Searching for Wu’s Plan B in wake of tax plan debacle | Holy Cross donor spat another story you saw first in Contrarian Boston | Penny pinching John Henry eyeing the Celtics bid | Globe gives platform to fringe group of student radicals and self-proclaimed Marxists | Teachers union’s misleading campaign to neuter the MCAS test | Guest opinion makes case for blockchain and digital asset technology |
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Ace in the hole? As he weighs a Celtics bid, Red Sox owner and billionaire John Henry has a trans-Atlantic pot of gold from which to draw
Henry has confirmed in the strongest possible way, short of just coming out and saying it, that he’s eyeing a multibillion-dollar bid for the Celtics.
And that kind of candor just doesn’t happen in the hush-hush world of professional sports team sales, where everyone is sworn to secrecy and leaks to friendly media sources are the order of the day.
The Boston Globe, which Henry owns and which effectively acts as state-owned media when it comes to the dealings of his business empire, ran a story on Friday that Henry’s Fenway Sports Group may explore a Celtics bid, citing a source with “direct knowledge.”
But even Henry, for all his massive wealth, is going to need all the extra billions he can scrounge up, and an investment partner or two as well, with NBA superstar LeBron James already on board.
The sale of the Celtics is expected to trigger a bidding war that could potentially push the team’s price tag as high as $6.5 billion, one long-time sports marketing executive tells Contrarian Boston.
However, when it comes to raising cash, Henry has another card to play here: the potential sale of his UK football club, Liverpool FC.
In a telling June interview with the London-based Financial Times, Henry ruled out selling the Red Sox and stressed his Boston ties.
But he made no mention of his UK football club, which has been the subject of speculation as to a potential sale for a year now.
In fact, Henry did not even respond to the part of the question related to whether he would ever sell Liverpool FC, according to Henry’s own paper, the Globe.
Henry and FSG did sell a minority stake in Liverpool FC last fall, netting between $100 million to $200 million, The Athletic reported. Such sales can be a way of gauging the ultimate value of a sports franchise.
Liverpool’s value is pegged at more than $5 billion, according to Forbes.
Henry’s foray into British soccer has followed a similar trajectory as his stewardship of the Red Sox. Strong success in the beginning has been followed by a disenchantment among fans, as ownership has declined to fork over big bucks for star players.
Henry’s newfound reputation as a miserly sports team owner has Celtics fans taking to social media to express their displeasure.
The freakout may ultimately be over nothing, though. Despite his billions, Henry faces formidable competition for the Celtics in the form of venture capitalist Steve Pagliuca, who is already a minority owner of the team.
File under: Inside job.
Merits of communism still up for debate? That’s the word via the Boston Globe, in a puff piece on today’s anti-Israel campus radicals
Here’s a detailed critique, from a long-time reporting colleague of ours, of a recent Globe story on the student radicals involved in the Gaza protests and campus encampments earlier this year.
The story, “Socialism’s at the core of pro-Palestinian movement’s next phase on college campuses,” offers outsized attention to a fringe group of self-proclaimed Marxists in Western Massachusetts, who are enamored with one of history’s most blood-soaked ideologies.
There is no mention of the tens of millions of people who died at the hands of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot - or any exploration of how seemingly highly-educated people can square their supposed humanitarian concerns with extreme political beliefs and the idolization of totalitarian leaders and movements.
Now that would be an interesting story, but alas, it was not the one that the Globe saw fit to offer its readers.
Our friend, a long-time local newshound, had this to say:
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