Marlins Turn Down $100 Million

I wish I had the time to get into this with the level of attention that it deserves. Unfortunately, I don't. But this story won't be given the attention that potentially razing the Orange Bowl has. It won't get the attention that talk of how bad of fans we are for not supporting the Marlins, but it needs to be told...

The next time someone tells you that the Marlins are losing money (or any other baseball team for that matter), ask them about this IPO opportunity issue with MLB.com.

Each franchise stood to take in $100,000,000 from the proceeds of an initial public offering. They have so far refused to do so, apparently because the teams are wary of opening up their financial books for public scrutiny.

Something doesn't add up here. Think about it. If you were crying poor (from your mansion) and I offered you $100,000,000 if you'd only let me verify that you were poor, wouldn't you do it? Of course you would. But baseball isn't doing that here because they don't want to be called to the carpet about how the sources of their losses (in reality it's book losses like depreciation that cause a team to "lose money"). All of that would come out if this IPO would come to be.

So, what we've learned is that keeping their financial details private is worth (on average) more than $100,000,000 per team. That's amazing.

$100,000,000 would go a long way towards a new stadium for the Marlins. Or towards locking up Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera. Or towards keeping Carlos Delgado in town. Actually, $100,000,000 could potentially address all of those issues.

That money's not coming though. I wish Mr. Loria and crew would raise a stink about that - instead of looking for money that isn't there from the City of Miami and Miami-Dade county.