Photo: Wall Street Journal
On Friday night, David Farber of CNBC tweeted the words that (almost) every Mets fan was waiting to hear since the bidding process began: “Steve Cohen has entered exclusive negotiations to buy the NY Mets and is expected to reach a deal to purchase the team within days.”
Since the dust has settled, more information has been leaked regarding Cohen’s winning bid. Scott Soshnick of Sportico revealed early this morning that Cohen valued the team at $2.35 billion (Forbes valued the franchise at $2.4 billion).
This is a drop from the $2.6 billion valuation that he offered on the Mets back in December but given the current climate and the original news reports about the bids being weak, it could have been a lot worse for the Mets. At the end of the day though, Cohen got the Mets for $250 million less than he originally planned on and got the Wilpons out of the building five years before than the original deal was supposed to.
Another tidbit from this morning came from Charles Gasparino of Fox Business, who added Cohen has the votes to be approved by the MLB and that process will be in November. Gasparino added on that after he officially owns the team, Cohen will take a crack at buying SNY.
The last piece of housekeeping note is that the family of Bill Shea is interested in a small stake of the franchise, per Scott Soshnick. Bill Shea was originally given a chance to own 25% of the Mets but passed on it. His grandson, Scott, is looking to acquire some stake in the franchise to honor his family’s history.
