According to Bart Hubbuch on his twitter page, in a recent interview with GQ Magazine, Larry King revealed how much much Fred may have lost in the Madoff scandal. Apparently Larry King and Fred Wilpon are close friends so this may have some merit. Larry alleges that Wilpon lost $700,000,000 to Bernie Madoff in his scheme.
CNBC originally reported that Wilpon may have lost up to $300 million in the plot, but if King is right…they were way off.
This may have major impacts on this year’s impending free agency, and for all we know it could have already had major impacts on the Mets.
Time to sell the team Fred?
Here’s a little more on the story from the NYPost.
Thanks to this site for the comic…
9 comments
dentulous
7/14/2009-7:01pm at 7:01 pm (UTC -4)
Good Lord that is an ass load of money. Has to be the Mets of course…… Only us dammit.
I doubt they lower payroll (hard to justify high ticket prices if they decrease payroll), but they most certainly wont increase it. You know Bernie was a Yankee fan, he just had to be.
GravediggerHebner
7/14/2009-7:05pm at 7:05 pm (UTC -4)
I can’t comprehend such numbers. Either way, sucks for them. I at no time believed the Wilpons would get close enough to sniff the luxury tax with their payroll anyway. Only if they start decreasing it will I feel Madoff has impacted the team.
prismo
7/14/2009-7:06pm at 7:06 pm (UTC -4)
And what if they don’t increase payroll, but increase ticket prices? That would smell real fishy to me.
gipperpdx
7/14/2009-7:25pm at 7:25 pm (UTC -4)
To be fair, it isn’t clear that Sterling Mets, LP has lost ANY money in the Madoff scheme. Wilpon may have lost tons of personal cash and I know some of his other Sterling companies lost a ton…but those books are all separate.
wannybackstra
7/14/2009-7:30pm at 7:30 pm (UTC -4)
That’s exactly the point. Wilpon’s personal fortune has nothing to do with the Mets operating capital — unless the Wilpons decide to keep more of the profit to make up for their personal losses.
gategem
7/15/2009-1:20am at 1:20 am (UTC -4)
Some time ago Newsday revealed that the accounts were not under only the Wilpon’s name but there were accounts under Sterling, The Mets and the Katz family. Newsday estimated the loss to be between $500 million and $1 billion.
prismo
7/14/2009-7:11pm at 7:11 pm (UTC -4)
$700 million is a TON of money. If I’m lucky I’ll have 1 or 2 million saved up for my retirement in 40 years. So in essence, I don’t blame the Wilpons for not wanting to throw extra money into the Mets that they may not get back. But on the other hand, if they’re not willing to go all out to win (even if it’s for good reason), maybe it really is time to start thinking about finding some bidders…
gipperpdx
7/14/2009-7:23pm at 7:23 pm (UTC -4)
Wow, that’s actually getting to serious money.
You know…Seinfeld is a lifelong Mets fan….and he has more money than God…he’d be a good owner…just don’t let him recommend a friend for assistant to the traveling secretary.
stickguy
7/14/2009-10:43pm at 10:43 pm (UTC -4)
be careful though with the Madoff “lost” figures. Sometimes they are based on what he said you had, not what you put in.
say you gave him 100mill, and he told you he ran it up to 300mill. Now you get zero.
did you “lose” 300mill, or 100mill? Or something in between?
And if you took out 100 along the way, did you break even, or lose 200? This BTW was a real scenerio the trustee dealt with.
ANyway, as many pointed out, the Mets are a seperate entity. The Wilpons don’t actually fund the Mets, but yeah, they could theoretically decide to take more out (and I have no idea if they take out more than a salary, or just let the money increase the value of the team).
That, and if he was worth a billion and lost 700, yeah it sucks, but he would still have 300mill! I doubt we will be holding a fund raiser for old Freddie.