I hate the Wilpons so much it’s rubbing off on a team I have followed for 40 years….it’s just bad.

Either way they lost their Madoff magic money so payroll will be shrink, expect 70 – 80 mill a year at best for the next 5 years…could be lower.

They still have $’s owed to players long gone.

This team is a mess…..come to Citifield aqnd meet the Mess…

That’s a lot different than, “Hey, I saw the SEC report and believed what it said.”

Thanks for the update. I appreciate the info. I had not seen the ruling which is why I qualified all my comments with “if”.

Sadly, I agree with you completely in regards to your statements in the last paragraph.

In making the ruling that the Wilpons would not be liable for the full $1 Billion the Trustee initially sought, the judge ruled that the Wilpons were not principals in an investment company, so they had no due diligence requirement, which is why the standard is “willfull blindness” and not negligence or some lower standard. The Wilpons are being treated as ordinary investors who “may” have been privy to the fact that Madoff was running a ponzi scheme.

They fact that this lady (correctly) pointed out that something was not Kosher is evidence of willful blindness, but not indisputable. Wilpon will surely counter by saying something to the effect of the SEC found Madoff to be Kosher, and they believed the SEC.

My take is that the Wilpons have always gotten a worst wrap than they deserve. They have always been amount the top 5 teams in payroll, usually closely bunched with teams 2-4, with the Yankees blowing everyone away. They spend on big money contracts like Johan (which nobody was complaining about when they signed him), and Bay (which didn’t look like a terrible deal when they got him for 4 years). Also, the 2006, 2007, and 2008 nine teams were all picked by many to win the East and possibly make it to the World series at the beginning of their respective years. The deals didn’t work out and they didn’t win a world series, but it is not like they weren’t trying. Even last year, the payroll was $145MM.

Many Mets fans have clamored for Cuban (who went a long time before his team did not under perform in the postseason) or Trump (who has zero sport experience and has had several business venture fail) to buy the team, but there is no guarantee they would be better.

That being said, if they are not in a position to be in the top five in payroll, they need to sell the team to an ownership that can invest in a proper payroll. If you are going to high ticket prices, then you need to have a high payroll.

But the fact is, I think they will be able to keep the Mets even of the Wilpon group looses the full $386MM (which I doubt they will) and run it on the cheap until the economy and real estate prices pick up. In the end, I don’t think they are selling no matter what, so I guess I hope they win and are able to start putting money back into the team.

Any “fan” that wants the Wilpons to keep the Mets is not a fan of the team. The best news we could get is that the Wilpons are forced to sell the team.

I’m hoping the seats are empty this year as well, please people, stay away. If you feel the need to go to a game get a root canal instead, the pain will be the same.

You also wrote: “it’s way easier to play defense than offense in these things.”

Wouldn’t you say that proving a negative is playing defense?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/sports/baseball/noreen-harrington-says-she-alerted-mets-owners-of-concerns-with-madoff-investments.html?_r=1

This is, of course, raises another issue: If in fact they are licensed securities brokers and the Court rules that they didn’t exercise due diligence, if they solicited outside investors for fees/commissions and offered investment advice, they would be in violation of NY State and federal securities laws.
In my professional life, I’ve seen “nobodies” fined and had license revocations for this. I can’t imagine the State of NY would let something this high profile pass.