Mark Cuban to Sam Zell: I’d Still Like to Buy the Chicago Cubs. Just Lower Your Price, Please.
by Peter Kafka
Posted on January 6, 2009 at 7:51 AM PT
Nothing like a billionaire with a blog: Mark Cuban uses his this morning to explain that he’s still in the market for the Chicago Cubs. It’s just that Cuban, who made his money selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo (YHOO) during Bubble 1.0 and kept it by getting out of that stock before Crash 1.0, doesn’t want to pay what owner Sam Zell wants–which seems to be about $1 billion.
If you’re at all interested in sports and business, it’s worth a quick read–Cuban has a nice touch at the keyboard, and really, how many other billionaires can you describe that way?
But for the time-pressed, here’s the upshot: Given that the Zell’s Tribune Company has turned into a nightmare for Zell, that price should come down, which seems to be Cuban’s thinking here:
So when it came down to it, I did what I thought was the only smart thing to do. I asked for an extension. I knew that if they got the money they wanted for the team, well my bid was not going to be high enough anyway. If they didnt, or the other bidders couldnt come up with their money, they would come back to me.
I’m still waiting.”
