Fleet Financial Group announced it has arranged $405M
in financing for MLB. The credit facility will be used by
participating MLB teams to refinance existing debt and for
general corporate purposes. The credit facility, arranged
by Fleet's Sports Lending Group and funded by Fleet's Blue
Keel Funding LLC, enables participating MLB clubs to access
the commercial paper market through the securitization of
certain shared revenues, including those from national media
contracts and licensing and sponsorship. A group of banks
led by Fleet National Bank will provide a liquidity facility
to support the commercial paper issuance (Fleet). The
credit agreement with MLB is extended from 2000 to 2005 and
the amount that MLB teams can borrow increased from $250M
under the previous deal (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 4/28).
Fleet's Sports Lending Group's Patrick McAuliffe: "All of
the leagues, [MLB] included, have certain shared revenue
sources -- a large portion of them are media revenue. This
basically harnesses the revenue flow and makes it available,
right now" (Gregg Krupa, BOSTON GLOBE, 4/28).
