But if Fred Wilpon and his partners are to survive another winter in charge of the Mets, it appears they’ll have to do it without M.L.B.‘s help this time.
“I can’t imagine that we would be providing such assistance,” M.L.B. executive vice president of economics and league affairs Rob Manfred said in an email Friday, when asked if M.L.B. would be a source of any financial assistance for the Mets over the remainder of 2012.
Manfred also confirmed that the Mets haven’t received any financial assistance from Major League Baseball since March 2012, when the loan was repaid.
In other circumstances, this would be good news: Teams that don’t need financial help, after all, wouldn’t have received any from Major League Baseball.
But the Mets are going to need additional money from somewhere. The $240 million they received from selling off minority stakes in the team back in March is already accounted for: at least $110 million to pay off a portion of what was a $430 million debt against the team due in 2014, $25 million back to M.L.B., $40 million to pay off a bridge loan from Bank of America that allowed the team to pay operating expenses last winter, at least $43.7 million in bond payments on Citi Field due in June and December, a revenue-sharing bill due to M.L.B. that totaled $20 million in 2011, $20 million in interest on a $450 million debt against S.N.Y. due in 2015, and at least $20 million in interest on the remaining $320 million or so in debt against the team.
Repoz
Posted: August 17, 2012 at 02:24 PM |
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1. bfan Posted: August 17, 2012 at 03:04 PM (#4210709)I think The Yankee Clapper can explain what it is, at length. He may be somewhat biased though.
That means the Mets are a team that has to pay into the revenue sharing pool. So they have a "bill" for $20 M. Appoximately $1 M of that $20 M will be used to pay the power bill on that Marlins HR thingy.
That is what I thought. That means that is the mets have lowered salary in 2012 (no Reyes), then that is a non-recurring expense. The article says they are going to need money, and cite that number as paid for out of the 240 million they got in March. They do not have to pay that $20 million again; that is my point.
You're thinking luxury tax, the Mets don't have the payroll to be subject to that.
But they get to pay revenue sharing because they have above-average revenue from playing in New York, you can think of it as a tax on big-market teams. The only way for them to avoid paying revenue sharing is if their revenues tank, say if the gate shrank dramatically, and that would be worse. In the new CBA there are provisions for returning revenue sharing money to the club if it would have gone to a top-15 team. So maybe their bill will be lower next year anyway.
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