Alex Rodriguez And Jennifer Lopez Looking To Tap Taiwanese Billionaire For Money To Buy Mets

Sports bankers are saying the latest scuttlebutt is that former MLB All-Star Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez are interested in having Richard Tsai as an investor in his group to buy the New York Mets.

Tsai, 62, has a net worth of $2.9 billion and is a citizen of Taiwan. He and his brother, Daniel, run Fubon Financial Holdings, which has interests in banking, insurance and securities. The company trades on the Taiwan stock exchange and has a market value of $13.5 billion. The brothers are also investors in Taiwan Mobile, a mobile phone service provider, and momo.com, a home shopping and e-commerce business.

Variety reported Rodriguez and his fiancé, recording artist and actor Jennifer Lopez, retained JPMorgan Chase
JPM
to raise capital for a possible bid for the MLB team a week ago, and the following day reported the couple were in discussions with Quogue Capital founder Wayne Rothbaum about joining their group.

Rothbaum was part of the Jeb Bush, Tagg Romney group that failed in its attempt to buy the Miami Marlins in 2017;. the Marlins were eventually bought by a group led by Bruce Sherman and included former New York Yankee Derek Jeter for $1.2 billion and included a small investment from former New York Yankee star Derek Jeter.

Rodriguez and Lopez are seemingly looking everywhere for money, which makes sense because he they don’t come close to having anywhere enough themselves to buy the Mets, which Steve Cohen was willing to pay $2.6 billion before a disagreement with the current owners of the team scuttled the deal in early February. The couple also tried to bring in Jorge Mas as an investor. Mas, like Rothbaum, was a failed bidder for the Marlins and is now the managing owner of Inter Miami, the new MLS team.

I have learned that Rodriguez wants to be the managing partner, or control person, should his group succeed in buying the Mets. The person with the most money in MLB does not necessitate that they are the one who calls the shots. Derek Jeter wanted to be the control person for the Marlins but baseball pushed back, requiring Sherman take the lead in part because the Hall of Famer had no experience running a business. I suspect the same thing would happen should Rodriguez take an offer for the Mets to MLB even though he does have his own company. Running the Mets would be alot more difficult than running A ROD Crop. One of the big money guys would have to take the helm.

I threw cold water on the idea of Rodriguez buying the Mets several days ago and still remain just as skeptical today.