Josh Harris and David Blitzer are “in the early stages” of compiling a bid for the Mets, Scott Soshnick of Variety reports. They join a still-amorphous A-Rod/J.Lo bidding group among known pursuers of the club.
There’s little question that Harris and Blitzer have ample experience in purchasing and running major sports franchises. The former is principal owner of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and NHL’s New Jersey Devils. The latter also has ownership stakes in those franchises. Both are shareholders in the Premier League side Crystal Palace F.C. There’s baseball experience, too: Blitzer co-owns the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate (the Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders), an interest he’d likely have to divest to swing this deal.
The pair of potential Mets owners surely aren’t looking only for a fun place to park their capital. Both acquired their bankroll through their work at famed private equity shops (Apollo Global Management and Blackstone, respectively). And they’ve made out like bandits through their other sports-related investments.
New bidders generally represent good news for the current ownership group, led by Fred and Jeff Wilpon. Then again, it seems notable that this particular slate of candidates is only just emerging. Harris and Blitzer may well smell an opportunity.
It remains hard to imagine that the Wilpons will be able to wrangle the $2B asking price they’ve reportedly placed on the franchise — unless, perhaps, they waver on their desire to hang on to the SNY network. No doubt profit-minded investors will want the television revenue opportunity to be included in the package.
Trust the process NY
haha that’s great
Please please anyone but the Wilpons
Trust any process that’s not tied to a Wilpon.
Or Jeffrey Loria.
“Anyone?”-Robert Nutting
His bid would only be lifetime passes to Seven Springs to Fred & Jeff. Other guests of theirs would get a generous 10% off the alpine slide.
A-Rod and JLo’s relationship will eventually implode. If I am a Mets fan I hope they do not win the bid. There has been enough ownership drama inside this organization.
I hope you’re wrong. I mean, if those crazy kids can’t make it, what chance do the rest of us have?
Agreed. Too many potential long-term pitfalls with ARod/JLo. The Harris/Blitzer group, on the surface, would seem to be great for not just the Mets but for baseball. Hard to overlook their track record with running sports teams.
CursedRangers I agree. It is a scenario of “lesser of two evils” at this time.
That and everyone hates arod and everyone hates jlo and arods a cheater. An offense that use to get u banned for life
Who hates jlo?
I liked her in the movie The Cell.
That thought did occur to me seeing as how celebrity marriages can be very combustible. Harris-Blitzer feels like it would be more stable.
Eww please not Philly owners
They may own the Sixers, but they are not Philly owners. They’re a group of great businessmen, but terrible owners. I can’t wait for the day they sell the Sixers for massive profits and get the heck out of here.
plus Harris is a New York guy already i think. buying the Sixers was the aberration if there was one.
Yup he’s a fraud. Can’t stand the guy.
WILPONZI
These poor owners…
If they have to pay the players a fair wage this season, they’ll ONLY break even for the next few months while they wait to sell their teams for ten times what they paid for them or more.
Maybe we can take up a canned food collection or something.
Make sure the caviar is the good stuff please. God forbid they settle for less than gold flaked.
If they buy the Mets, I will divest from the Knicks and become a Sixets fan.
Good deal all around.
The Mets would be better off in stronger hands with newer thinking.
When it’s so crazy expensive to be competitive in baseball it drives away quality ownership. The trade market still hasn’t recovered from when Mlb let jeter the broke joke buy a team then fire sale all their talent bc he could not make payroll. Now they’ll consider selling a team to a known liar and cheater who’s well hated.
The huge salaries are killing baseball!
Many teams have many quality players who will never get a shot to be everyday players due to lack of spots available. And MLB can’t expand their league when they have no ability to attract quality ownership in the first place. It’s a compounding real and serious problem the owners don’t care to address.
Wait wait wait tiny. Jetergot rid of the bad contracts. And brought in decent young cheap talent. That’s not wrong Miami wasn’t going to compete if the had to pay stantons contract And you just a hater.
hindsight is 20/20, but Stanton staying healthy would have really changed this argument. the fact that Stanton was traded for so little (im not counting salery relief for a team with such a low payroll as being worthwhile) is just flat out a loss in capital.
Stanton/yelich/ozuna came off the most productive season for an outfield trio in mlb history. They were just outside of playoff hunt all season. All they needed was a couple inning eating pitchers and they could have competed for East title. Instead they traded all those dudes for absolutely nothing. Yankees gave 1 fringe top 10 organizational prospect, brewers gave the most over rated player in minor league baseball in Brinson and cards gave away none of their top prospects. It was a fire sale bc jeter couldn’t make payroll. There’s no hindsight. Just a bleak future in mlb ownership w jeter the broke joke being a prime example of that.
Would like to have Alcantara back in STL.
Hopefully Harris can trade Horford to the Mets… He’d probably be more successful there…
I’m happy for the Mets because it would be difficult to wind up with worse ownership than the Wilpons. Mets fans have suffered enough and SURELY the baseball gods won’t make it worse by giving them a WORSE ownership. If that were to happen than we should all just come to the logical conclusion; that the Mets are simply the punch line to the Universes favorite joke.
I do have one request to the baseball gods though. That they would make sure the ownership group doesn’t have deeper pockets than the Braves. We already have the Nationals and Phillies willing to invest more than the Braves.
But I thought DeWitt said baseball ownership isn’t profitable? Why would these private equity guys sink billions into an unprofitable investment? I mean, did they suddenly go stupid? Do they hate money now? It just CAN’T be that DeWitt (and MLB owners generally) are full of crap when they cry poverty, and these finance bigwigs know that very well – and want in!
Wouldnt mind this. Wilpon’s gotta go