On Tuesday morning, while the Junkies were discussing the Lerners pulling the Nationals off the market, the consensus seemed to be that the owners couldn’t find the price they wanted – which, if you ask BMitch & Finlay, just means they’re not actively for sale right now, but could still be bought.
“A few smart people I've talked to told me sure, they said they're not for sale, but they're still for sale,” JP posited.
“Yeah, I've seen a lot of people want to sell something – their house, their business, whatever – and then all of a sudden you don't get the price that you expected, and you see things moving that makes things even better for you, so you pull it back,” BMitch replied. “They may not be for sale right now, but that's not to say they're not going to be for sale in a year or two, later down the road.”
As JP said, ‘everything is always for sale on some level,’ so yes, it may be ‘we’re not actively shopping it’ versus ‘we want to sell now,’ and if any group understands that, it’s a family like the Lerners with a ton of real estate holdings.
“It’s hard to look at what happened in Baltimore with the Orioles being sold, which looks like it's a real deal thing, and not wonder what impact that has on the Nats,” JP said. “Everybody's aware of the television rights and all the trouble that's caused over the years, right?”
“Have the Lerners crossed paths with that group in the past?” BMitch asked. “Do they have a relationship that they could probably figure this thing out moving forward? That may be a reason why they don't feel like thy have to sell now, because they have someone that's willing to do so work with them on something instead of what they were dealing with prior.”
Finlay finds it hard to believe they haven’t crossed paths, especially since David Rubenstein has reportedly considered buying the Nats in the past, and they have a huge thing in common?
“People that are billionaires tend to be for a reason, because they're incredibly smart and they think eight stages ahead,” JP said, “and I just wonder if there's not more things happening here that will settle a lot of the issues that have been a problem for both baseball teams. And the good news, I think, for consumers and fans, is that MASN has a lot of fans that have cut the cord, so a lot of people want to watch Nats games or O’s games and can't – I think a lot of that will get remedied, and obviously the revenue piece of this puzzle for the Nats, as they have completely torn down a championship-caliber organization, maybe that stuff will get resolved.”
JP remains optimistic about the future (oddly), but time will tell?