JR potentially selling the White Sox

[Jcool0]

Chicago-area billionaire Justin Ishbia has dropped his pursuit of the Minnesota Twins, The Athletic has learned, and will instead buy more shares from other limited partners to increase his existing minority stake in the Chicago White Sox.

People with knowledge of the discussions believe that the deal will allow Ishbia to take control of the team at some point by buying the shares of longtime owner Jerry Reinsdorf and other partners. But a White Sox official on Friday night disputed that notion, even though it would be unusual for prospective owners to make significant investments for minority shares without the promise of their stakes growing larger.

“Similar to an opportunity in 2021, White Sox limited partners have received an offer from a third party to purchase their shares in the team, providing liquidity for the limited partners on their long-term investment in the club,” White Sox vice-president of communications Scott Reifert said. “This offer to limited partners has no impact on the leadership or operations of the Chicago White Sox and does not provide a path to control.”

A representative for Ishbia declined to comment.

The development shocked the Twins, with some officials believing that their ownership situation might be resolved by Opening Day. Now, they’ve been left to scramble in their search for a new owner. The news couldn’t be worse for Twins fans, who dreamed Ishbia would bring a deep wallet and competitive fire to an organization in need, only to see him stay with a division rival.

It was during Ishbia’s pursuit of the Twins that the Reinsdorfs came to him and discussed increasing his share of the White Sox, according to a person briefed on the discussions who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The deal, which is being brokered by Chicago-area investment advisors BDT & MSD Partners, still needs league approval, according to a source briefed on discussions. But another source said that if Justin Ishbia takes control of the White Sox, he would be the lead and his brother Mat would be an investor, the reverse of the arrangement they have in Phoenix, where they own the NBA’s Suns and the WNBA’s Mercury.

White Sox limited partners were recently informed that an investor wanted to buy their shares at a franchise valuation around $1.8 billion, according to people briefed on the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly. While they aren’t required to sell, their stakes would be diluted by this new investor. The deadline for their decision is next Friday.

The Athletic has confirmed the buyer is Ishbia, who had been a limited partner of the team for years. Sportico reported in January that Ishbia and his brother had bought into the Sox limited partnership group four years ago. At the time, as the White Sox were ascendent on the field, Reinsdorf’s two sons, Michael, the president/CEO of the Chicago Bulls, and Jonathan, led a push to buy out the team’s limited partners, albeit at a valuation believed to be about half of what it is now.

Some of the partners sold, but many stuck around for a bigger potential payday. These limited partners can now sell their shares to Ishbia. Per team policy, the White Sox don’t reveal the names of their limited partners.

[nitetrain8603]

Chicago-area billionaire Justin Ishbia has dropped his pursuit of the Minnesota Twins, The Athletic has learned, and will instead buy more shares from other limited partners to increase his existing minority stake in the Chicago White Sox.

People with knowledge of the discussions believe that the deal will allow Ishbia to take control of the team at some point by buying the shares of longtime owner Jerry Reinsdorf and other partners. But a White Sox official on Friday night disputed that notion, even though it would be unusual for prospective owners to make significant investments for minority shares without the promise of their stakes growing larger.

“Similar to an opportunity in 2021, White Sox limited partners have received an offer from a third party to purchase their shares in the team, providing liquidity for the limited partners on their long-term investment in the club,” White Sox vice-president of communications Scott Reifert said. “This offer to limited partners has no impact on the leadership or operations of the Chicago White Sox and does not provide a path to control.”

A representative for Ishbia declined to comment.

The development shocked the Twins, with some officials believing that their ownership situation might be resolved by Opening Day. Now, they’ve been left to scramble in their search for a new owner. The news couldn’t be worse for Twins fans, who dreamed Ishbia would bring a deep wallet and competitive fire to an organization in need, only to see him stay with a division rival.

It was during Ishbia’s pursuit of the Twins that the Reinsdorfs came to him and discussed increasing his share of the White Sox, according to a person briefed on the discussions who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The deal, which is being brokered by Chicago-area investment advisors BDT & MSD Partners, still needs league approval, according to a source briefed on discussions. But another source said that if Justin Ishbia takes control of the White Sox, he would be the lead and his brother Mat would be an investor, the reverse of the arrangement they have in Phoenix, where they own the NBA’s Suns and the WNBA’s Mercury.

