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Erin Arvedlund is writing a new book, Too Good to Be True, which details the evil deeds of the disgraced New York hedge-fund manager Bernie Madoff.
According to Arvedlund, Fred Wilpon will be forced to sell the Mets as soon as 2010, due to roughly $700 million in Madoff-related investment losses, explains Jon Friedman in a must-read report for MarketWatch
“It’s a matter of when. It could be as soon as next year,” Arvedlund writes, according Friedman’s report.
However, Friedman quotes a team spokesperson as saying, “The numbers speculated continue to be inaccurate… The team is not for sale in any respect.”
Arvedlund has been investigating Maddoff since 2001, when she wrote a story for the New York Times about Maddoff’s ‘hedge fund.’
If this were only true.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I PRAY THIS COMES TRUE….
Eliminating the two morons that run this organization is exactly what we need.
Finally! Some good news this season!
Best news Ive heard all season. Please please please sell to a Mets fan.
two words. MARK CUBAN!!!!!
Is Cuban a Mets fan?
And the Dallas Mavericks have won how many championships?
Seriously? The Mavericks have been a perennial elite team in the NBA under Cuban’s owndership. More importantly, they are probably the #1 franchise in sports when it comes to fan satisfaction, from the performance of the team to the experience at the arena. He gets it.
I think fans react to his passion and his hand’s on leadership that still (generally) puts the decisions in the hands of people who know the sport. MLB will never allow him into the club as we learned with the Cubs – especialy not in NY. They are too afraid of someone like him questioning the status quo – something the old-boy Wilpons never do.
39 wins and 40 losses in the postseason under his ownership.
KD, you have to be kidding. You’re a smart guy and this is the most ridiculous argument I’ve ever heard.
When Cuban took over the Mavs, they were the WORST organization in the sport. Worse than the Clippers. The fact they’ve played in 79 playoff games in his tenure is remarkable. They were a few terrible calls away from winning it all in 06 and in 07 they had the No. 1 seed in the West. You think the fact the players (who were good enough to win the top seed) didnt get it done in that series is a reflection of the owner?
I read that as “79 postseason games under his ownership.” The Mets have played 74 postseason games in their history.
Blame the record on Dirk Nowitzki and Co., not Cuban. Last I checked He doesn’t play…he just does everythnig he can year in and year out to make the team the best it can be – under a totally different system – and make the game experience for his fans unparalleled in sports.
So let me get this straight, the failure of the Mavs to win more than one division and one conference championship and blow a 2-0 and 13 point lead in game 3 of the NBA Finals is the fault of the players and not Cuban but in the case of the Mets, losing game 7 in the 2006 NLCS and the failures of the last two Septembers is the fault of ownership and not the players on the field. Also, I thought building Citifield was an improvement over the wretchedness that was Shea.
Also, don’t compare the NBA postseason, 16 teams, to MLB’s postseason, 8 teams. Because if MLB was setup like the NBA, the Mets would’ve made the postseason every year from 2004-2008
“the failure of the Mavs to win more than one division and one conference championship and blow a 2-0 and 13 point lead in game 3 of the NBA Finals is the fault of the players and not Cuban but in the case of the Mets, losing game 7 in the 2006 NLCS and the failures of the last two Septembers is the fault of ownership and not the players on the field”
No, the losses in 2006 and 2007 were the players and Omar. The fact that Wilpon lost $700 million and decided to scale back on reinforcements this year and is going to scale back his payroll next year because he lost all that money is why we want someone else to buy in. This has nothing to do with Wilpon’s past record. We are looking at Cuban’s record merely as a comparison to other replacements.
I think comparing a 10-year period for the Mavericks to a 50-year period for the Mets more than accounts for the differences. I’m aware of the differences in playoff structure – I’m also aware the Braves and Yankees found a way to make the playoffs at an NBA-like clip.
Anyway, this isn’t mavericksblog, and I am not even necessarily an advocate for Mark Cuban – there is ALOT I’d fear about him coming in to own this team. But I think its absurd to argue that he has not complately turned around that organization on all levels…and again back to my original point that is not just on the court but off it as well. He gets it.
Could be worse. Could be Daniel Snyder.
Are there really people out there that rather have Jeff Wilpon (broke) own the Mets instead of a guy like Mark Cuban (billionaire)???? Some people are just crazy.
not for a lack of trying. The guy is competitive and passionate, not to mention has the capabilites of making things happen. He hasn’t been able to win it all, but the guy has been to the conference finals multiple times and even tot he finals once. I’m not saying he’s a savior, but the guy just wants to win. He understands that winning brings more business than staying complacent.
