Orioles and the Powerball

[yark14]

The Powerball jackpot is now $1.9 billion.

The Orioles are valued at $1.375 billion.

The Angelos family is preparing to sell the team.

If I win the Powerball lottery, I'm buying the Orioles.

[Sports Guy]

Your cash payout is going to be about half that and then you pay taxes which will probably be another 400M or so.

So, you will only get 500M…maybe you can find a partner though?  

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

Your cash payout is going to be about half that and then you pay taxes which will probably be another 400M or so.

So, you will only get 500M…maybe you can find a partner though?  

O's are big on deferred payouts so I'm sure it won't be a problem just signing the payoff over to them.

[Frobby]

I told my wife the same thing.  

[seak05]

28 minutes ago, yark14 said:

The Powerball jackpot is now $1.9 billion.

The Orioles are valued at $1.375 billion.

The Angelos family is preparing to sell the team.

If I win the Powerball lottery, I'm buying the Orioles.

I had this same thought 

25 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Your cash payout is going to be about half that and then you pay taxes which will probably be another 400M or so.

So, you will only get 500M…maybe you can find a partner though?  

And then I had this thought. And you still have to pay players/staff etc. It's more of a wealth asset then an income asset. But hey minority investors are always needed 

[spiritof66]

1 hour ago, yark14 said:

The Powerball jackpot is now $1.9 billion.

The Orioles are valued at $1.375 billion.

The Angelos family is preparing to sell the team.

If I win the Powerball lottery, I'm buying the Orioles.

Not until Peter dies, you aren't -- unless you want to add on a few hundred million to cover his capital gains tax.

[PHRESH]

You might only need a 20% down payment 

[OriolesMagic83]

5 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Your cash payout is going to be about half that and then you pay taxes which will probably be another 400M or so.

So, you will only get 500M…maybe you can find a partner though?  

Orioles Hangout members will be minority owners in the Green Bay model.

[sevastras]

1 hour ago, PHRESH said:

You might only need a 20% down payment 

Probably in the 30% range, but you are on the right track.  If you had about $500mm down, you could have financed the Dodgers parking lot all day long when they were selling the Dodgers. I would have purchased that parking lot in two seconds because it does nothing but print money. 
As far as purchasing the Os, the financials don’t currently show a profit to support a financeable entity. Assets may be able to support it, but like you said likely don’t have to put all of the money up front for it and need enough cash reserves to make the loaning entity comfortable. Plus mlb and other owners have to approve the deal and also will want enough reserves. 

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, yark14 said:

The Powerball jackpot is now $1.9 billion.

The Orioles are valued at $1.375 billion.

The Angelos family is preparing to sell the team.

If I win the Powerball lottery, I'm buying the Orioles.

I've thought about this a little, not with regards to the Orioles but maybe a minor league team or a lower-division soccer team.

The problem is not only that you're not going to get anything like $1.9B even if you're the only winner of the Powerball, but that the costs of running the team aren't just the purchase price.  You have to be able to come up with cash all the time to cover random things, either by financing, or out of your own assets.  Or perhaps by subtly blackmailing local politicians with threats of moving to Nashville...  I'm not going to pretend to know all the ends and outs, but it's just not smart (and MLB almost certainly wouldn't allow) someone with a net worth of $1B to be the primary owner of a $1.3B team.  You could get into a situation like Connie Mack used to, where almost his entire net worth was the Philadelphia A's so anytime there was a down period, or competition or a recession he'd have to sell off his players because he had no other resources to fall back on.  No, it's not 1930 anymore, but there are probably parallels.

Watch Welcome to Wrexham. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buy this 5th Division Welsh soccer team for like £2 million.  But almost immediately they need to come up with $100k to re-sod the field, then they need cash to sign two new players, then they need money to refurbish part of the stadium, and on and on. 

Yes, you could probably be a minority investor and get other people to provide a lot of those resources.  And hire people to find financing.  But then you're not in charge, and you're still going to be someone who's tied up almost your entire net worth in a baseball team, in a world where your peers are mostly multi-billionaires, many of them running teams as a kind of vanity side project.  The Orioles' fanbase may not be dreaming of a situation where one of their main owners has essentially no ability to put additional cash into the team.

Edited November 7, 2022 by DrungoHazewood