White Sox limited partners were recently informed that an investor wanted to buy their shares at a franchise valuation around $1.8 billion, according to people briefed on the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly. While they aren’t required to sell, their stakes would be diluted by this new investor. The deadline for their decision is next Friday.

The Athletic has confirmed the buyer is Ishbia, who had been a limited partner of the team for years. Sportico reported in January that Ishbia and his brother had bought into the Sox limited partnership group four years ago. At the time, as the White Sox were ascendent on the field, Reinsdorf’s two sons, Michael, the president/CEO of the Chicago Bulls, and Jonathan, led a push to buy out the team’s limited partners, albeit at a valuation believed to be about half of what it is now.

Some of the partners sold, but many stuck around for a bigger potential payday. These limited partners can now sell their shares to Ishbia. Per team policy, the White Sox don’t reveal the names of their limited partners.

This would be a godsend

[HomoSapien]

Jerry, sell the team you don't give a **** about. That’s us!

[kodo]

It won't but it is at a considerably lower rate and he can enjoy buying a team and tormenting another fan base. Let him move on Doug. Please for the love god, let him move on from the Bulls.

Haha, well sadly, the article is just about selling the White Sox. I think this is actually a continuation of an older story where he told the family to sell the White Sox after he died but to keep the Bulls. I think he doesn't believe in MLB's ability to grow in market value but does believe in the NBA's.

Yep even if he sells the Sox, that probably just cements that the family keeps the Bulls.
And I think Michael might be fine. I don't blame him for hiring AK he was a well regarded candidate at the time, and he's mainly stayed out of AK's way which is what you want an owner to do. Unfortunately AK has just been terrible, but if we ever do get a great PBO we'd want the owner to let him do his job.

The biggest negative I could say about Michael who hasn't had much time is that AK could have been fired by now.

[dougthonus]

Yep even if he sells the Sox, that probably just cements that the family keeps the Bulls.
And I think Michael might be fine. I don't blame him for hiring AK he was a well regarded candidate at the time, and he's mainly stayed out of AK's way which is what you want an owner to do. Unfortunately AK has just been terrible, but if we ever do get a great PBO we'd want the owner to let him do his job.

The biggest negative I could say about Michael who hasn't had much time is that AK could have been fired by now.

The other concern I have is that AK pitched a pretty specific plan around trading for win now players, and Michael Reinsdorf thought it was a good plan. The fact that he has kept AK here would seem to imply that he was/is on board with all these moves and believes that this strategy was sound, and that even after all this evidence, he still thinks AK just got unlucky.

[Dan Z]

Has he ever made a statement like this after a bad Bulls season?

"As the leader of this organization, that is my ultimate responsibility. There are no excuses,” he wrote, in part. “I want to thank you for continuing to support the team throughout what was an embarrassing season. You all deserved better.”

[Red8911]

We are still screwed since Michael is the one really in charge right now. Jerry is old and doubt he even gets involved anymore.

[Jcool0]

Read on Twitter

[dougthonus]

Read on Twitter

He hasn't been great for the Suns, but he was willing to pump insane amounts of money into them on his plan. In baseball, where there is no salary cap, his strategy would be far more effective than in the NBA where he is now hamstrung by all these rules.

I would guess if Ishbia becomes the majority owner that it would be a huge improvement for Sox fans.

[Jeffster81]

Jerry, sell the team you don't give a **** about. That’s us!

And while you are at it Jerry, sell the White Sox also.

[League Circles]

Yep even if he sells the Sox, that probably just cements that the family keeps the Bulls.
And I think Michael might be fine. I don't blame him for hiring AK he was a well regarded candidate at the time, and he's mainly stayed out of AK's way which is what you want an owner to do. Unfortunately AK has just been terrible, but if we ever do get a great PBO we'd want the owner to let him do his job.

The biggest negative I could say about Michael who hasn't had much time is that AK could have been fired by now.

The other concern I have is that AK pitched a pretty specific plan around trading for win now players, and Michael Reinsdorf thought it was a good plan. The fact that he has kept AK here would seem to imply that he was/is on board with all these moves and believes that this strategy was sound, and that even after all this evidence, he still thinks AK just got unlucky.

He could think AK made some mistakes and still think he's worth giving a continued look at. Not that I agree but just noting that just because a guy still has a job does not in any way establish that his boss supports all the moves he's made. If Vuc had been a good player instead of a not good player his plan might have worked pretty well.

