Sixers managing partners’ offer for Mets suggests team might be available for cheap
Sixers managing partner Josh Harris and co-managing partner David Blitzer have been seriously looking at purchasing the New York Mets, and it seems an offer is on the table.
Harris and Blitzer have reportedly made an offer to the Wilpon family, who are aiming to sell the team by the end of 2020, according the New York Post.
Here’s what that offer looks like, per the Post:
The Post has learned that potential buyers Josh Harris and David Blitzer are offering $1.4 billion for the cash-hemorrhaging baseball club without the team’s revenue-generating TV network SNY.
Considering the Wilpons pulled out of an almost identical deal with hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen that would have made them $2.6 billion in February, the team appears to be on the market at a coronavirus discount.
Harris and Blitzer, who also own the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, were first rumored to be interested in the Mets earlier this month, but are not the team’s only suitors. Among the more intriguing names reportedly interested in the Mets: Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez.
Forbes valued the Mets at roughly $2.4 billion this past April, the sixth-highest valuation among all Major League Baseball teams and a 4% increase from 2019, so that offer from Harris and Blitzer certainly would be a steep discount from (perceived) market value.
The Phillies ranked eighth on Forbes’ valuation list at $2 billion, with the Nationals (10th, $1.9 billion), Braves (12th, $1.8 billion), and Marlins (30th, $980 million) rounding out the NL East.
When Fred Wilpon bought sole ownership of the Mets in 2002, the transaction valued the team at $391 million.
This, of course, would be just the latest sports team acquired by Harris and Blitzer.
The duo purchased the Sixers for roughly $280 million in 2011, and the team is now valued at roughly $2 billion by Forbes. They then purchased the Devils in 2013 for roughly $320 million, and the team is currently valued at $550 million by Forbes.
More recently, the duo purchased a minority stake in the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, a transaction in the neighborhood of $140 million, according to Bloomberg.
Buying sports teams: what an idea.
Harris, the co-founder and senior managing director of Apollo Global Management, has a real-time net worth of $4.9 billion, according to Forbes . He received pushback in March for a plan to institute salary reductions of up to 20 percent for full-time, salaried Sixers employees making at least $50,000, then reversed course and apologized.
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