New York Mets Bringing On Minority Owners

Maher bought one of the minority partnerships that the Mets started to offer in December. Those shares were reportedly $20 million -- and they included a meet-and-greet with Mr. Met, though there were no financial terms released with the Maher deal.

“I was so not a fan of George Steinbrenner that he turned me off to that franchise,” Maher said. “I don’t think he represented what New York should be.“He gives a couple more quotes in the article, but he doesn’t crack wise, which is disappointing. Here are the jokes I totally would have told:

Earlier Monday, the Mets reached a settlement in the Madoff trustee case that will cost them far less, and later in the day there was more good news. New York Daily News:

The owners of the Mets have closed deals to sell 12 shares of the team and have repaid their $25 million loan to Major League Baseball, a $40 million loan to Bank of America and additional club debt, according to sources familiar with the sale.

The New York Mets’ owners and the trustee for Madoff fraud victims have settled for $162 million.

The announcement came Monday morning as jury selection was set to begin in the civil trial that would have determined how much the Mets’ owners would have owed other investors who trusted their money to corrupt financier Bernard Madoff.

The Mets owners will not pay anything for three years.Perhaps the most important note there is “three years” — that could give Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz enough time to get the financially troubled franchise back to solid ground, or perhaps even sell the team. Even better news for the Mets:

Had they gone to trial, they could have owed another $303 million. Lawyers for the Mets have said they planned to call pitcher Sandy Koufax to testify on their behalf. He invested with Madoff, too.So they saved some money and didn’t have to embarrass a Hall of Famer by putting him on the witness stand.

Jed S. Rakoff, a district court judge, not only rejected a bid by the team’s owners to have the remaining claims of a lawsuit filed by the trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s fraud dismissed, but he also decided that the trustee was entitled to collect up to $83 million in fictitious profits from the men. He said the exact amount would be determined in a “subsequent order.“The article goes on to say that if the case were to go to trial, Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz “could” be liable for up to $300 million in damages. This cannot be good news for the already financially-troubled franchise, so let us leave it to FanGraphs’ Eno Sarris to lend some humor:

If it wasn’t for bad luck, etc.

A federal judge’s ruling Monday in Manhattan will determine the fate of the Mets’ owners in their protracted legal fight against the trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff.To recap, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz were included in a lawsuit brought by the trustee of Madoff victims. One of their significant combined assets is the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club, Inc., whose revenues might be used to pay a possible legal settlement of up to $386 million. Or, in legal terms, a three-Zito fine. And on Monday, the news wasn’t good for the Mets.

The judge could have let the Mets off the hook, but instead he’ll leave the decision to a jury. The possibility of being held liable hung over the head of the Mets’ owners all offseason, and it was one of the reasons Wilpon gave for cutting costs.

And we’re proceeding with bringing in partners. We have seven partners … in terms of groups. We have seven whose money is in escrow because they’ve been through major league baseball. We have two that are ready to almost finalize in Major League Baseball, and a couple of others that are in the process. It’s a real process. If you have three, four people in your group, everybody is vetted. They’re all in there. And we hope to be able to close that out shortly.“Good thing they have a “real process”. Because you surely wouldn’t want a phony one. Regarding his team in 2012:

Well, you know, you always want to feel good and optimistic. I think what Terry [Collins] and Sandy [Alderson] have said is that we’re going to surprise a lot of people. I think we have very good players.

The report was immediately disputed. Brian Costa of The Wall Street Journal wrote via Twitter: “Firm commitments, but $ not yet in hand. Mets want to line up three more buyers and close on all 10 sales at once, for total of $200 million, says source with knowledge of process. That said, I’d be surprised if it took much longer. ‘They can see the finish line,’ source said.”

Another source identified one of the investors as billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen. The Mets declined to comment on the status of the sales or Cohen’s involvement. A spokesman for Cohen declined to comment.So the Mets either have the money, or they don’t. The report identified the New York Times and one of Fred Wilpon’s sons, as well as Katz himself, as possible buyers of some of the shares.

The trustee, Irving H. Picard, asserts that Katz and Wilpon took out bank loans just to invest the borrowed money with Madoff, confident that their returns would be better than the interest on the loan.The Times article says that could compare to “vig”, or “vigorish”:

... a gambling term, meaning the money a bookmaker collects on every bet taken, regardless of the outcome — a kind of dependable handling fee.In a deposition of Saul Katz’s son David taken in 2010, this term even confused one of the lawyers asking David Katz questions:

New York Mets general manager Sandy Alderson is on Twitter now. His first tweet was some ol’ fashioned self-deprecating humor:

Getting ready for Spring Training-Driving to FL but haven’t left yet. Big fundraiser tonight for gas money. Also exploring PAC contribution.Get it? The Mets are poor. A fundraiser is funny to think about -- a black-tie affair where everyone has mustard stains on their cummerbunds. But the situation isn’t that funny. Travel back in time to February, 2008. The Mets had just traded for Johan Santana. They signed him to the six-year, $137.5 million contract that the Twins couldn’t. He’d be the ace; Carloses Delgado and Beltran would be the pricey bats. Optimism was high. So was Grant Roberts*. The Mets were a powerhouse of spending.

It used to be that the Mets were one of the financial powerhouses in baseball. When the Twins didn’t think they could afford Johan Santana, the Mets relieved them of that burden. When the Marlins didn’t think they could keep Carlos Delgado, the Mets were there. Both the Marlins and Twins should have larger team payrolls than the Mets in 2012.

In an effort to dig up out of the mess they’re in, the Mets decided to sell minority shares, complete with a chance to meet Mr. Met in person! I wonder if he’s like the tabloids say he is.

Now, SB Nation’s Mets blog Amazin’ Avenue has an in-depth look at the team’s finances; it’s all worth reading, but the summary is pretty bleak:

The upcoming season is likely to be a tough one for the Mets from a financial standpoint, even if they can manage to put a competitive team on the field.

In an effort to infuse cash into the team, a minority interest was supposed to be sold to hedge-fund manager David Einhorn.

Thursday, we learn that the deal with Einhorn has fallen through:

The sale is being done primarily to bring the team an infusion of cash and does not include any interest in SNY, the regional sports TV network in New York started by and owned by Wilpon.

Wilpon has been in the news recently not only for losing much of his personal fortune in the Bernie Madoff scandal, but for comments he made about Mets players in an article by Jeffrey Toobin in this week’s New Yorker magazine. He is the longest-running current owner in MLB; Wilpon and his partner Saul Katz, along with some cash from the Doubleday publishing family, purchased the Mets in 1980.