Former Yankees Chair Steve Swindal is "working on a plan to buy MLB player representation firm SFX Baseball for $40 million and merge it with his youth baseball academy in the Dominican Republic, creating a new venture that, according to the company’s pitch to investors, would have an edge in representing baseball talent," according to Liz Mullen of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The deal "has not yet been consummated, but Swindal has hired investment bankers who are soliciting Wall Street investors to provide seed money for the new company as well as funding to buy SFX Baseball, which represents 93 players on MLB 40-man rosters." Since leaving the Yankees, Swindal and former Yankees VP/Int'l Relations Abel Guerra "have founded Pan American Sports Group, which owns a training center in the Dominican Republic where about 30 elite baseball players, ages 14 to 16, are training." SFX Baseball principal Mark Pieper said last week there was a "50-50 chance of the deal being consummated." That comes after he previously said, "We are not shopping the company" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 5/23 issue).
