Despite the recent drama, the New York Mets are still for sale and they might have a bidder in former New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.
According to Thornton McEnery of the New York Post, Alex Rodriguez has emerged as a serious bidder to buy the New York Mets. The former New York Yankees star grew up a Mets fan and he’s finally ready to join the team.
McEnery notes that there are mixed reports on the seriousness of Rodriguez’s bid. Rodriguez and his wife, Jennifer Lopez, don’t have the combined wealth to own a team on their own. Their combined net worth is only $700 million, which is well below the Wilpons asking price of $3 billion.
It’s likely that Rodriguez would need to put together a coalition similar to Derek Jeter‘s strategy to buy the Miami Marlins. The big difference is that a bid to buy the Mets will cost three times as much. MLB and their owners also prefer single buyers to group buyers, making it less likely a bid gets approved.
That said, it’s not likely MLB would deny a bid that sees A-Rod and Jeter owning rival teams in the same division. The stories, tickets, and TV deals it would sell would be worth it.
While A-Rod has emerged as a potential serious bidder, Steve Cohen hasn’t given up hope on his deal. McEnery reports that many in the business and baseball world still believe that Cohen will end up buying the team.
Those people believe that the Wilpons won’t even top $2 billion at auction, let alone their $3 billion asking price. That would force them to go back to Cohen to try and get the $2.6 billion deal done. This time without the five-year control stipulation.
For now, A-Rod is the only serious new bidder on the market. It’ll be interesting to see if he can put together a coalition to buy the franchise in the coming months.
