11:20pm: Mas “seems like a surefire favorite,” writes Heyman, though he notes that the finalization of a deal may yet take as many as two weeks. Heyman agrees with the $1.17 billion figure that Ozanian reported yesterday. Mas’ involvement in the Miami community is seen as a big plus by the league, Heyman writes, and he also notes that Jeter’s group consists mostly of investors that are committing money in $10-50MM increments. Mas, on the other hand, has a net worth of more than $2 billion and has a “couple other investors,” Heyman writes, which obviously makes the transaction less complicated.
Jeter was, at one point, offered a spot in Mas’ ownership group, according to Heyman. He preferred to continue his own efforts due to his desire to be the ownership group’s control person.
10:05pm: Manfred said today that three bids are all comparable in terms of price, as Tim Healey of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel writes. With final negotiations playing out, Loria will soon have to make a decision on which bid to accept. Loria refused to offer much of a comment when asked by reporters today, Healey adds. ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick did note that Loria firmly denied that there’s any deal in place.
JULY 11, 10:20am: Perhaps it’s too soon to count out the group led by Romney and Wayne Rothbaum. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald tweets that its members are still expressing confidence in landing the club. Indeed, it has even added another local celebrity to its slate of investors in hopes of boosting the bid (thus making for another odd twist in this particular saga). Per Jackson, Armando Christian Perez — once the Marlins’ DJ and now famous by his stage name, Pitbull — is now a part of the bidding group (along with former Jeter compatriot Jeb Bush, Hall of Fame hurler Tom Glavine, recently fired D-Backs GM Dave Stewart and others).
JULY 10: With all eyes on Marlins Park as it hosts this year’s All-Star Game festivities, the ongoing efforts to find a buyer for the Miami organization appear to be reaching a boiling point. Though a deal obviously wasn’t struck before the mid-summer classic, as had been hoped, commissioner Rob Manfred suggested today that the process will likely come to a conclusion in the near-term.
Notably, per Manfred, that uncertainty does not mean that the league will be looking at any deadline activities. “They don’t need my permission to make player moves,” the commissioner said. While sale considerations could still influence the decisionmaking, then, it’s notable that other organizations won’t need to worry about the league’s position in attempting to structure deals with the Marlins.
Despite the apparent momentum, it’s still uncertain just how the bidding will turn out. Multiple reports disagree, in fact, as to which direction the winds are blowing. Since the information currently occupying the newswire can best be described as deeply conflicting, we’ll run through the latest chatter to get a sense of the state of play.
Kicking things off today was a report from Mike Ozanian of Forbes, in which he said an agreement is in place between current owner Jeffrey Loria and Miami billionaire Jorge Mas. Per Ozanian, the deal will be finalized at a $1.17B price tag — unless “an unusual twist” scuttles things.
Both the current ownership group and the would-be buyer, though, told Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald that no agreement was in place. Such a public stance may not be fully incompatible with that report, but others cast more doubt. Jon Heyman of Fan Rag, for example, hears that Mas is in the lead — but also that he has yet to secure a deal with Loria.
In the face of all that, then, came a New York Post report indicating that Mas likely won’t land the Fish. Instead, per Josh Krosman, Ken Davidoff, and Claire Atkinson, it’s the Derek Jeter-led bidding group (which now also includes Michael Jordan) that seems to be “closing in on a deal” with Loria. The Post pegs the price at $1.2B and suggests the entire affair will be finished by “next week.”
If it’s possible to draw any conclusions at this point, it seems that the bidding is now a two-horse race — with the Tagg Romney-led group now falling largely out of the picture. Beyond that, however, there’s a total lack of certainty even as the organization weighs potential trade scenarios for large portions of its MLB roster.
Let Jeter by this sinking ship before the good names go away in another awful trade.
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Can this just end yesterday? Loria is such an awful owner, he will make everyone suffer even longer for the last penny. Good riddance!
Exactly. Sell the Marlins ASAP to get that chump Loria out of baseball and save the Marlins from being owned by someone who doesn’t give a damn about the team
The story about Loria suing its premium season ticket holders is another example of what type of owner and apparent person he is….the city of Miami deserves better
I haven’t heard about that! What happened?
Basically the season ticket holders were promised exclusive parking and a high-quality buffet before/during the game. The parking was slowly taken away until it was no longer exclusive (or it was used for something else) and the buffet was terrible. The ticket holders weren’t asking for their money back, but were asking that the promises that were made to them be fulfilled. The Marlins basically said “Yeah not gonna happen.” So some of the ticket holders stopped paying and the Marlins sued them for the money and for one person in the suit, the Marlins are trying to take ownership away from a building he/she owns as payment.
