Derek Jeter-Led Investors Group Purchases The Miami Marlins
Aug. 12, 2017, 10:23 a.m.
If the purchase is approved by MLB, Jeter will reportedly be in charge of the baseball and business decisions for the Marlins.
When you have the RE2PECT of the business world.
An investment group led by a New York businessman and Players Tribune editor-in-chief Derek Jeter has made the winning bid to buy the Miami Marlins, according to multiple reports.
The Miami Herald first reported that Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria had agreed to sell the team for $1.2 billion on Friday evening, to a group led by investor Bruce Sherman and the former Yankee shortstop. The deal will still have to approved by three-quarters of baseball's owners.
Sherman is going to be the managing general partner of the team, according to the Herald, while Jeter, who put in about $25 million, will focus on the player development and business sides of the team. In addition to Jeter, the ownership group has an athletic dimension thanks to a stake from Michael Jordan, who invested an unknown amount of money with the group.
According to the Post, Jeter's interest in being a team executive is fueled by a desire to one day buy a franchise on his own, much like how Jordan was a Washington Wizards executive and then eventually bought the Charlotte Bobcats.
The Jeter/Sherman group beat out a number of other offers, including one led by a Miami businessman and another led by an investment banker, Tagg Romney and Jeb! Bush. Jeb! and Jeter were originally in on an effort to buy the team together, but that attempt fell apart in a power struggle when Jeb! realized that Jeter wanted to run the business and baseball sides of the franchise.
If their bid is approved by baseball's owner's, the Jeter/Sherman ownership group will acquire a team with one of baseball's best power hitters, extremely low attendance numbers despite a garish home run sculpture and a stadium whose financing deal will cost the city of Miami billions of dollars in the future.
