Reading about baseball's financial woes from their site. The testimony of Selig just doesn't pass the smell or any other test. Scroll to the bottom of this page and check out the table of how much was paid for each team. Since 1998, 8 teams have been bought. Prices range from $75MM to $353 MM for teams (Montreal and LA respectively). Significantly, LA was bought for $353 MM by the multinations media emprie News Corp. According to Selig, since 1994, the league has lost almost $1.4 Billion. This year alone, Selig points out, cosolidated losses were $519 MM. Taking all those things as bona fide, I have one question. Why would News Corp. invest $353 MM in order to lose money? News Corp. bought the team last year. I don't have their figures for last year, but this year, they lost $69MM on operations alone (20% further loss on top of the original investment). News Corp. is now down a minimum $422 MM. I may not know a lot of things, but Rupert Murdoch isn't going to let a division that he spent $353MM to acquire lose a further 20% with (again according to Selig) nothing to look forward to but further, and growing, crippling losses. I could go on, but it would just be more of the same. Sorry Bud, just doesn't pass the smell test.
- posted by levinson @ 12/06/2001 02:41:00 PM