- Billionaire hedge fund investor Steve Cohen has reached an agreement to purchase the New York Mets, the team announced Monday.
- The transaction is still pending approval from at least 23 out of 29 other major league baseball owners. First, a subcommittee of owners will deliberate and then they will make a recommendation to the rest of the owners.
- The Mets tweeted out a statement confirming that the team’s current owners, the Sterling Partners, have finalized a deal with Cohen to purchase the baseball team. Cohen would own a 95% share.
- “I am excited to have reached an agreement with the Wilpon and Katz families to purchase the New York Mets,” Cohen said in a statement, citing the Mets’ tweet.
- The New York Post reported that the agreement, which was sources told the news outlet was estimated between $2.4 billion and $2.45 billion, set a record for the purchase of a North American sports team.
- This is the second time that the billionaire hedge-fund investor has attempted to purchase the baseball team. Cohen reached an agreement with the Mets’ owners late last year to buy 80% of ownership.
- The deal fell apart in January of this year and was later stalled by the coronavirus pandemic, which posed an uncertain future in the sports industry due to empty sports stadiums to contain the spread of the virus.
- Cohen competed for ownership of the Mets with a consortium that included baseball player Alex Rodriguez and singer Jennifer Lopez, which agreed to pay $2.35 billion for the team, according to The Post report.
- The group also named Lopez as the point person if the group were to acquire ownership, which would have made her the first Latina owner of a major sports franchise in North America, The Post reported.
- Their consortium announced last month that, despite making “a fully funded offer at a record price for the team,” the group was “no longer pursuing the acquisition of the team,” according to a report from ESPN.
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