From: kbowers@esrc1.uucp (Ken Bowers)
Subject: Re: SF offer for Giants
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 17:46:52 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.161659.2899@odin.corp.sgi.com> luigi@sgi.com (Randy Palermo) writes:
>In article <13OCT199210063429@mary.fordham.edu> nissim@mary.fordham.edu (Leonard J. Nissim) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct12.222615.3279@adobe.com>, snichols@adobe.com 
>>(Sherri Nichols) writes...
>>>Just heard on KCBS radio:
>>> 
>>>Despite the pullout of lead investor George Shinn, a coalition of SF
>>>investors led by Safeway chairman Peter Magowan has presented NL president
>>>Bill White with an offer to buy the Giants for $95 million.  
>>                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^  
>>>The reported bid by the Tampa Bay group was $115 million, which included a
>>                                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>$10 million loan by Bob Lurie.  
>>> 
>>>Sherri Nichols
>>
>>Why should Lurie even consider an offer for $20,000,000.00 less?  (Unless the 
>>owners vote down the move.)  
>
>I have heard that $13M of the shortfall will be made up from the franchise
>fees. The Giants were due to receive $13M from the fees collected from
>Florida and Denver for expansion. The Tampa bid was structured so that
>they received the $13M. In the SF offer, Lurie gets the $13M. That, effec-
>tively, makes the offer $108M and has ONLY a $7M shortfall. In addition,
>Lurie was to loan the Tampa group $10M. He will not be asked to provide
>that for the local offer. 
>
>luigi
>--

Lurie cannot just take the highest bidder. The owners must approve
any sale. 

Local news has been saying that the SF coalition has been shooting 
for $95 million because discussions with owners and NL president Bill
White have lead them to believe that $95 million will do it, since
owners prefer that the team stay in SF. $95m is
in line with recent franchise sales. There has been noise that the 
owners are considering a "moving tax" which would cost Lurie another
chunk of the difference between the offers. The coalition also feels that an
all-local offer is much more appealing to the owners that one involving
Shinn. If the owners are going to give local buyers a break for the sake
of stability, then having the majority partner be from the SF area makes
much more sense. Magowan was set up as a back-up to Shinn some time
ago, apparently. 

Of course, all this is local keep-your-chin-up talk, so we'll see.
My wife thinks that any scheme that involves SF mayor Frank Jordan
is bound to fail, but then she's the kind of cynic who thinks that
Dan Quayle wasn't the most qualified choice Bush could have made 
for VP. 

I see a couple of obstacles: 

1) None of this gets us any closer to new stadium; the owners may
suspect that without an ownership that is willing to invest in a
stadium, no local political alliance can will be able to come up
with a stadium (see "Jordan Rules" above). In that case, this is
just a deferring the problem while taking money out of the pocket
of their colleague Lurie. 

2) The owners (or their heirs) will each someday be in the position
to sell a franchise. How much of precedent are they willing to set
as far as taking a lower offer or taxing moves? Sure, it's hard to
feel too sorry for Lurie getting only $95m when he paid $8m, but 
some of these folks may look at what they paid and what they hope
to receive and get a little itchy about $95m. There are benefits
to them to have the Giants stay, but rising franchise price is
is also to their good. 

Ken B. 
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball