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Sources: Wilpons Must Complete Mets Sale This Year

The Mets' Wilpon family will "begin to field first-round bids on the team in July with an eye toward locking in a buyer by Oct. 1," but bidders now are "aware the Wilpons must find a buyer in the coming weeks in order to close a deal by the end of 2020," according to sources cited by McEnery & Kosman of the N.Y. POST. The October timeline "gives the Wilpons just enough time to sign off on a pact and submit it" to MLB for approval before '20 turns into '21. Potential buyers Josh Harris and David Blitzer are offering $1.4B for the club "without the team's revenue-generating TV network SNY." McEnery & Kosman write considering the Wilpons "pulled out of an almost identical deal" with hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen that would have made them $2.6B in February, the team "appears to be on the market at a coronavirus discount." However, a source "pushed back on the idea" that the Wilpons' deadline is a "signal of financial desperation, saying a December closing would give any new ownership time to make decisions on payroll and roster changes" for the '21 MLB season. Closing the deal before the end of '20 also means the new owner "would be on the hook" for the $44M in "debt payments owed on Citi Field" in '21 (N.Y. POST, 6/25). BodyArmor co-Founder & Chair Mike Repole reportedly joined Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez in their bid for the franchise, while David and Simon Reuben reportedly are exploring a bid for the team (THE DAILY).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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