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Yankees News: Derek Jeter Team Owner?

By Lionel Olivo

Mar 4, 2015

Even though he retired, Derek Jeter is still swinging for the fences. He has made it known to the world that his ultimate goal is owning a professional sports franchise.

His latest comments regarding the subject where made at the launch party of his latest venture: The Players Tribune. The Players Tribune is a platform for players to tell their stories directly to the public. Think of it as twitter, but longer and just for athletes to tell their point of view.

While it might be foolish for us mere mortals to dream of buying a team, if anyone has the influence, money and gravitas to do it, it’s Derek Jeter. However, the road won’t be easy. As Michael Jordan can attest, success on the court or in Jeter’s case the field, does not transfer to the business of running a sports team.

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Among the hurdles he’ll have to clear is finding the money, building competent management and geting the majority of MLB owners to accept him into their very exclusive club of team owners.

For those of you keeping up with the news, you have realized that buying a baseball club is anything but cheap. The least expensive club, according to Forbes is the Tampa Bay Rays. They are valued at $485 million dollars. During his career, Jeter generated about $400 million including endorsements and his playing contracts. Even if he didn’t spend a dime of it, he’d be $85 million short.

However, it is worth noting that team values by Forbes are estimates. This is due to the fact that professional teams are private business organizations and as such, their financial information is not publicly available. The only way to know the real value of a team is to see for how much it sells for. The last team to reach the market was sold $2 billion dollars and it was the Los Angeles Dodgers. That team was purchased by a group of investors, which included NBA legend Magic Johnson.

In order to gain experience, given his name and influence over the game of baseball, Jeter may want to try being a minority owner before buying a team outright. The experience he gains here will alleviate his lack of sport business acumen while allowing him to remain close to the game he loves.

Last, but certainly not least would be securing approval from MLB and its owners. From this point of view there is no one the league would rather have involved in the business of baseball. “We have the utmost respect for Derek Jeter and think he would be great in any role with a club,” MLB spokesman Matt Bourne said.

Even though Jeter is facing long odds to own a team, he has never been one to shy away from a challenge. While it may take some time to see him evolve from slick-fielding shortstop into a crafty owner, we can be sure of one thing: he won’t rest until he achieves his goal.

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