He’s also been a leading cause of some of the worst contracts in NBA history and forced fed his GM some players leading to a team stuck with salary cap issue.
He is great for his players, and the fans as you say. Not sure if I would be for him, but the fans who want to see the Mets act like the Yankees would love him. Cuban without a salary cap? Look out.
As the only available option, he looks good though…
Correct — Cuban is an owner who does not operate as well with the cap. He puts all his resources into the locker room and niceties around the team, making fans and players happy. One negative is that he gets too involved game to game — baseball is a lot slower and further from the fan. He wont be giving high fives to players, etc, and probably will be out of sight outside of Opening Day and playoffs.
And as far as lack of success, just look at the records of the Mavs under Cuban. They reached the Conf Finals and Dirk hurt his knee, then went to the Finals in 06. You can’t really knock his success based on lack of rings, they’ve been a real success.
He has won as many championships as the Wilpon’s have since they took sole ownership.
I have heard from someone close enough to the Mets to know that the Wilpons are quietly shopping a stake in the Mets as high as 40%. It is clear they don’t want to sell the team or lose controlling intrest, but they are looking for a lifeline.
Personally, I am somewhat fed up with the Wilpons, but we all have to be careful what we wish for. As owners they are probably in the B- to C+ range….we could go looking for an A and end up with a D.
Exactly. That being said, please sell the team! lol
Good point. I think the thought of Jeff Wilpon taking over the team someday just makes us salivate over the possibility that someone else would take ownership of the Mets.
As annoying as the WIlpons have been, I’d prefer them to someone like Donald Trump. I guess it depends who’s out there and interested.
Be careful what you wish for. You’re liable to end up with someone like Trump, Daniel Snyder or the Dolans.
Hopefully they get that lifeline because the problems seem small in the scope of things. Fred Wilpon has never really been the problem, and while having Jeff handle more things has led to some issues it could always be worse…
If this team found the financial flexibility to clean out the front office, and bring in a couple of big players (or at least add a little payroll) they should be ok at worst.
The only thing slowing them down is probably the fact that they just opened Fred’s Childhood Memory Themepark.
Don’t get Lorenzo’s hopes up like this
hahahah seriously… I’m off from work today so I’ll be all over this story…
Anyway for those of you who rather have Jeff Wilpon a cheap spoiled little brat running a billion dollar franchise (whose now broke by the way) OR Mark Cuban who has more money than God and will spend like the Yankees cause he can… you must be crazy. And I could careless that the Mav’s never won a Championship…they are in the friggin playoffs every season…
Mark Cuban, Donald Trump, Matt Cerrone, etc… I dont care who buys the team as long as we get these natural losers OUT!
MLB will not let Cuban in. They learned their lesson from Steinbrenner. I am not sure if the NBA or MLB has rules where an owner can not own another professional team.
I can’t imagine Cuban is a Cubs and Mavericks fan at the same time. Maybe he is. The interesting thing about his bid was MLB wanted to deny him but the Cubs parent company declared bankruptcy. Bankruptcy laws allow the seller to get the best price possible. I don’t think the Wilpon’s are bankrupt but it begs the question how can MLB tell an owner that you can not sell to someone at a higher price because we don’t like the guy.
Cuban would be great for the Mets. First of all, Citi Field might not even bear that name under him. He may want to put his own company on the stadium. Secondly, it would become a Mets stadium. He is all about customer service and experience AND he is huge on technology with video, internet etc.. He would upgrade a brand new stadium for all customers, not just the club seat members. He cares. Maybe too much. But I would rather have that then see Fred and Jeff only when there is a problem. Could you see him behind home plate screaming at a missed call or ball and strikes. How awesome would that be? And lets face it, he would not accept being number two in NYC. He would do everything possible to be as good if not better then the Yankees. Wouldn’t that be nice.
If it is true the Wilpon’s will sell a big chunk I would love for it to be him that buys it with the 1st option to buy the remaining piece. Cuban is a PR machine unlike the PR nightmare that we have now.
Couple of points.
1, the big money these days is in corporate ownership (soetimes headed by a name/face, but still a consortium of come kind). 1970 era steinbrenners aren’t just sitting around with a couple billion dollars, waiting to buy a team and spend like drunken sailors just to have fun.
Any new owner, especially if they had to take on massive debt, is going to want to make a profit, and now. And a logical way to do that is to cut the payroll (even the Cubs were facing this).