How are they even worth that much? Crazy talk!! Let’s hope it gets done and old mate can buzz off out of here
TV market. After the 2020 season, they will be renegotiating a new TV contract and you can bet it’s going to be a big one. Right now it’s the worst in baseball.
The RSN landscape is changing along with the pay tv landscape.
If potential new owners think pay tv distributors are going to back up the brinks truck for a Marlins RSN they need look no further than the struggles of the fledgling Dodgers/Lakers and Houston RSNs that very few providers carry.
Comcast already wrote-off the Houston RSN and dumped it on Root for a song and Spectrum (CHTR/TWC) is still the only distributor that carries Lakers/Dodgers (and that’s only because they own it).
TV distributors are looking to cut their cost of content and distribution, not add to it for content few people will watch or demand.
I’m not sure the Marlins have the worst in baseball. last I checked, that belonged to Atlanta :/
Because there are many billionaires who would like to own professional sports teams, and never many for sale, so people will pay through the roof to own one. It’s simple supply and demand.
MLB teams each own a 1/30th share of MLB Advanced Media.
In ten years, baseball will be a side business to MLB.
MLB advanced media was probably the smartest investment the MLB has ever made
Still the most important news about the Marlins this year.
Loria is a black mark on the game of baseball
This series on the Marlins sale produces cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, pretty much everyone agrees that baseball would be far better off without Loria. On the other, it’s hard to root for anyone to pay a price he’s willing to accept.
I was wondering why there were actually people at Marlins Park, but I guess those were all the prospective buyers.
It’s interesting that Loria thinks he can run the organization so poorly and yet get full price.
I hope this drags on for a while.
This really only becomes news when we have a new owner.
I mean, who woulda thunk that something involving a Loria business deal would turn into a circus? (sarcasm hat on…)
Watch out, ladies at Marlins Park! Pitbull wants to make more babies.
Not sure if the 4 that regularly go are reading this.
That’s the only way this team will have a crowd.
Pitbull, Jeb Bush, Tom Glavine, Dave Stewart — please, please make a reality show out of your boardroom meetings!! “The A-Team” meets south FLA fighting off the villain of a former owner with a weird fascination for gaudy art.
Fascinating stuff, especially the potential of a group involving Derek Jeter and Michael Jordan. Perhaps “MJ” will have more success in Florida than in North Carolina with a professional sports franchise. Baseball was purported to be his first “love” and favored sport, spurred on by the the dream of his late father who had always envisioned his son as a Major League Baseball player.
If the Jeter/Jordan group bid fails to secure the Marlins perhaps ‘MJ” will have a chance to return to Chicago and be a partner in a potential sale of the organization he played minor league ball in. 81-year old White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is likely to sell the White Sox sooner rather than later and let his son continue to run the Bulls. Reinsdorf and Jordan remain friends to this day so selling his baseball team to his favorite basketball player certainly wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility. Maybe Jordan can get some fellow Chicago icons involved in a partnership to buy the White Sox like Oprah Winfrey and President Obama.
Oprah>>>>>>>Obama
Obama (White Sox?)>>>>>>Bush (Rangers)
Both greater than the President we have in office now who isn’t even willing to throw out the first pitch of the season, in addition to a few more pressing matters.
Rangers are better than the Sox
Jordan buying the White Sox would be interesting Aaron
Id much rather see jeter/jordan in charge of a team than the other groups
Mas would be good for the Marlins, and good for baseball. The Nats would no longer be the only NL East team with money, would be my guess.
The Phillies have money. They’re rebuilding now.
£oria should lower the price significantly since they can’t even sell out the all star game. Lots of empty seats.
I see what you did there.
Hurry up and ship Loria on a boat to Cuba
Looks like the local guy will wind up with the Marlins, as it ought to be. Good for him, the team and the city. Any one of the finalists would be better than what Jeffrey Loria has contributed to MLB and the city of Miami.
Could this mean that our long national nightmare is about to come to an end?
The media reports a new leader everyday. That’s by design. Loria is playing all three against each other in public. The one true skill he’s shown is making money off of others while being less than truthful. My concern with the Jeter-led group is operational. A ragtag fleet of investors (granted, a ragtag fleet of millionaires) will be a nightmare to manage, especially as they’re asked to fund a money-losing operation while having no control. Jeter has baseball name value but brings little else. Mas would be the best choice for the Marlins as they attempt to rebuild fan and community confidence in the team.
I think Jorge Mas would be the best choice. I wouldn’t mind the Jeter group, simply because those guys have the knowledge of how to run a sports organization, but i think long term, Mas is our guy. He’s by far, the most valuable of the group, business wise, and more than anything, these team needs higher revenue streams to put out competitive teams on a year to year basis, which is historically, the only way they’ve been able to draw a respectable attendance figure.
But please please please DO NOT sell this team to the Romney, Stewart group. It would be the Loria regime all over again.