ARod, J-Lo trying to buy the Mets?

[Guest 41Forever]

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-mets-1234585417/ https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-mets-1234585417/



The comparisons to DFJ and the Marlins are not comforting.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

You gotta admit, as a final fuckoff to the Wilpons, it'd be kinda funny.



I guess Piazza would be the wealthiest ex-Met and he doesn't want to buy the Mets. MLB also turned down his dad when he tried to buy the Marlins

[Edgy MD]

It'd be funny ... for about a day.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

As I've said in the past I admire Arod's almost childlike enthusiasm for baseball. He is a baseball fan not just a baseball player. Unfortunately he possesses no common sense either and is the kinda guy who screws up the very things he loves.

[Fman99]

How could they possibly fuck it up as badly as the Wilpons?

[Edgy MD]

A Trumpian man-child who believes his own bullshit, with a desperate need for affection, and beyond that, redemption — plus his lifelong-Yankee-fan, maneating wife. Both are nouveau-riche, publicity hungry, and desperate to stay relevant past their sell-by dates.



I can think of a thousand ways they could fuck things up worse.

[Fman99]

Yabbut, she has a big juicy hiney.

[Edgy MD]

I understand. And you're right in thinking that making billion dollar decisions based on such attributes almost always works out well.



But somehow I still have my doubts. I can't quite put my finger on why.

[Frayed Knot]

And keep in mind that, like Jeter, they'd be just the names in this deal rather than the majority owners. Who else would be part of the group will be a YUGE factor yet still TBD.

The real key for owners is to hire smart people to run the org and trust them to do a good job: owners own; managers manage; players play; lather, rinse, repeat.

The downside to this duo is the impression that they'd be too publicity hungry not to want to meddle and steer the ship themselves: him on the field, her off of it.



I have no doubt ARod will be enthusiastic about this ... whether he'll be any good at it is a whole 'nother question.

[Frayed Knot]

https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-can-get-mets-at-coronavirus-discount/More on the J-Rod front -- Thorton McEnery, NY Post



- J-Rod is assembling an ownership group of four-to five-people that could pay up front for the entire franchise. But insiders also point out that the Wilpon family, which has been trying to sell the team for months, might have to accept a low offer thanks to the financial impact of the pandemic. “He's got a group with some real names,” one source familiar with the J-Rod bid told The Post. “Alex is gonna get this because of COVID. It's gonna fall in his lap.”



- Multiple sources say that the key money player in the arrangement being put together by investment bankers at JPMorgan would appear to be Miami billionaire Jorge Mas, who tried to buy the Miami Marlins in 2017 but lost out to a group fronted by Derek Jeter. Forbes has estimated Mas' net worth at just over $1 billion. “I can see Mas being A-Rod's money guy here,” said one source familiar with the Miami power player. “He and Alex went to the same high school and [both have a connection with the University of Miami]. They're birds of a feather.”



- A motivated seller has a problem right now,” a source close to the Wilpons told The Post. “I think the Wilpons are motivated sellers.” With the season indefinitely postponed by the pandemic, the Mets are pulling in almost no revenue from tickets or in-stadium sales, and MLB has decreed that all franchises must meet their payroll obligations to players. The Wilpons have had cashflow problems for years, creating debts that would turn toxic if this season were even cut in half.



- “The league wants to see someone with liquidity,” one source familiar with the league said. “They want someone with a lot of cash to run the Mets and avoid the second coming of the Wilpons. To be frank, they want Steve Cohen to come back to the table.” Sources close to Cohen declined to comment on his current interest in buying his childhood team, but sources close to the Wilpons made it clear that he is a longshot. “They'd rather sell to someone for less money than sell to Steve Cohen,” one Mets insider said. “There is so much bad blood there.”

[G-Fafif]

The halftime shows are gonna be lit.

[Edgy MD]

Cohen played for the Mets as a child?



I agree that a Cohen return is a more likely scenario that an Alex Rodriguez purchase — not that MLB wouldn't be intrigued by a pair of would-be Latino co-owners.

[Ceetar]

Now is probably the valley for the Wilpons, and maybe peak time for it to "drop in A-Rod's lap" if that's a thing that can happen. It seems fairly unlikely that 2021 is going to be canceled, at worst it'd be empty stadium stuff (or really who knows, we all die, etc). Once the uncertainty is settled, franchises are probably back to increasing value faster than you can count it.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Forbes has estimated Mas' net worth at just over $1 billion.

Chump change! (Only in this particular context, of course.) I want someone with much deeper pockets than that.



