Mets lost $50 million in 2010

Anyone buying that the team is losing $50 million? I'm doubting it, especially when a team can hide numbers inside various holding companies for parking, concessions and TV revenue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/sports/baseball/25mets.html?hp

I still can't understand how the Pirates can be work only $300 million with all of the cash the team rakes in via revenue sharing. Forbes pegged the Mets' losses at around $6.2 million.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/33/baseball-valuations-11_land.html

 

It's worse than that. Forbes has a good story about baseball's coming debt bomb, led by the Mets and Dodgers:

http://blogs.forbes.com/monteburke/2011/03/23/special-report-inside-baseballs-debt-disaster/

The upshot is that even though MLB has limits on the amount of debt teams can carry, everyone either ignores the rule, or pushes the team debt into other business entities to hide the extent of the problem (that's what happened with Tom Hicks and the Rangers).

 

"Anyone who quotes profits of a baseball club is missing the point. Under generally accepted accounting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss, and I can get every national accounting firm to agree with me.” -- Blue Jays then-President Paul Beeston

 

This is really the way I feel every time a team claims to be losing money.

 

The Mets, Dodgers and Rangers problems were similar, lack of cash on hand. It still doesn't mean they are losing money.

Look at the Dodgers. If McCourt didn't use the team as collateral for loans to fund an opulent lifestyle, I think the Dodgers would be in good shape. That's not an issue of a problem with the sport's revenues, but the owners themselves.

I don't see how MLB allows owners to use the team as collateral for loans that don't go directly into the teams' coffers.

 

And especially since Forbes doesn't see real data, I never give much credence to these Forbes valuations.

I am going to use the sale price of a team as its true valuation.

 

I think Mark Cuban said the other night that he was not likely to pay $800 million for the Mets. I'm not sure if that was for 100 percent ownership.

 

Forbes of course is the PR mouthpiece of the billionaire class.

No "major league" sports franchise in North America loses money.

They all make money and tons of it. It is perfectly safe to say the Mets had a profit in nine figures in 2010.

The "brother-can-you-spare-a-dime" poor-mouth bullshit is simply mass psychological conditioning to the idea of yet more multi-hundred-dollar giveaways to the owners (new stadiums [of course the Mets already got theirs] tax breaks, lease sweeteners, and of course rocketing prices for tickets, concessions, sponsorship, etc etc). And of course so every concerned citizen will realize exactly why it's crucial to the future of our nation that player salaries must be reined in.

 

Speaking from of credibility issues, this from the guy who thinks the MLB owners are going to break the MLBPA any day now.

 

I'll bet the OWNERS of the New York Mets lost money, and have dumped it into their corporate shell as much as possible. Look, these guys are about one-third of a step ahead of the U.S. Attorney's office.
I covered the Sullivan family in the 1980s, and it is more than possible to lose hundreds of millions of dollars if you own a professional sports franchise. If you're creative enough, it's easy.

 

They've had their hearts set on it for 40 years.

In the "Billionaires-Uber-Alles" world we are now living in, if they're ever going to do it, the time is getting close.

In their wildest dreams they'd love to go back to the reserve clause, and in the end they may get it.

 

The Wilpons gave all the Mets money to Bernie Madoff in exchange for a handful of magic beans.