Posted on 09/13/2012 8:56:44 AM PDT by raccoonradio
The team is owned by the Fenway Sports Group, which also owns the English football team Liverpool FC. While no final decision has been made about a potential sale, and the talks appear to be in the early stages, executives at Fenway Sports are debating whether they have the financial resources to run both teams, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The Red Sox have publicly denied that they are for sale. Reached Thursday, a spokesperson for the team said of the potential sale that “there is no truth to that rumor.” However, there has been talk for some time that the team is informally gauging interest in the club.
The price tag eyed for any potential sale would be a steep one, according to people who have spoke with Red Sox management: $1.3 billion. Forbes cites the value of the Red Sox at around $1 billion.
Financier John Henry is the principle owner of Fenway Sports, which bought the Red Sox in 2002 and produced immediate results, winning the World Series in 2004 and 2007. But the last two seasons have been dismal ones for the team, plagued by injuries and overpaid talent.
Recently, the team unloaded a slew of underperforming players, saving as much as $250 million through 2018.
Also likely weighing on the consideration to sell the team is the poor performance of Henry’s investment company, John Henry & Co. this year, these people say. The firm, which specializes in the futures market, has had a volatile year, with funds such as his Global Analytics losing nearly 16% this year, according to the company’s website.
But according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, the biggest challenge for Henry is running two expensive sports franchises. Fenway Sports purchased the Liverpool team for $476 million in 2010, and has been widely criticized for overpaying for players who have under-delivered.
In fact, Henry recently wrote an open letter to Liverpool fans, vowing not to overspend on talent in the future, but stating his commitment to keeping the team.
By weighing a sale of the Red Sox, Henry could devote more resources to the Liverpool team. Also, unloading Liverpool is considered more difficult compared with a franchise with the name recognition of the Red Sox, despite its lousy 2012 season.
Fenway also owns 80% of the New England Sports Network, where the Red Sox games are aired, as well as the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League. It's unclear how the sports network would factor into any deal.
In fact, people close to executives inside Fenway say management has been increasingly focused not on the Red Sox, but on the future of the Liverpool team.
$1.3 billion estimated asking price. (As Mad Magazine used to say...), “Cheap!”
The EPL is the most lucrative professional sports league in the world. People only care about Baseball in the US, the EPL is followed all over the world.
Keep the Sox....get rid of the Limey so-called “football” team.
Screw foreign investments.
Nobody cares about baseball outside of the US? You’ve never been to Japan or South America, have you?
PS...soccer is a faggy Euro sport.
They’re brainwashing our kids playing that crap in schools.
There are only five real sports options for Amercans.
Baseball, football, (the REAL kind...with pads and helmets), basketball, NASCAR, and golf.
I don’t care whaat the Euros and the Latins like. The rest of the world doesn’t concern me. My concern ends at the border.
I suspect MLB ratings outside the US don’t come close to EPL ratings.
Baseball has been very, very good to me.
Obviously the Red Sox owners do care.
That franchise hasn’t had a decent owner since Tom Yawkey.
The current ones must be faggy Eurolovers.
Exactly!
“PS...soccer is a faggy Euro sport.”
Euro, yes. Faggy, no, but I tend to agree that most things Euro are rather faggy :-).
“NASCAR”
Yet making left turns for hundreds of laps is considered a real sport? :-)
One of my favorite things to do when a group of my NASCAR fanatic relatives are glued to a TV watching that nonsense is yell “turn left” :-).
By the way, I admire the skills of the drivers and pit crews . It just isn’t for me much like soccer isn’t for you :-).
“Fenway Sports purchased the Liverpool team for $476 million in 2010, and has been widely criticized for overpaying for players who have under-delivered.”
I didn’t know it was possible to “under-deliver” in soccer. Isn’t that the game where, you run up and down the field for three days and no one scores until someone slips and falls and the refs are killed and there is a riot with lots of utes rioting for three days and nights? Or the stands collapse and 800 women and children are trampled by the men trying to get out?
I suppose you are also the sort of Neandertal who insists on keeping score and having "winners," and "losers" when youth teams compete. Me? I am much more socially advanced. I believe in "Tie Games" giving every kid on both teams a "Self-Esteem" Trophy,
and then finding out where their father is and beating the living snot out of that goddam commie wimp, but not until after I torch the Obama sticker off the back of their pot-smokin' mom's mini-van!
Good thing the Red Sox aren’t a English Premier League team, because the way they’ve been playing, they’d get relegated.
The Red Sox are usually good. They even beat the “Curse of the Bambino”.
We long-suffering Pirates fans have gone through 20 years of losing teams.
This year we’re still above .500 and have a shot at the wild card berth.
I’m expecting to wake up from this dream and they’re really at .390 and in last place.......
Don’t look now, but here come the Phillies, only three games out of the Wild Card.....I guarantee, nobody outside of Philly wants them in the playoffs, just like St Louis last year.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Good one!
Or maybe for his... attractive, hunky good looks?! ;-D
How can you screw up with one of the most lucrative franchises in pro sports?
They should unload Liverpool. Even with the tougher rules on selling soccer clubs...Liverpool would draw some potential buyers
The same problems with the Red Sox are also evident in another group who owns an English Premier League team and a US sports franchise. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been sliding since the Glazer family started buying up Manchester United a few years ago
I suspect MLB ratings outside the US don’t come close to EPL ratings.
I suspect that MLB ratings INSIDE the US may not be as much as the EPL ratings. No kidding.
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