[dougthonus]

He could think AK made some mistakes and still think he's worth giving a continued look at. Not that I agree but just noting that just because a guy still has a job does not in any way establish that his boss supports all the moves he's made. If Vuc had been a good player instead of a not good player his plan might have worked pretty well.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "might have worked pretty well". I thought this team's upside was was fringe 2nd round playoff team (ie, might make it out of the first round if everything breaks their way), and their downside was lottery team over the three year stretch the group was set to be together.

I thought the team he inherited had pretty much the same upside/downside risk, except that it cost a ton less, was much younger, had way more pivot options, and didn't require trading our future assets to put together. If we kept that group together and had Coby + Ayo + Zach + Lauri + Carter + Wagner + assume we still sign say Caruso and Ball as we target FAs that didn't cost first round picks, and that team has just as much upside as the one we actually put together without all of the downside risk.

Now it may not have ultimately worked out a whole lot better for that squad, but it couldn't have worked out worse really because our actual results were poor records, not keeping our lotto picks, and no meaningful success. Even if that group won less games and got better draft picks, that probably would have fed back into a better scenario than the one we actually experienced. The reality though is we likely would have had better results, better assets, better contract flexibility, and lower costs than we do today.

Strategically, we implemented a low reward, high risk plan, and it has turned out exactly like you would expect to a low reward, high risk plan to turn out. It's funny because there are tons and tons of financial instruments that are exactly like this that all the smart people sell to the dumb people, and it always blows my mind that they exist, but the reality is most people really have no idea how to do good analysis, even experts in their fields often buy the crappy stuff.

[DuckIII]

One down?

[Dominator83]

Yep even if he sells the Sox, that probably just cements that the family keeps the Bulls.
And I think Michael might be fine. I don't blame him for hiring AK he was a well regarded candidate at the time, and he's mainly stayed out of AK's way which is what you want an owner to do. Unfortunately AK has just been terrible, but if we ever do get a great PBO we'd want the owner to let him do his job.

The biggest negative I could say about Michael who hasn't had much time is that AK could have been fired by now.

The other concern I have is that AK pitched a pretty specific plan around trading for win now players, and Michael Reinsdorf thought it was a good plan. The fact that he has kept AK here would seem to imply that he was/is on board with all these moves and believes that this strategy was sound, and that even after all this evidence, he still thinks AK just got unlucky.

I know I've said this in other threads , but I'm still worried about AKME having a fresh slate of 1sts to trade. I can see it right now , trading away our 2026,2028,2030 1sts to bring in Paul George and Julius Randle.

[Jcool0]

Read on Twitter

He hasn't been great for the Suns, but he was willing to pump insane amounts of money into them on his plan. In baseball, where there is no salary cap, his strategy would be far more effective than in the NBA where he is now hamstrung by all these rules.

I would guess if Ishbia becomes the majority owner that it would be a huge improvement for Sox fans.

His brother is the one in charge of the Sun's. Who did do this:

Read on Twitter

For the White Sox Justin would run things with Matt a secondary owner.

He would most likely get started on this right away and with the Ricketts being cheap right now. He could make up market share fast.

Read on Twitter

[dougthonus]

Read on Twitter

He hasn't been great for the Suns, but he was willing to pump insane amounts of money into them on his plan. In baseball, where there is no salary cap, his strategy would be far more effective than in the NBA where he is now hamstrung by all these rules.

I would guess if Ishbia becomes the majority owner that it would be a huge improvement for Sox fans.

His brother is the one in charge of the Sun's. Who did do this:

Read on Twitter

For the White Sox Justin would run things with Matt a secondary owner.

He would most likely get started on this right away and with the Ricketts being cheap right now. He could make up market share fast.

Read on Twitter

Ahh good to know, I just saw the last name and assumed it was the same guy.

[nitetrain8603]

Read on Twitter

He hasn't been great for the Suns, but he was willing to pump insane amounts of money into them on his plan. In baseball, where there is no salary cap, his strategy would be far more effective than in the NBA where he is now hamstrung by all these rules.

I would guess if Ishbia becomes the majority owner that it would be a huge improvement for Sox fans.

