Who’d have thought it? Certainly not Fred Wilpon. But Frank McCourt is about to be his salvation. For if the Dodgers wind up selling for $2 billion or more, the value of the Mets, a signature franchise in their own right, in the country’s largest media market with their own network and new stadium, despite their present hard times, have to be worth close to $3 billion. “What that means,” said the insider, “is that the Wilpons can now go back to their banks, point to the value of the team, and say: ‘Lend us more money.’” Yes, thanks to Frank McCourt’s multi-million dollar divorce, which set in motion this ironic sequence of events, Wilpon is about to have more collateral than he ever dreamed of.
One person who obviously understands what the record-shattering Dodger sale will mean for the Mets — if only because he’s been one of the driving forces in it — is Steve Cohen, the Connecticut-based billionaire founder of SAC Capital Advisors investment firm. It was revealed last week that Cohen was in place to be one of the limited investors in the Mets, spending $20 million for one of 10 shares being offered for sale by the cash-strapped Wilpons in order to enable them to pay down some $65 million in loans. In doing so, you could say Cohen is hedging his bets. In either case, it’s a win-win for him. If he gets the Dodgers, it’s obviously a huge win, but if he doesn’t, his $20 million investment in the Mets figures to be worth a whole lot more with the re-evaluation of the team’s value in the wake of the final Dodger price tag. ~ Bill Madden, Daily News
Blue Skies
I was blue, just as blue as I could be.
Ev’ry day was a cloudy day for me.
Then good luck came a-knocking at my door.
Skies were gray but they’re not gray anymore.
Blue skies smiling at me.
Nothing but blue skies do I see.
Bluebirds singing a song.
Nothing but bluebirds all day long.
~ Irving Berlin
