Really ? Didn’t Fox virtually pay Frank McCourt to take the team 8 years ago ? Where were all these smart guys then, when the team could have been purchased by virtually anyone who could have ponied up a little cash?

Pardon me, but if someone asked me to invest with either Guggenheim or McCourt today, I’d have to go all in with Frank…..

IS: Whatever someone is willing to pay for it. And that applies to not only baseball teams but anything that’s for sale.

Big business is not about creating value or providing service, it is about manipulating the system to extract profits, extortion, and deception to create the appearance of value, not value itself. McCourt just had the misfortune to do his dirt in a business people are passionate about.

By contrast, Washington, DC has 600,000 living in DC, but also has 6 million in the metro area. Houston’s large area makes its population seem artificially large. If one looked at a list and saw

Houston: 2,000,000
Washington, DC: 600,000

They would get the wrong idea about the real size of the market.

The Houston metro area is the 6th largest in the country – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas. However, I’m guessing market rankings weigh income levels, and Houston has some poor indicators – higher poverty, lower median income. It’s economy is also heavily dependent on one industry sector (energy), and that relative lack of diversification may also be a factor.

Of course, Magic et al will probably run things, by default, better than McCourt.

I remember when I was studying adverstising in college Houston was about the 4th or 5th largest market behind NY, LA, CHI. I wonder what caused them to all the way to 10th

Well, of COURSE they’ll cry poor – they don’t have $2.15 billion any more, they gave it to McCourt! *shudders* And stex52 is right about the borrowing, and needing to service the debt.

God, I feel dirty now – I think I just made an actual excuse for owners, when I was attempting to be snarky.

Can we get an AMEN on that…..

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6874079/psychic-benefits-nba-lockout

So, when you look at the Forbes’ valuations, for example, they are strictly economic and tend to underestimate the vanity premium people are will to pay. That doesn’t totally explain how McCourt managed to make nearly $2 billion on in investment, but it’s a start.

I think it’s safe to say it would boggle the mind at what the final selling price would be especially when you consider it’s a cash cow and a worldwide brand. You would have to think that even minority shares at that point would be beyond the means of the rich and famous.

I, for one, find it somewhat funny (in a depressing sense – sad clown), that possibly the greatest effect on the valuation of the asset was its pending sale.

Q: How much is my baseball team worth?
A: Well, it was worth about one billion, but since you’re not going to be running it into the ground, I’d say a little over two.