On one side, Jeb Bush said Tuesday he’s “confident” his syndicate that involves former New York Yankee Derek Jeter will be approved to buy the Miami Marlins.
On the other side, Tagg Romney’s group has put in a bid larger than the $1.3 billion of the Bush/Jeter bid, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, though it is not believed to be significantly larger.
Both sides have known names. Both have a syndicate of investors — Romney’s group is smaller than Bush/Jeter, the source said. And, most important, both apparently have the money to buy the team.
“We have two very strong groups that we believe will have sufficient financial resources to complete the sale and run the team effectively,” baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday in a statement to the Sun Sentinel.
This runs against the national current, which again on Tuesday gave Bush’s group full run for the simple reason that, well, Bush talked about it in California. He said his group was in place. He said he’s “hoping to learn sooner rather than later” how things stand.
But just because Bush talked publicly and Romney — son of former Massachusetts Governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney — stayed silent doesn’t mean one group is the winner. The short answer of who will win is, quite simply, which group pays more and gets the votes of Major League Baseball’s team owners.
The longer answer involves the investors rounding out these groups, and how much they are worth. What’s clear is there won’t be a one-man ownership like the Dolphins with Steve Ross. This will be more like the Heat in its early days, back before Micky Arison took control, back even before it was even a franchise, really.
It’s worth repeating that story now, because while sports times and dollar figures have changed, the fundamentals of deals haven’t. The Heat needed a big, behind-the-scenes money, too, and how it played out is relevant to the Marlins proceedings.
A former basketball player, Billy Cunningham, and New York businessman, Lewis Schaffel, wanted an NBA expansion franchise in Miami.
Like Bush and Romney, Cunningham and Schaffel had some headline currency. They just didn’t have the crazy money needed to bankroll a purchase. They had to knock on doors in hopes of finding someone with money. Again, like these two groups evidently have done.
Cunningham, Schaffel and minority owner Zev Buffman lobbied the founder of Carnival Cruise Line, Ted Arison, to invest in basketball for the good of South Florida. Arison was reluctant. But he agreed to join them to meet with David Stern, the NBA commissioner.
Stern was no dummy. He looked around the room and saw one man had the necessary money, a source explained years later. Stern laid it out to them: If Arison didn’t join, this group had no chance.
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Arison, of course, was no dummy, either. On the flight home from that meeting, he reiterated he was reluctant to buy a basketball team. He was worth multi-billions. He had built one major business. He wasn’t a crazy sports fan. He certainly wasn’t someone who wanted the public limelight.
Arison laid out the ground rules for the operation if he was to join. Yes, Cunningham and Schaffel could run the team as they proposed. But they’d have to make themselves financially vulnerable in a way they wouldn’t like.
“Everything you own will be put up against this team’s cost — every penny you have,” he said.
Cunningham and Schaffel grew up together in Brooklyn, and buying a team was their dream. But when Arison said this, Cunningham initially decided to stay in his cushy job as a CBS-TV basketball analyst rather than put his life’s earnings at risk.
A few days later, Cunningham changed his mind. He was in. Schaffel always was in, though it was indeed uncomfortable. When he went to buy a house in Miami, for instance, the bank saw all his money was tied up in an expansion basketball team. Arison had to vouch for him to get a loan.
So here’s the question as Jeter and Bush evidently have found their modern-day Ted Arison — or group of investors to become an Arison. How vulnerable did Jeter and Bush have to get? How much do they really want to own a team?
Who knows the deal Romney and Bush have laid out for their respective investors? Who knows what kind of inner negotiations are happening for these two groups?
All you hope is Manfred and the voting owners pick the group that can do South Florida right. It has to do better than last time, when then-commissioner Bud Selig took care of the Boston Red Sox by getting them John Henry as owner, took care of the expansion Washington team by ridding them of Jeffrey Loria as owner — and then dumped Loria on the Marlins for a sweet deal.
This is business, high business, and owners with deep pockets are needed. There’s another relevant history lesson from that Heat deal. Ted Arison told this to Cunningham and Schaffel. After he bought his first cruise ship, Arison held a party on it. He was on the dock, admiring the boat, when the man who financially backed him came beside him. They looked at the boat together.
“Don’t fall in love” he told a young Ted Arison.
Cunningham and Schaffel fell in love with the Heat to a point. Micky stepped into the scene to end a period of inner-wrangling, essentially paid Schaffel and Cunningham $30 million each to go away. That’s how the partnership ended. They got rich. Micky kept the Heat. Everyone seems to have been better for it, as the years go by, especially the Heat.
When this Marlins sales goes through to the groups of Bush or Romney, fans will celebrate simply because Jeffrey Loria won’t be the owner. It’s good news.
How good the news is ultimately depends on the deep pockets of the Marlins’ new Arison — or Arisons, as the case is here — to make the deal work.
dhyde@sun-sentinel.com; On Twitter @davehydesports;
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