They're going to have the reverse arrangement here. Justin, his brother, will be in charge with Mat owning a high share, but not handling day to day. Mat played basketball at MSU and is a huge basketball nut. Conversely, Justin is building a house in Winnetka, and is a huge baseball nut. It's why when the Twins went up for sale, he pounced on that and most Twins folks thought the sale would be in place by opening day.

Sounds like JR called the Ishbias once he found out they were interested in the Twins. Basically, if this deal does happen, it makes the Sox more liquid, meaning they would have more funds to say build a stadium. Now why would Justin do it? More importantly, why would he back out of his sale with the Twins to do it?

If you look at Baltimore's strategy for Angelos to sell, it's very similar. JR has not hid the fact that he doesn't want to pay the huge capital gains tax when he sells which is why he wants to wait until he passes away. If you look at what Baltimore did with Rubenstein's group, they bought all the minority shares, took control with the promise that they would buy Angelos' share once he passed away.

The Ishbia's are pretty aggressive in their moves. He's not doing this to have control of the White Sox in 5-10 years. He's doing it, and if it goes through, to have control by the end of this year. Jerry will keep his stake, it'll be sold when he dies like he wants, the kids get to keep the money, and Sox fans get what they want which is a new owner who will be aggressive.

For Ishbia, if you have a team all pretty much a lock for you to purchase, the only reason to back out of that would be because there's another team that's more attractive. The White Sox play in the third largest market. The valuation was 2.05 billion last year. He's buying the minority owner's shares at 1.8 valuation (decision has to be made by next week). At 2.05, if you actually invest in the team, that's pretty low. You could make crazy money if you pump money into the product.

As someone who grew up a Sox fan but also left distasted, this would be an awesome move. If you're a fan of Chicago sports, but not the Sox, you should feel good to about it. It would force Tom Ricketts to stop competing against the White Sox and claim poor, but rather heavily invest again, and compete against the rest of baseball again. Same with the Bulls. Bears haven't had this problem in recent years, thankfully.

I've always had this theory that Chicago owners come to town to find themselves realizing they don't need to compete against the teams in their respective sports, only the sports teams in their respective towns. Chicago, as a whole, has had cheap ownership who has always cried poor. This would, in a ways, reverse that.

[League Circles]

He could think AK made some mistakes and still think he's worth giving a continued look at. Not that I agree but just noting that just because a guy still has a job does not in any way establish that his boss supports all the moves he's made. If Vuc had been a good player instead of a not good player his plan might have worked pretty well.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "might have worked pretty well". I thought this team's upside was was fringe 2nd round playoff team (ie, might make it out of the first round if everything breaks their way), and their downside was lottery team over the three year stretch the group was set to be together.

I thought the team he inherited had pretty much the same upside/downside risk, except that it cost a ton less, was much younger, had way more pivot options, and didn't require trading our future assets to put together. If we kept that group together and had Coby + Ayo + Zach + Lauri + Carter + Wagner + assume we still sign say Caruso and Ball as we target FAs that didn't cost first round picks, and that team has just as much upside as the one we actually put together without all of the downside risk.

Now it may not have ultimately worked out a whole lot better for that squad, but it couldn't have worked out worse really because our actual results were poor records, not keeping our lotto picks, and no meaningful success. Even if that group won less games and got better draft picks, that probably would have fed back into a better scenario than the one we actually experienced. The reality though is we likely would have had better results, better assets, better contract flexibility, and lower costs than we do today.

Strategically, we implemented a low reward, high risk plan, and it has turned out exactly like you would expect to a low reward, high risk plan to turn out. It's funny because there are tons and tons of financial instruments that are exactly like this that all the smart people sell to the dumb people, and it always blows my mind that they exist, but the reality is most people really have no idea how to do good analysis, even experts in their fields often buy the crappy stuff.

I just meant that if Vuc was ever, in his career, a good all star caliber big man like AK thought he was, instead of a below average starting center like he always actually was even when he was an "all-star", we probably could have been a good playoff team. Like if Vuc was instead prime Jermaine O'Neal lol.

[SearsTower]

The Reinsdorf hatred on this board, and really, among Bulls fans in general across all social media, borders on complete derangement.

[jnrjr79]

The Reinsdorf hatred on this board, and really, among Bulls fans in general across all social media, borders on complete derangement.

If you’re a White Sox fan, being displeased with Reinsdorf is the furthest thing from derangement.