Mike Ozanian of Forbes reports that Jeff Loria has a “handshake agreement” to sell the Miami Marlins. The price: $1.6 billion. Loria paid $158 million for the baseball team in 2002.
The identity of the buyer is not reported, but Ozanian says it’s a real estate developer from New York. As you know, however, Major League Baseball, with its antitrust agreement in hand, must approve any buyer, and they prefer owners who will not rock the boat. That said, Loria has been through the franchise sale rodeo before, having once owned the Expos. Major League Baseball’s tolerance of his ownership of his two teams has made him fabulously wealthy, so it’s not as if he’s the type that would necessarily rock the boat when it came to finding an acceptable buyer.
Stay tuned.
