Whenever a baseball team goes up for sale, you can be sure that an organized movement for a fan-backed purchased will almost always follow suit.
Hey, as the hopeful leaders remind us, it worked for the Green Bay Packers and the fans in Wisconsin that one time!
That one-in-a-thousand situation up in the Dairy State may be paying off, but here's some disheartening news for the enthusiastic and civic-minded Los Angeles Dodgers fans at ownthedodgers.com: A similar plan floated by buythemets.com received the stink-eye from Major League Baseball when the Wilpon family put a minority share of the New York Mets up for sale.
At least that's what the New York Post is reporting:
A group of Big Apple wheelers and dealers from investment bank Tritaurian Capital concocted a plan to buy a minority stake in the MLB team from financially-troubled owner Fred Wilpon partly by selling shares priced at $999 each to thousands of Mets fans, and also by raising money from institutional investors.
The BuytheMets group submitted a bid for the Mets, but MLB —which must approve any investor who buys more than 10 percent of the team — was less than thrilled by the idea of the team selling a significant stake to a group that included thousands of investors, sources said.
Of course, now it looks like the Mets (and Major League Baseball) have found their guy in hedge fund honcho (and Microsoft gambler) David Einhorn. So any bid from a fan collective now appears to be moot unless Einhorn's finances collapse before he's officially approved to infuse his much-needed cash into in the Mets.
But, really, this should come as a surprise when Bud Selig and his cabal of owners prefer that every owner fit the same rich yet compliant profile. Why even take a second look at a group of thousands (and encourage similar collective bids for future team sales) when you can maintain the status quo by selecting from a pool of eager and singular buyers? Why allow thousands through the door when you only have to tab just one for entrance into the exclusive club?
Also, it's interesting to note that many people seem to believe that a community-based ownership group is the golden ticket to success when it really may be far from the case. The long-term success of the Packers has been based on hiring the right people to steer and run the franchise, something that would be far from a certainty if a similar purchase were to take place anywhere else.
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