Friday, April 24, 2009

Forbes Finds Lerners Make Big Profits while Destroying Value of the Team

Forbes released their annual estimates on the finances of every MLB team. They found that, in the tradition of Frank Lorenzo and Michael Milken, the Lerners are simultaneously making the second biggest profits of any team in baseball while also destroying 12% of the value of their property.

For context, the $43.7 million in profits equals about 62 times the difference between Aaron Crow's asking price and the Nationals final offer.

But Nationals fans should be worried that the ownership of their team is acting like such shameless corporate raiders and making so much money doing it. Obviously it's in the long-term financial interests of the Lerners to run the team well and increase the value of their property, but there's no question that if it's short-term cash you're looking for, the Nationals are doing it just fine. Too bad there's a tomorrow.

6 comments:

El Rey said...

I’m not surprised. When you mix odious greedy real estate developers with a leftist leaning city government which bends over backwards and builds a stadium for the capitalists, you get obscene short term profits and a horrible product. You also get Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, but I digress. MLB went for the bottom line and the bottom of the barrel when they selected the Lerners over more noble management groups who wanted to buy the Nats. Bob Short would be proud! It is getting harder and harder for me to support this team. I’ve been to one game this season and I wore my South Park hat because I couldn’t bring myself to wear the curly W.

Rob B said...

Don't feel too bad King.
That's one game more than me. I just can't bring myself to fork over the cash.

ntr Fred Malek said...

Yes, a more noble ownership group is exactly what the Nationals need, I agree wholeheartedly!

Steven said...

You have anyone in mind?

Anonymous said...

Obviously Buddy Boy Selig screwed us by annointing the Lerners Kings of the Nationals. The Malek group should have, by all rights, been given ownership of the team, seeing as they were the group that pushed hardest to bring baseball back to Washington. These leeching Lerners need to sell the team...and does anyone know if they've paid rent yet?

Steven said...

Yeah, the rent is paid.