1. I agree, Taylor ultimately improved them.Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 11:47 pm Shrink - That’s not how it works. FNG is right on this. Those upgrades were a business expense for a business co-owned by Taylor, A-Rod/Lore, and some other minority shareholders. As majority owner, Glen had to sign off on those upgrades; no one forced him to approve them. And the overall cost of those upgrades was trivial in relation to the value of the business and the wealth of all the individuals involved. He approved those upgrades just as he approved the Rudy deal and then the KAT deal. As majority owner, Glen Taylor bears ultimately responsibility for all those things and everything else that happened on his watch as majority owner. He’s not a victim here.
Glen signed an agreement to sell the team and the buyers accepted a staged purchase arrangement that Glen insisted on even though they preferred to buy it outright. As a result, they ended up borrowing at much higher interest rates for the final stage of the purchase than they would have paid if Glen would have allowed them to buy the entire team at the outset. I am certain the staged purchase arrangement that Glen insisted on cost the buyers a lot more money than the price of owners suite Glen agreed to for the business he co-owned. But that doesn’t mean A-Rod and Lore were victims either. All these guys are sophisticated, extremely wealthy businessmen who agreed to some things they didn’t like. They had their reasons and they are all ultimately responsible for the consequences of their own decisions.
There are no victims here - except the fans who had to ensure a year of uncertainty because Glen tried to back out of a deal he insisted on based on a theory analogous to being required to pay for your house before the closing date. In this case the closing date could not happened before League approval, which is why there was an extension clause in the contract that A-Rod and Lore invoked after submitting all the paperwork showing that they had secured the financing necessary to consummate the purchase. If there’s a bad actor in this saga it’s Glen, but it doesn’t really matter. As I wrote, I’ll be forever grateful to Glen for keeping the team and the excitement he brought to the organization when he hired McHale and Saunders. I’m also thankful to him for spending on players and spending to upgrade Target Center. Nevertheless, he’s not a victim.
2. Those weren’t business expenses - those were capital improvements. Buying a new entrance or more importantly, a luxury owners suite was 20% of the cost for ARod and Lore, 80% for Glen and other minority owners, but when ARod and Lore finally owned the team, they owned 100% of the improved asset. The price was already agreed to at $1.5 bil, so that’s extra value. I wouldn’t be frustrated if everyone wasn’t praising them making improvements, or if they improved the house after they bought it, with their own money.
3. For the record, the contracts had extension sat every scheduled payment, not just Board of Governors approval. ARod and Lore used every one, but they had every right to use them.
4. You have the finances backwards. If Glen has to wait four years to get fully paid for the team, that is money he has to wait on to invest and grow. In simplest terms, if you believe ARod had the $1.5 mil up front, but only paid $300 mil to start, they still had $1.2 bil they could invest and make money off of. Delaying the payments helps the buyer, but the seller.
5. And do people really think Lore and ARod were able to buy the franchise outright, just because they said it? National financial organizations questioned if they could afford 20%, and certainly were skeptical of Lore’s liquidity. Lore tried to make one payment by offering Glen shares in his other company so he wouldn’t have to come up with the cash. So then they had to go find lending organizations to borrow to get to 20%. They also had to include Google Exec Eric Schmidt to buy 4% to get to even 20%. They only started giving us the “we would have bought 100%” story after Taylor tried to break the deal when they said they would cut payroll under the luxury threshold, with a “oh yeah, back in the past, we would have paid for all of it. He was like “please don’t pay me $1.5 billion right now!”
Come on. There’s hope, and there’s intentionally blinding yourself. I think the public is so tired of Taylor, they simply accepts everything ARod and Lore say as true, because it’s what they wish is true.
