Eccentric Billionaire Jason Mathews at it Again, Buys Devils
Two days after purchasing Jets, adds Devils to Portfolio
As it was reported two days ago
in this article Billionaire Jason Mathews paid $959m for the New York Jets, in cash vowing to turn them into New Jersey's team and to field a Super Bowl Champion in the near future.
Today he was at it again, shelling out $201,000,001 to James Vanderbeek for the New Jersey Devils, who had been in financial trouble over the past couple of seasons due to poor attendance, and the strike last season. Mathews released a statement through his public relations firm below:
This has been a great week for me, and a great week for New Jersey. As a life long Devils fan, and a season ticket holder since 1998 I am ecstatic that my dream of owning the team has come true. The Devils are now backed by my team pockets, and we will continue to winning tradition.
Uncle Lou will stay on as team president, and while I'm sure I'll try to give him input, I'm just as sure he won't listen to me. Which is the way I want it. I'm a fan, and he is the President of the team, and has brought us three Stanley Cups. Only now he will have the financial backing this team deserves. We won't let stars like Scott Neidermayer, John Madden, Scott Gomez, Brian Rafalski, Paul Martin, Petr Sykora, Jason Arnott, David Clarkson Zach Parise, and Ilya Kovalchuk walk away without a competitive offer.
Now that New Jersey's money woes have been solved the team can focus on the task at hand, and that is replacing Ilya Kovalchuk, who the Devils went 1-10-1 without last season. Can Michael Ryder, Ryan Clowe, and Jaromir Jagr make up for his scoring? No. But this team is deeper with them, and if they can find a couple more pieces they could be extremely competitive this year with Broduer and Cory Schnieder in goal.