Steve Cohen has bought the New York Mets
Mets fans rejoice as the Wilpons’ “National Nightmare” has ended.
Tdorante10 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
Years of heartbreak could finally be erased with a new ownership group arriving in Queens.
The past three decades have been torture for Mets fans. From heartbreaking playoff collapses, embarrassing off field incidents, and a penny-pinching front office, New York fans have learned to expect the unexpected. On September 14th, Steve Cohen, a hedge fund manager and lifelong Mets fan, reached a deal with the Wilpon and Katz families to buy 95% of the Mets for about $2.4 Billion, subject to approval of Major League Baseball owners. If approved, it would make Cohen the richest owner in baseball.
Steven A. Cohen, 64, was born in Great Neck, New York, on Long Island. “Uncle Stevie” as Mets fans have called him, actually grew up cheering for the Mets. He received an Economics degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. He got a job on Wall Street as a junior trader at Gruntal & Co. Cohen’s first day, he made an $8,000 profit. He began working his way up the ranks and by 1984, he was running his own trading group at Gruntal & Co. In 1992, he started S.A.C Capital Advisers, the biggest hedge fund on Wall Street.
However, Cohen has had his controversies. S.A.C Capital pleaded guilty to insider trading in 2013 and was required to pay $1.8 billion in fines. In 2016 he started another hedge fund, Point72. Currently, Cohen’s net worth is around $14 Billion. He also owns an art collection worth around $1 Billion, which has some strange works in it. Cohen was the real life inspiration for Bobby Axelrod from the show “Billions”.
The Wilpons have owned the Mets since 1986, the last time the Mets won a World Series. Since then, they have made the playoffs six time and lost in the World Series twice, both in heartbreaking fashion. The Mets are infamous for strange off-the-field incidents, such as the mascot flipping off fans and proclaiming formers players dead who are still alive. Andy Sims, a former Mets fan, said “Leave it to the Mets PR department to mess things up. I don’t think you could mismanage a team worse than what the Wilpons are doing, with the exception of [New York Knicks owner] James Dolan”. The Wilpons also have a history of meddling in the team’s operations. Over the years, they have made head scratching decisions, like hiring an agent as their General Manager. In December 2008, Fred Wilpon lost $700 Million when the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme collapsed. Since then, there have been speculations that the Wilpons would sell the Mets.
In December 2019, Tiki Barber, former Giants and University of Virginia running back, broke the news that the Mets were looking to sell. Days later, Barstool Sports reported that Steve Cohen was in negotiations to buy the Mets. In February, Barstool again reported that Steve Cohen had walked away from the negotiations. Then, the pandemic hit, and the sports world was put on hold. The Wilpons, who already need loans to pay the Mets expenses, knew that they needed to sell. A bidding war for the Mets took place between Cohen, a group lead by former New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez and his wife, singer Jennifer Lopez, and the owners of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils, Josh Harris and David Blitzer. Cohen managed to out-bid both J-Rod and the Harris/Blitzer groups in late August.
As the 2020 season wraps up with the Mets finish last in the NL East, Mets fans, very excited of the facts that they will soon have the richest owner in baseball, took to social media to celebrate. Some fans said this was the “greatest day in franchise history since October 27th, 1986,” which was game 7 of the 1986 World Series. The New York Daily News back cover proclaiming “our long national nightmare is over”. Camiel Sims, a Boston Red Sox fan, said “Maybe Mets fans will finally be happy.”. Many fans began calling for the Mets to sign Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto and Cy Young contender Trevor Bauer, two stars in this years free agent class, as well as extending current Mets right fielder, Michael Conforto. This deal is even better for Major League Baseball, the largest sale of a team in league history during a global pandemic will help boost revenue to the league, not to mention that the Mets play in New York City, the largest market in sports. With Cohen’s deep pockets and desire to win at everything he does, the possibilities are endless for the future the New York Mets.
