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Originally Posted by jbergey22
Call me puzzled but very little of this makes much sense to me. Why did the Marlins ever think they could afford that outrageous contract in the 1st place? Why did the new owners negotiate a deal in which the balance sheet was upside down and forced them into dealing assets or risk defaulting on payments so soon?
I mean Forbes values the Marlins at 940 million and they sold for 1.2 billion. In all probability the franchise will be worth 10 times that in 20 years but this franchise is being set back 5-10 years with all of these dealings. Will new ownership even want to deal with this headache for 5 more years?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbergey22
Why did the Marlins ever think they could afford that outrageous contract in the 1st place?
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Loria never thought he could afford that contract. Loria also knew he would never have to pay out that contract either. He had to sign Stanton to that contract though. The Loria group said for years that the reason they could not spend money on the team was the horrible stadium deal. The stadium was also given as the reason no one would go to the games. The promise was that with a new stadium, the Marlins would increase payroll. The Stanton contract did just that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbergey22
Why did the new owners negotiate a deal in which the balance sheet was upside down and forced them into dealing assets or risk defaulting on payments so soon?
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Good question and one that I would love to hear a non-nefarious answer to.
One of the local sports guys did a breakdown on what Loria put in and what he got out of owning the Marlins. Here is a quick breakdown:
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Loria bought the Marlins for $158 million – a deal that cost him zero out of pocket.Loria got an interest-free loan of $38 million from Major League Baseball. That was after the league bought his Expos for $120 million.
The Marlins that Loria inherited won a World Series. However, he broke up the team, saying he would lose money unless he got a new stadium.
Finally in 2012, he got a new ballpark. Local governments paid for most of it with bonds that resemble a fat mortgage – $2.4 billion covered by taxpayers over 40 years.
The Marlins promise to kick in $125 million, a sum that was more than covered by revenue sharing payments from richer big league teams.
Loria then spent big to get players, but did quick about face and again gutted payroll. When it was revealed the team was actually turning a profit, Loria became local enemy number one.
So now, along comes Derek Jeter, the retired baseball legend with the golden reputation. He and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have agreed to buy the Marlins for $1.3 billion. The total is a bit more than what the team may be worth.They will take on a $112 million payroll that will leap because of back-loaded player contracts.
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Now you would think that after this, MLB would make sure that whoever bought the team actually had the funding to back the team and had a plan to put competent people in charge of operation. The new Marlins owners had to take out a loan in order to meet the purchase price. Derek Jeter is in his first six weeks running the baseball and business operations along with Mike Hill who was a part of the last administration.