The Wilpons (New York Mets owners Fred and Jeff) and team president Saul Katz have dug the Mets organization into a hole Met fans thought couldn’t get any deeper. The Bernie Madoff scandal is still haunting the Metropolitans to this day, more than two years after his arrest. The initial thought that the New York Mets lost money through this scandal turned 180 degrees earlier this year. A deficit that people once thought the Mets encountered (though, through other variables, is still highly probable) turned into a huge financial gain.
With the New York Mets’ finances and future in doubt, large free agent signing like Jason Bay last season could be limited for the team in the near future.
The Mets are being sued by the trustee trying to recover some of the money from Madoff’s scandal. With all the legal ramifications in place, it’s nearly impossible and quite confusing to decipher how much money is being tossed around and exactly what the Mets are being sued for, so to keep it simple: the Mets are being sued by everyone else that lost money on this scandal. Since the Mets, in essence, gained roughly $300 million (by pulling their investments out early, before the scam) the trustee wants to take that money back and distribute at least a little bit to each person who made an investment.
Representatives for the Mets and the Wilpons claimed the money is theirs and they shouldn’t have to give it up. What took place shortly after left the Mets in further disarray.
Court documents that were unsealed recently revealed that the trustee is demanding over $1 billion from the Mets and Sterling Equities (Saul Katz company). The argument now is that the Wilpons “knew” about the scandal and chose to turn “a blind eye” from the situation. Not only are the Wilpons losing a ridiculous amount of money, they’re now being investigated for being “in” on the scandal. Bring proven guilty of such an allegation would spell doom for the Mets and send them on a downward spiral much greater than the one the LA Dodgers organization went through last season following divorce proceedings from the owners Frank and Jaime McCourt.
While the Wilpons are hanging around, the Mets are left staring at an empty future. The payroll that is already over $150 million for the 2011 season could drop below $100 million in the coming years. The Mets certainly aren’t the Yankees, but for one of baseball’s biggest teams in a market as huge as New York, the Mets cannot become a “small-market” team. They already can’t win with their payroll as large as it is, how are they going to do it with less?
Twenty-five percent of the Mets is up for sale, a clear indication the Wilpons are hurting for money. At this rate they’re going to need to sell at least half the team, if not all of it. And even if they wish to maintain ownership of the team, how is the fan base going to maintain the trust that they’re acting in the team’s best interest and not that of their legal problems?
Unless Commissioner Bud Selig forces the Wilpons to sell the team (which is highly unlikely), the Mets aren’t heading anywhere anytime soon. At this point, Met fans have to hope their team can compete with other markets for high free agents. Their lackluster farm system isn’t going to support them this tough economic time. The only solution rests with the owners. The sooner they’re gone, the sooner the Mets’ fortune turns around.
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