I just don’t see someone coming in and immediately juicing up the payroll to 200mill like some posters dream. More likely they chop 25mill off!
Now, you could just hope for same $$, but a new attitude and FO, and sure, maybe that could happen, but the transition might not be pretty!
2) the numbers in the Madoff scandal are also often bogus. That is, people invested say 1 mill, and he showed on paper huge gains to 4 mill, then boom, nothing. But, what did the investor really lose? 1? 4? something they should have had if invested in a market fund?
3) If the Mets are profitable (and they would have to be for those who dream of keeping or raising the payroll, since they are a big market team with an unlimited revenue stream, as I heard many times!), why would the need or want to sell? Wouldn’t this be supporting them?
Unless they need to raise cash to pay off other debtes, but that has not been reported anywhere.
4) logically, the madoff money must have been with him for a while, and that is not the kind of place a business puts operating capital. more likely it was extra investments (like your retirement or long term savings fund). so even losing it all does not neccessarily mean that they don’t have the capital to run their business (just like they have claimed to still have).
besides, who knows how much other money or assets they have? if they were “worth” 1bill and “lost”700ill, they are still worth 300 mill!
You get corporate ownership like when Turner sold the Braves to AOL-Time Warner and you get an ownership that just views the team as another profit center. Under AOL-Time Warner, the Braves cut payroll
Turner was bought by Time Warner and as Turner owned the Braves, the Braves became owned by Time Warner. I believe they sold off the Braves in 2005/06. But before that, the Braves did pretty good during those years as I recall (well, at least in terms of reaching the postseason).
The funny thing about those 14 years for the Braves is that you can separate it into two distinct eras. You have the 1991-1996 Braves that went to 4 out of 5 WS and won one and you have the 1997-2005 Braves who went to one WS, never won a WS game and more often than not were bounced in the first round. The first part was Turner’s team. The second part was more TW’s team.
hmm. interesting point.
You an add another distinct era to that picture, 1976 to 1990, when Turner bought the team and managed them HANDS ON until the late 80s when he began to realize he knew jack about baseball.
This a really solid post, and I have always tended to agree with what you say about the Madoff money, it being investment capital seperate from the operating capital they run the Mets with, the impact of their new profit streams this year, etc. But $700MM is $700M and you are talking about people whose wealth is still probably mostly paper wealth. You can’t just lose that kind of money period, and selling part of the team can certainly make some of it up.
As far as wanting owners who will come in and jump the payroll to $200MM – I couldn’t want that less. If I wanted to root for that kind of team, I don’t need to look far to find one. I think the investments overall the Wilpons make in the team are at the right level, I think we all just hunger for ownership more in touch with their fans and more in touch with the difference between contending and winning. Owners who will eat a bad contract if it means getting a better player on the field…owners to will suck up paying out a Wagner if it could lead to draft picks to re-stock their system, etc. As I said before the Wilpons aren’t terrible…but its hard to see them putting us over the top.
The thing is, the Wilpons were that kind of owner until this year it seems.
They wouldn’t have dumped Wagner or Livan Hernandez, and I can recall them paying Roger Cedeno to go away a few years back. So clearly they seem to be operating under a different financial outlook, and while the new stadium should be giving them money to throw around instead…
They also let Jorge Sosa walk last year and he was owed $1.5M and Marlon Anderson at the beginning of this season for the same amount (more or less).
It seems only over the past 3-4 months have the Wilpons become more frugal, which could lend some credence to the rumor about selling all or part of the team.
not to mention we are paying Willie Randolph as we speak.
i agree with you that the $700M (which came from Larry King) is an exaggeration. More like the figure is half that – still a nice chunk of change, but not $700M.
But another factor to consider is how much the Wilpons were banking on those 14% returns from Bernie going forward. If they baked those into their 5 year business plan for Sterling Mets, that 14% ain’t there no more. So that may be affecting how they view their long term finances.
Very true. But Wilpon clearly stated that the Madoff scandal had no affect on the current Mets business as well as the future. So, if this penny pinching is the result of Madoff, he flat out lied to the fans. That’s reason enough to want new (but the right) ownership, IMO.
700 million might be a little high but we all can agree he lost A LOT. Probably 300-500 at least. Let me tell you as someone that works on Wall Street, once someone starts losing money in one area they start playing shell games to move capital around to cover losses. Look at Lehman, Bear and Merrill Lynch. Do you honestly believe Wilpon won’t make cuts to cover losses? He gave an open check book to Minaya with little payback. Now he must come back to the pack in a poor economy. This is where good management comes in. Solid investments. Not throwing good money after bad. If the Mets made the playoffs every year, he could justify high ticket prices because the stadium would sell out like our neighbors in the Bronx. That has not happened and people are fed up. The Mets need new leaders and possibly owners to help guide them out of this mess.