I read recently how Jeff Bezos' wife got $38 billion in her divorce settlement. My first thought was that if I came into that much, I'd make the Wilpons an offer they can't refuse and put aside enough money to keep the team well-funded for decades. And then I'd figure out what kinds of philanthropic things to do with the rest of the money.



(Maybe we can reach out to Mrs. Bezos? Who wants to take the lead on this?)

[metsmarathon]

honestly, if arod puts his name on this thing, do you really think he'd be okay with floundering? image and perception seem to be important to the man.



does that mean he'll be good at running a team? no. but it should mean that he wouldn't be content with middling results that only succeed in balancing the (pretend) budget. at least that's the hope.



i feel like, even if they failed as owners, they'd at least be intersting about it, as opposed to boring and cheap and boringly cheaply incompetent.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Heyman says Mas was approached by Arod but declined to get in on it.

[Frayed Knot]

=metsmarathon post_id=35595 time=1587499390 user_id=83]
honestly, if arod puts his name on this thing, do you really think he'd be okay with floundering? image and perception seem to be important to the man.

[LWFS]

Isn't having an owner who's overly-concerned with public image (but, simultaneously, frightfully inept at the management thereof) kind of a familiar problem for us?

[Guest 41Forever]

I don't wanna see Mt. Met turned into a centaur.



https://chumley.barstoolsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/09/Screen-Shot-2019-04-09-at-3.20.49-PM-1024x924.png>

[Edgy MD]

=metsmarathon post_id=35595 time=1587499390 user_id=83]
honestly, if arod puts his name on this thing, do you really think he'd be okay with floundering? image and perception seem to be important to the man.

[metsmarathon]

maybe it would just be a delicious burn t all to the ground type of thing. where's my make the mets great again hat?

[Frayed Knot]

The Post's Ken Davidoff https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/a-warning-for-alex-rodriguez-in-his-mets-ownership-dream/gives a cautionary tale for the potential J-Rod ownership. In short pretty much what I said: Own, don't run.

As evidence he cites Jeter, Derek as a case where excellence on the field hasn't (so far anyway) translated to the front office and also Johnson, Magic as a guy who, by his own admission, missed

his celebrity life and various outside interests too much to spend the necessary time in the office and wound up walking out on running the team for which he was a legend within two years.

[Centerfield]

I'm still Team Cohen.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Me too.

[Vic Sage]

i'm about the Wilpons as i am about Trump. I'd vote for a frog rather than the current moron-in-chief, and that's true for both the country and the Mets.

And as Fman said... that hiney!

And ARod will be able to get our hitters... um... beefed up!



JROD for PREZ!

[Lefty Specialist]

Celebrity aside, the deal that needs to be made here is for the Mets AND SNY, not just the Mets. That's how you really make money off this franchise once you buy it. J-Rod don't have those kinds of deep pockets. Cohen does. And from what I can tell he has a big hiney too, along with $13 billion or so.

[Fman99]

Edgy MD wrote: I understand. And you're right in thinking that making billion dollar decisions based on such attributes almost always works out well. But somehow I still have my doubts. I can't quite put my finger on why.

So what you're saying is, you can't put your finger on the hiney. Sad for you.

[Edgy MD]

Lefty Specialist wrote: Celebrity aside, the deal that needs to be made here is for the Mets AND SNY, not just the Mets. That's how you really make money off this franchise once you buy it. J-Rod don't have those kinds of deep pockets. Cohen does. And from what I can tell he has a big hiney too, along with $13 billion or so.

Yes, but there's the backdoor way. Put together a team of famous dudes that the league would be happy to associate with. They tap into their personal wealth a bit, but largely use financing and hidden partners to pay for the bulk of the team. That was the Kranepool proposal and that was basically the Jeter strategy and why his group had to debut on an austerity budget.

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, Jeter put up almost nothing out of his own pocket and will get paid enough over the first few years to essentially make back the meager amount he did put in.

Same as how GWB wasn't the money man w/the Rangers either - at least not on the way in. On the way out it was a different story.

It's the old 'In Living Color' motto: How to make mo' money without using any of yo' money.



Most celeb bids fail, either because they can't round up enough outside money or because some other group out-monies them to the punch.

Jeter's win was Jeb Bush's loss. And sometimes the group that loses winds up glad they did and verse vica.

[HahnSolo]

I don't wanna see Mt. Met turned into a centaur. https://chumley.barstoolsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/09/Screen-Shot-2019-04-09-at-3.20.49-PM-1024x924.png>

JRod will replace the 42 in the rotunda with this.