlike Murdoch, will be visible. They are not meddlers but will impact the big decisions. A new Dodger Stadium is expected within a few years.

During Tampa Bay's search for a new coach, McKay, son of former USC football coach John McKay, nearly quit to take a GM job with Atlanta because he was left out of the loop in Gruden's hiring. He stayed and everyone got a ring.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign of Glazer's pending purchase is that he did not balk when Murdoch refused to part with his lucrative Fox Sports Net 2 cable station, which carries Dodgers games.

Television is the vehicle for most revenue in professional sports. Dave Checketts, former president of the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden, made an offer to News Corp. for $600 million and was rejected because he wanted the television rights.

Of the four suitors for the Dodgers, Glazer and L.A. real estate developer Allan Casden did not seek the television rights.

The Glazers see the payoff in getting into the second-largest market in the country and owning a club second to the New York Yankees in terms of worldwide appeal. The options are extensive.

And with private ownership, Glazer is not bound to the whims of the stock market.

In the 1990s, media giants Fox, Disney and Time Warner all got into the baseball business. When the market sagged three years ago, sports teams with high overhead and low immediate returns made those companies a bad buy for investors.

On Thursday, baseball owners approved the sale of the World Series champion Angels from Disney to Arizona businessman Arturo Moreno.

The Atlanta Braves, owned by the struggling AOL Time Warner, also are on the market. That company's hockey and basketball ventures, the Atlanta Thrashers and Hawks, recently were sold to Dallas car dealer David McDavid.

Glazer and Murdoch actually do have mutual interests. Last month, Glazer purchased 2.9 percent of English soccer club Manchester United for $14 million. Murdoch is the principal owner of Manchester United, which boasts a worldwide following of nearly 50 million fans and will play in Los Angeles this summer.

But the similarity in business approaches stops there.

Murdoch saw the Dodgers as a dead end in his long list of holdings. Glazer sees only upside.

``Sports teams require day-to-day attention, love and affinity that you typically don't get from a corporate owner,'' said Bonham, former president of the NBA's Denver Nuggets. ``Large conglomerates that are public think in terms of quarterly profits and earnings.

``To be a committed in major-league sports today means trying to break even or make a small profit on a year-to-year basis and then look at the appreciation rate of the franchise in a 10- to 15-year period. That's where your payout is.''

GLAZER FILE

Name: Malcolm Glazer

Born: Aug. 25, 1928, in Rochester, N.Y.

Wife: Linda

Children: Avram, Kevin, Bryan, Joel, Ed, Darcie

The skinny: Owner, Tampa Bay Buccaneers; CEO, First Allied Corp.; serves on board of directors for several corporations; active in several cancer and Jewish charities.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) The Buccaneers were considered a risk buy, but Malcolm Glazer won the Super Bowl with them.

Jeff Haynes/Agence France Presse

(2) Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay, left, called Malcolm Glazer, center, and his sons ``perfect owners'' before the Buccaneers' Super Bowl victory.

Steve Nesius/Associated Press

Box:

GLAZER FILE (see text)