A cash infusion from an outside source with another perspective is what the Mets need.
Some of what he lost very well could be some of what he imagined was gained, ie he could have been give a dividend of x $ early on and said put that back into the pile Bernie.
We are all speculating on things we have no idea about just to please our sensibilities and imagine scenarios that make us somewhat happier I suppose.
Nothing really matters other than winning.
I don’t give much a crap about PR other than the Mets should fire Jay Horowitz, I don’t give a crap whether the owners know me, breathe near me or slap my a high five, I don’t give a crap much about anything but winning.
The Wilpons if they are sticking around better plan on investing in the Mets if they want fans to invest in CitiField. And that is going to have to start with Omar Minaya being pushed out, not reassigned, but out. He had his chance he has lost his credibility with little hope of gaining it back.
If the Mets owners need to sell so be it.
39-40 in the playoffs….. if we could only make the playoffs
If MLB added 4 more wild cards to the NL, then maybe the Mets would make the playoffs like the Mavs have.
Look I don’t care if the Wilpons stay or go, but I don’t want to hear any of these faux comparisons to Cuban and the Mavericks especially his team making the playoffs in a league where all breathing teams are invited to the playoffs, and things like winning championships does not matter as much as putting the effort in.
I don’t care what you call the owners name, if the Mets had made the playoffs the last 8 years and never won a championship nobody would be saying 39-40 is okay, at least we make it to the playoffs every year.
That is totally disingenious and a weak comparison.
I think that if the Mets made the playoffs 8 years in a row there would be far less complaining on this site.
I predict Avrelund is wrong. That the Wilpons will be the majority owners of the Mets for at least the next decade or so … and that no significant selling off of even part of the team will take place in the near future. At least by the Wilpons. There are other minority owners of the Mets and they might be selling — but not the Wilpons.
I wonder if Avrelund knows that the Mets did NOT lower this year’s payroll after the Madoff scandal broke (according to Rubin). So, Madoff or not, there was never room in the budget for Manny this season.
The Madoff scandle took place AFTER all of the Mets signings took place, except Oliver Perez. And most of the Mets contracts have been in place for years and the Wilpons have no way of getting out of them because they are guaranteed.
Marketwatch is a valuable resource for financial news and they don’t report things that aren’t true.
Why do you always make excuses for the Wilpons? It seems that you may be friendly with them or something. If that is the case I’d definitely understand..
And what proof do you have that the Wilpons will be able to financially own the team for the next decade??? All we know is that they have lost 300-700 million to Madoff.
Oh and the minority owners didnt lose money to Madoff…the Wilpons did. Why would the minority owners sell if they didnt lose money and their investment, The Mets, is still very profitable???
See my reply below. But to add on to it …
One, the author also does not know the Wilpons’ or Sterling Equities’ financial positions. She is also guessing/speculating.
Two, I believe some of the current minority owners of the Mets are part of Sterling Equities and so might have been part of that loss. My point is that they might be selling to cover their losses.
This only means something if the potential new owners can run a better organization than the Wilpon’s have. Someone like James Dolan would not be better than the Wilpon’s.
And raising payroll is not the issue here. The Mets payroll has increased by $30+ million since 2006 yet the Mets have won fewer games. The issue is ownership not holding their ee’s accountable and them lacking a chain of command in their organization.
That’s all I am looking for from the Wilpon’s but it doesn’t sound like that is something that will ever change. If the new ownership keeps up similar spending but adds a chain of command and holds it’s ee’s accountable then I am all for it. But if it’s someone that will just up the payroll to continue more reckless spending and not holding their ee’s accountable then I would rather just stick with the Wilpons.
LOL, Lorenzo, what is the point of your reply? Your saying the contracts were signed before the Madoff thing broke SUPPORTS my contention that it has had little or no impact on this year’s spending.
Did you not understand my point? If you don’t, you should ask me what I meant instead of going on some sort of rant to nowhere.
And I never questioned the veracity of Marketwatch. Read my post again. What I questioned was Avrelund’s speculation/opinions which are NOT fact and is NOT the same thing as the reporter from Marketwatch.
Is English not your native language? Let me know and I will be easier on you next time.