{"id":36845,"date":"2020-08-16T23:06:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T03:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=36845"},"modified":"2020-08-16T23:06:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T03:06:41","slug":"j-rod-buying-the-mets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2020\/08\/16\/j-rod-buying-the-mets\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;J-Rod&#8221; Reportedly Favorites To Buy Mets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is J-Rod on the verge of buying the Mets? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=rodrial01,rodrig026ale,rodrig021ale,rodrig025ale,rodrig022ale,rodrig011ale&amp;search=Alex+Rodriguez&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Alex Rodriguez<\/strong><\/a><strong>,<\/strong> his wife Jenifer Lopez, and their group of investors are the \u201cclear-cut favorite to purchase the Mets.\u201d <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This comes from &#8220;several MLB executives&#8221; according to USA Today&#8217;s Bob Nightengale.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Several <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MLB?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#MLB<\/a> executives believe that the Alex Rodriguez ownership group, which has shown it has the money, is now the clear-cut favorite to purchase the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Mets?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Mets<\/a>. There&#39;s an Aug. 31 deadline to provide the best and final bids, according to Sportico.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BNightengale\/status\/1295078070550814721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 16, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>The Bidders<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bidding war for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/new-york-mets\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York Mets<\/a> has been one of the more publicized showdowns in sports history. The battle is <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2020\/08\/16\/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-reportedly-favorite-to-buy-mets\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">currently between two bidding groups<\/a> with vastly different approaches. Hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen has a limited, but very strong group of investors. They\u00a0<\/span>include Devils and 76ers owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;J-Rod&#8221;, made up of Jenifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez opposes Cohen. They have brought in many investors, who primarily are not billionaires, and are young athletes. Among them are Hall of Fame NFL linebacker Brian Urlacher, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, NBA All-Star guard Bradley Beal, and former NFL star running back DeMarco Murray. In addition, Florida Panthers owner Vincent Viola and Vitamin Water co-founder Mike Repole have recently joined the group.<\/p>\n<h3>The Bids<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reports say Steve Cohen currently has the highest bid at $2 billion. The last bid by Rodriguez and Lopez\u2019s group was $1.8 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fred Wilpon, the current owner of the Mets, has been especially pressured to sell the team in recent months after controversies surrounding attempted transactions. Cohen made a push to buy a majority of the team last year, but the Wilpon family decided not to make a deal. Finally, it appears a deal is coming to fruition, but there is still a long way to go.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New York Post reported that Lopez and Rodriguez had a <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2020\/07\/16\/jennifer-lopez-alex-rodriguez-talk-mets-development-project-with-robert-kraft\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">meeting with New England Patriots owners<\/a> Robert and Jonathan Kraft last month. They <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">discussed a partnership in the works for Citi Field and the development of its surrounding areas, including Willets Point. The Post also reported that \u201cJ-Rod\u201d was accompanied in their meeting \u201cby senior bankers from JPMorgan Chase\u2019s private wealth group, including Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of the bank\u2019s Asset &amp; Wealth Management group.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The thought of J-Rod buying the Mets is certainly gaining steam. Rodriguez and Lopez are continuously finding investors. Most recently they added Joe Thomas, future NFL Hall of Fame offensive lineman. Bids are due in 15 days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Image<br \/>\n<a id=\"7YAkjPhIQd99iHXKVkrU6Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1204756625\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'7YAkjPhIQd99iHXKVkrU6Q',sig:'2Nkd6RKVkI8CC9oqErlupHMXAXnfomhxBEdrkwYDA-A=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'1204756625',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is J-Rod on the verge of buying the Mets? Alex Rodriguez, his wife Jenifer Lopez, and their group of investors are the \u201cclear-cut favorite to purchase the Mets.\u201d This comes from &#8220;several MLB executives&#8221; according to USA Today&#8217;s Bob Nightengale. Several #MLB executives believe that the Alex Rodriguez ownership group, which has shown it has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3604,"featured_media":36876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"347","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,22],"tags":[328,4072,164,4071],"class_list":["post-36845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-mets","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-mets-sale","tag-new-york-mets","tag-steve-cohen"],"modified_by":"Jared Cantatore","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}