86 replies to this topic

[dude]

The law firm is in conservatorship and with no new business being brought in (Peter Angelos had no partners), it was essentially existing on residuals from previous settlements. Plus, non-lawyers cannot own law firms and John Angelos never passed the bar. 

 

Do the 20 Lawyers that are currently listed on the Peter Angelos Law Firm website know they aren't supposed to be doing anything?

 

This is what I don't understand about the things you are saying.  Why would it matter if John passed the Bar or not? That's a nothing comment  Lou did (2000, Maryland).  Lou is listed as one of the 20 Lawyers.  The perspective that was always shared (for decades) was that would run the law Firm and John would run the Orioles.

 

I'm certainly not in charge of their business, but Lou running the Law Firm seems the most obvious/simple answer in the post-Peter era.  Now, he is also (last time I looked) the least qualified Lawyer on the Team and I don't know how Thomas Minkin and Andrew Cantor and Carol Hastings feel about Lou being in charge and whether they want to hang out under Lou versus Peter, but that's a different discussion after transition.

[mdrunning]

Do the 20 Lawyers that are currently listed on the Peter Angelos Law Firm website know they aren't supposed to be doing anything?

 

This is what I don't understand about the things you are saying.  Why would it matter if John passed the Bar or not? That's a nothing comment  Lou did (2000, Maryland).  Lou is listed as one of the 20 Lawyers.  The perspective that was always shared (for decades) was that would run the law Firm and John would run the Orioles.

 

I'm certainly not in charge of their business, but Lou running the Law Firm seems the most obvious/simple answer in the post-Peter era.  Now, he is also (last time I looked) the least qualified Lawyer on the Team and I don't know how Thomas Minkin and Andrew Cantor and Carol Hastings feel about Lou being in charge and whether they want to hang out under Lou versus Peter, but that's a different discussion after transition.

My bad. Yes, Louis Angelos is a lawyer, but his father never made him a partner.

 

Law firms are unusual animals. They can fall apart very quickly if the lawyers with the most important clients move on from said firm. Again, Peter Angelos had no partners and they're typically the ones who bring the business to the firm. I'm not claiming to know the finances of the Angelos firm or how its structured economically, but it wouldn't seem there would be much value to be extracted from it.

[mdrunning]

Right, but you are mixing timelines.

 

What you are saying here is THE REASON that MLB doesn't approve team transition.  They'll be Team poor.  They'll own a 2B asset with no cash on hand and hundreds of millions in deferred Estate Debt.  They'll be the only Ownership group in MLB uising Team resources to pay their bills.  MLB took the Dodgers from Frank McCourt over 170M....the Angelos's will be be trying to recoup a billion+ dollars from the team (pay debt, create cash) over the next 10-15 years.  It's not "Lifestyle" in the same way that was perceived with the McCourts, but it's still lifestyle.

 

That will be the reason they don't approve.  John/Lou Angelos will try and create every reason to suggest it's personal or biased or anything other than there's a legit reason to oppose ownership transition.  They've been planning this moment (TBD) since 2018.

 

If MLB cites "family dysfunction and instability" as a reason for not transferring...."suddenly" John and Lou will reconcile in terms of Orioles Ownership. Whoops...that reason is gone...how convenient.

 

IF MLB allows transfer of ownership...your quote above no longer matters....because now they're the owners.  John remains CEO of the Orioles and MASN, they will settle everything they can to remove any other pressure and he will run the franchise according to his ego with a sub-70M payroll to accrue resources over time to build back more liquid wealth.

The Angeloses won't be team poor, as you state; rather, they'll be cash poor. No different, really, than the couple that moves into a very expensive neighborhood and find themselves in a situation where one small setback could result in financial ruin. In other words, they don't own their home. Instead, it owns them. Or perhaps a very expensive car in which the buyer can perhaps make the monthly payments, but really cannot afford the maintenance. That's John and Lou Angelos.

 

It was not simply a lifestyle choice with Frank McCourt and the Dodgers. When he and his wife separated, she sued for ownership of half the team. The resulting legal wrangling put such a strain on his finances that he was unable to direct enough finances toward fielding a competitive team. (Of course, if he and his estranged wife hadn't used the team for their own personal ATM, maybe that pratfall could have been avoided.) He tried to wrangle his way out of financial distress by signing a 17-year, $3 billion dollar broadcast deal with Fox, but MLB scotched the deal when it was discovered that more than half of the initial $385 million payment was going to McCourt himself and not the Dodgers. 

 

Regardless of the mitigating circumstances, be it a nasty divorce or federal and state estate taxes, the result will be the same. The financial burden on John Angelos will be such that he will be unable (or unwilling) to put enough resources into the team itself. 

 

The bottom line is that the Angelos sons simply cannot afford to keep the team once their father is gone. 

[dude]

Regardless of the mitigating circumstances, be it a nasty divorce or federal and state estate taxes, the result will be the same. The financial burden on John Angelos will be such that he will be unable (or unwilling) to put enough resources into the team itself. 

 

I'm not trying to bulldog you, although I kind of feel like I am so apologies for that.  Message Board.  Discussion. 

 

Earier in this post you said it's not "Team Poor", it's "cash Poor" then go on to describe "House Poor", which is the analogy I was making with "Team Poor".

 

The bolded is correct, sort of.  They are going to have to run the franchise at a fraction of it's capacity to build resources.  They'll still run the team like today (maybe a little heavier) and from an ownership perspective - if they are the approved owners - they can run it like that and some people will defend it as "Small Market".

 

The bottom line is that the Angelos sons simply cannot afford to keep the team once their father is gone. 

 

No.  They can afford it, if they own it.  They just won't resource it at the levels most Orioles fans would like to see.

 

Years ago (probably 2 decades) I heard Joe Foss on one of the radio shows and it was a little later and I'm not sure why he admitted this, but he basically said they were using the team resources to pay off the money they'd (Angelos) borrowed against the team so he treats "that payment" as part of team expense for the Family Ownership.

 

Once you're in, literally any one of us could own the team.  Give me a billion dollars in debt and 'approve' me as ownership and I can pay that loan off over time no problem and still run a dynamic Organization.  MLB just chooses not to align themselves with randomly less-wealthy people.  MLB ownership is a freaking money tree, they get to be exclusive because they only have 30 money trees so they can be selective.

 

The explosion of franchise values has caused financial hardship in any number of longer term ownership situations across Pro Sports where teams were bought for modestly less sums (like the Orioles situation) and the franchise values grew well outside of the means of those owners.  That's where the Orioles are.  The difference here is John desperately wants to keep his relevance as Pro Sports Executive and MLB would rather kick the Clown Show out.

 

So here's where were at...and this has been going on a while.  It's not John.  He doesn't know anything, but he's got a team of people trying to help him achieve his endstate of owning/running the team.  btw, Elias has to go for him to do that.

[dude]

So just coming back to this topic....John Angelos is not invited to the Area Development Party if he's not ownership of the Orioles. 

 

He just wants to leverage the Orioles brand as no-risk ante into the process.  He's bringing "The Orioles".

 

All of this is an entanglement that the State/City can use on behalf of John to force/encourage [whatever your word choice] the transition (when it's time).  He wants to be the cancer that has infiltrated the organ and there's no real way to get rid of the cancer without killing the organ, so you leave it alone, do what you can and hope it doesn't get worse.

[Steve55]

Only shot at a Battery type developement was screwed over by O'Malley building that stupid hotel outside centerfield.

[BSLMikeLowe]

I think the COVID experience might make MLB a little more wary about approving owners who are both leveraged to the max allowable amount and have little personal wealth to ride out something like that, or even a protracted labor dispute.