Could A-Rod and J-Lo Save the Mets?
The sports world continues to remain dormant as we head into late April. There is increasing hope that we may start seeing pro sports start to come back to life in the coming months. NASCAR is slated to return next month while the PGA Tour is projected to return in June. Other sports, like the NBA and NHL, have expressed hope to return sometime this summer. The NFL Draft kicks off Thursday and runs through Saturday, bringing pro football back to the forefront. One thing that has been relatively quiet so far this season is Major League Baseball. There are multiple options being considered to get their season underway but there are other off the field stories that are keeping baseball in the news cycles.
Reports this week say that Alex Rodriguez, along with his wife, the multi-faceted Jennifer Lopez, are contemplating putting together an offer to purchase the New York Mets. Rodriguez played in the majors from 1994 to 2016 with the Mariners, Rangers and Yankees before retiring fourth on the all-time home run list with 696. Lopez has been a triple threat, having success as a musical artist as well as solid turns in television and the silver screen in a career that has spanned three decades.
The saga surrounding the Mets has been ongoing for several years, ever since the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme incident. When Madoff pled guilty in 2009, Mets ownership, led by Fred Wilpon, took a massive financial hit. The organization took a $25 million loan in 2010 from Major League Baseball to stabilize their numbers and get back on track. That didn’t last long as they borrowed $40 million from Bank of America in November 2011. Wilpon was sued by Irving H. Picard, the trustee of the Madoff trust: that case was eventually settled for $162 million in 2012.
The Mets have looked to sell a stake in their franchise on several different occasions in recent years only to have something go awry. In 2011, the plan was to sell a minority share in the franchise to David Einhorn for $200 million, only to call off negotiations later in the year. Last year, the Wilpons were in negotiations with Steve Cohen, who has owned an eight percent stake in the team since 2012. In that deal, he would obtain an 80 percent stake in the club in a deal that saw the team valued at $2.6 billion. That deal would have definitely alleviated the Wilpons’ financial issues while helping the team have a stable ownership group. In the deal, the Wilpons would have been in control of the organization for another five years. That deal fell apart in February, leaving them again looking for someone to take over at least part of the financial burden.
Enter Rodriguez and Lopez, who retained J.P. Morgan to help in their efforts to raise the cash necessary to put forth an offer to potentially purchase the troubled franchise. In his career, Rodriguez earned an estimated $448 million and is projected to have a net worth somewhere between $350 and 400 million. J-Lo is estimated to be around $400 million when it comes to net worth, putting them in the $700 to $800 million range themselves. It’s going to be interesting to see if the duo is serious about trying to purchase the team or if this is merely a smokescreen to try and get the organization some press.
With the economy of the United States, and the world in general, in the tank thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, it could be tough sledding when it comes to finding investors willing to pony up money to invest in the organization. Another major roadblock that has doomed previous attempts to sell the team have centered around the Wilpons’ demand to stay in charge of the organization for several years after the completion of the deal. That proved to be the undoing in both previous deals that we mentioned.
Could A-Rod and J-Lo become the owners of the franchise in some form or fashion? Sure, it’s possible. Of course, it’s also possible that the organization continues to wobble, eventually spinning off its axis and hurtling into the sun. With the economy the way it is right now and the enigmatic Wilpons involved, any transaction involving the Mets is going to be a three-ring circus. It’s not something that seems a good fit for the power couple and will ultimately leave the Big Apple still looking for someone, anyone, to take over the organization.
