Tom Hicks' Dallas Stars might have won the Stanley Cup in 1999, but Hicks didn't garner nationwide fame until a year and half later when, as owner of the Texas Rangers, he awarded shortstop Alex Rodriguez a 10-year, $252 million contract.

Baseball fans feared that ticket prices would rise even higher. Owners feared that A-Rod's outrageous contract would fly in the face of the losses they claimed while negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement less than two years later.

Sticking with the Stars

If Hicks needed any immediate cash, he would have sold the Dallas Stars, which he bought for $82 million in 1996. But after announcing a possible sale in September 2002, Hicks announced in May that he had second thoughts on both an emotional and economic level. "The entire time period, we were in severe economic uncertainly as a country," said Hicks. "I'm entitled to change my mind." The dark cloud hanging over the NHL as a result of new collective bargaining agreement negotiations in September 2004 also could have had something to do with Hicks not getting what he wanted from the sale of the team. -- Darren Rovell

When Hicks bought the Rangers for $250 million in 1998, they suddenly became a "have." In the past five years, their payroll has averaged $90 million a year, among the league's highest.

"We gambled a couple years ago by trying to short-circuit our way to winning, and we signed some veteran players that were beyond our budget," Hicks said.

But now the man who gained notoriety for signing an athlete to the largest contract in sports history is finally ready to downsize. It's not a fire sale, he says. It's a new strategy.

Before this season, Hicks -- who spends his days turning undervalued businesses into premium property as managing partner of investment firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst -- acknowledged that if the Rangers couldn't turn it around, he would have to change his thinking and forsake his intention of looking to win with high-priced veterans.

Instead, he would authorize general manager John Hart to build with cheaper, younger talent like the Oakland A's and, now, the Florida Marlins are doing successfully.

"We have been following our plan in a disciplined manner," Hicks said. "We decided in the offseason that if we didn't turn into a contender, we would look to deal with our veteran contracts and make the transition into focusing more on our great young players."

The Rangers started their transition slowly before the season, letting their free-agent catcher Ivan Rodriguez go to the Marlins. Last month, Carl Everett was shipped to the White Sox and Doug Glanville went to the Cubs. Juan Gonzalez and Rafael Palmeiro, both of whom have no-trade clauses and will be free agents next season, still might not finish the year in a Rangers uniform. Next year's pocket schedule could feature the new-look poster boys -- Hank Blalock, Mark Teixeira and Michael Young.

A payroll that started the season just north of $105 million could be down in the $70 million to $75 million range next year, a drop that could be larger than the $30 million in cuts Hart's former team, the Cleveland Indians, made from this past offseason.

Somewhere, other owners who doubted Hicks ability to make a buck after the A-Rod signing are finding delight in Hicks' new rebuilding plan.

Although Alex Rodriguez was quoted last week saying he would be willing to accept a trade, since he "would not want to handicap (Hicks) from winning," Hicks insists he has every intention of keeping Rodriguez until his contract is completed and that Rodriguez -- at least at this point -- has no intention of wishing to change jerseys.

	Tom Hicks has had little to smile about concerning the Rangers' performance.

"Alex has no interest whatsoever in exploring a trade," Hicks said. "He is a human being, and he was frustrated with the team's performance. But he's only 28, and in that sense he is part of our youth movement."

Hicks' original plan of spending and spending to reach the pinnacle of achievement came from experience. It worked for his Stars. He paid up to land free agents such as Brett Hull and Ed Belfour, and the team won the Stanley Cup in his third full year of ownership.

The Stars' sellout streak is alive and well at 237 straight games, even after moving into American Airlines Center, with an 18,532-seat capacity, beginning in the 2001-02 season.

But the Rangers are a different story. Thanks to a lack of good arms, the team has suffered through a record of 264-334 (.441 winning percentage) since winning the AL West in 1999. Attendance has plummeted along with the on-the-field failure. The team is averaging about 2,400 fans per game less than last year and approximately 7,900 less fans per game than the 2001 season.

Even with attendance at 34,950 fans per game, Hicks claimed a loss of $31 million in 2001 and losses reportedly reached about $45 million in 2002. Double-digit financial losses are obviously on par for this season as well.

Under the "youth movement" plan, Hicks said the club is projecting to break even next year and make money in 2005.

"The NFL has a system where virtually every team is profitable," Hicks said. "Baseball went through the disaster where the compensation bubble mirrored the growth of the economy and now, like the economy, that compensation bubble has finally burst."

Hicks was, of course, part of the reason why baseball salaries have grown so much in recent years. But he maintains he didn't miscalculate the value of Rodriguez alone. He said he knew that fans would ultimately come to see a good team, not necessarily a good player.

"We knew our biggest challenge was pitching, and I thought we made a step in the right direction by getting the best free agent in Chan Ho Park (in 2001)," Hicks said. "But he has yet to work out."

Due to injuries, Park is 10-11 in only 175 innings of work over the past two seasons.

Recent reports of money troubles relating to Hicks have been exaggerated, he said. The drastic reduction in payroll is not directly due to Southwest Sports Group's recent technical default on a $135 million loan.

	“	Any inference that we are not doing well is not true. ”
		— Tom Hicks, about his investment firm

The Hicks-owned Southwest Sports Group -- which includes the Dallas Stars, the Texas Rangers, half-ownership of the American Airlines Center and the Frisco RoughRiders minor-league baseball team and various other sports properties -- failed to meet some performance criteria as prescribed by the lenders, but the company did not default on any payments it needed to make, Hicks emphasized.

"It simply involved some refinancing, and it was a non-event," Hicks said.

Although Hicks says his day job and hobby are not financially connected, aside from his stake in both, he contends that business at Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst is healthy.

"Any inference that we are not doing well is not true," said Hicks, whose company most recently profited from the IPO of Yell, which is connected to Great Britain's publisher of Yellow Pages. "Like every other firm I know of, we suffered through the telecom bust. But over the last three years, we've returned $3.5 billion back to our investors."

Despite his lack of success while opening his checkbook for the Rangers, Hicks is well respected by those who work with him.

Given his day job, he has honed his skills in "the ability to visualize more than just the opportunity at hand," said Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner who owns the other half of the American Airlines Center.

As a turnaround artist, Hicks knows more than any other owner that visionaries are only visionaries when their vision becomes reality.

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at darren.rovell@espn3.com.