Larry Lucchino to sell the Worcester Red Sox to Diamond Baseball Holdings

Van Everyman

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I have never understood the disdain for him on this board. He is a critical component of Camden Yards and Petco being built, Fenway being rebuilt, and the Red Sox being successful this century.
Many posters seem to believe that Larry was behind a lot of the palace intrigue with the Sox over the years – meddling with Theo (and leading to the gorilla suit), smearing Tito on the way out the door (courtesy of The Dentist), and messing up negotiations with Lester (lowballing him to the tune of $70M). The thing is, I have no idea if any of that is actually true, partly true or just rumor. But that viewpoint is a thing.

What I do know is that I have a picture of me and the 2004 trophy and Larry is in it because he brought it to DC.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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And at the end of the day, it is a business. He bought something, made changes, and likely added significant value to the company and its partners, and now, for whatever reason, he wants to sell it.

I have never understood the disdain for him on this board. He is a critical component of Camden Yards and Petco being built, Fenway being rebuilt, and the Red Sox being successful this century.
I think personally my problem back in the early days of the new ownership his primary weekly media obligation was early AF on the Dennis & Callahan show. Larry came off as a smartass and ornery, but in retrospect that is exactly the attitude he should have had with those guys in that spot...
 

Yahtzee!

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Many posters seem to believe that Larry was behind a lot of the palace intrigue with the Sox over the years – meddling with Theo (and leading to the gorilla suit), smearing Tito on the way out the door (courtesy of The Dentist), and messing up negotiations with Lester (lowballing him to the tune of $70M). The thing is, I have no idea if any of that is actually true, partly true or just rumor. But that viewpoint is a thing.

What I do know is that I have a picture of me and the 2004 trophy and Larry is in it because he brought it to DC.
I was on that flight down to DC, trophy was sitting across the aisle from me.
 

gryoung

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I’ve only made the trip to Polar Park one time, but I was pretty impressed. Great site lines. Good concessions. Excellent beer choices.

Apparently they led all of minor league baseball in attendance.

Looking forward to getting there more next season. Should be some of the top prospects up at some point.

I don’t get all the moaning. Maybe disgruntled Pawtucket fans. Understandable.
 

Diamond Don Aase

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I’ve only made the trip to Polar Park one time, but I was pretty impressed. Great site lines. Good concessions. Excellent beer choices.

Apparently they led all of minor league baseball in attendance.

Looking forward to getting there more next season. Should be some of the top prospects up at some point.

I don’t get all the moaning. Maybe disgruntled Pawtucket fans. Understandable.
Worcester was fifth in the International League in attendance in 2023 and also drew fewer fans last season than the Albuquerque Isotopes of the PCL and the Dayton Dragons of the Midwest League.

Conflating fifth place with first is at least on-brand for the parent organization.
 

soxhop411

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Being sold to Diamond baseball holdings
Diamond Baseball Holdings has reached an agreement to buy the Worcester Red Sox, the Red Sox’ Triple A team, according to an industry source.

The WooSox’ 35-year lease to play at Polar Park, which opened three years ago, remains intact.

Larry Lucchino, the principal owner of the ball club that he helped move from its longtime home in Pawtucket, R.I., and the former president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox, is expected to stay on in his role as chairman.

“We have no news or announcements at this point,” a spokesperson for the WooSox said via text message
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/11/30/sports/worcester-red-sox-sold/
 

Max Power

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Diamond Baseball Holdings was founded two years ago, not long after Major League Baseball gained control of Minor League Baseball and contracted it so that each of the 30 big league teams had exactly four minor league affiliates for a total of 120 in all.

The WooSox would become the group’s 27th team.

DBH is led by executive chairman Pat Battle and CEO Peter Freund. Among its other non-Red Sox teams are the Yankees’ Triple A affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders, as well as the Triple A affiliates of the Dodgers, Cubs, Cardinals, Orioles, Braves, Twins, and Rockies.
Should one company own over 1/5 of all minor league teams? I guess they don't compete like MLB ones do, but it seems weird.
 
Mar 30, 2023
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As to selling the WooSox, deciding at 78 that he wants to step back and smell the roses seems pretty smart to me. He has no obligation whatsoever to sell to a local buyer. He has not obligations to any fans period. None of us helped finance his purchase or helped him run the business. That he has expressed a willingness to pursue such a buyer in the first instance is a bonus.
Haha, really? The taxpayers quite literally financed the business and helped him run it by building its place of production.

I''m always amazed (and depressed) when someone defends a rich and powerful person who does something shitty with some variation of the "it's a business" rationale. Break that statement down and it amounts to "you''re right to be an asshole if it makes you money."
 
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mauf

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Amen. Lucchino was the CEO when the Sox broke through in 2004, and had a hand in hiring Theo and Tito. People can blame him for individual moves and non-moves (which almost certainly assumes a lot of facts that none of us really know), but he was part of what most Boston sports fans view as the most important, and indeed life changing championship in Boston sports history, and then he was part of three more.

As to selling the WooSox, deciding at 78 that he wants to step back and smell the roses seems pretty smart to me. He has no obligation whatsoever to sell to a local buyer. He has not obligations to any fans period. None of us helped finance his purchase or helped him run the business. That he has expressed a willingness to pursue such a buyer in the first instance is a bonus.
My view of Lucchino is more mixed. LL feuded openly with Theo, then hired Bobby Valentine almost immediately once he was gone. It’s possible we won in spite of LL more than because of him. But I wouldn’t deny him credit for the Fenway renovations, and at the end of the day he was at the helm for the most successful run in the club’s history, which has to count for something.

But that’s a whole other issue.

I have no issue with LL selling the WooSox. Do people actually think it would be better for him to retain ownership of the club through his twilight years, then bequeath it to a family member or charitable foundation?
 
Mar 30, 2023
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I have no issue with LL selling the WooSox. Do people actually think it would be better for him to retain ownership of the club through his twilight years, then bequeath it to a family member or charitable foundation?
I think people would think it would be better if he didn't rip an institution away from a community that nurtured it for decades in order to get a tax-payer provided windfall somewhere else and then immediately cash out.
 

YTF

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I think people would think it would be better if he didn't rip an institution away from a community that nurtured it for decades in order to get a tax-payer provided windfall somewhere else and then immediately cash out.
Weren't there a couple of attempts by LL & company to build a new park in Providence and Pawtucket? And IIRC there was a signed agreement in place with one of those cities that went sideways.
 

Beomoose

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Should one company own over 1/5 of all minor league teams? I guess they don't compete like MLB ones do, but it seems weird.
Doesn't seem great.
Weren't there a couple of attempts by LL & company to build a new park in Providence and Pawtucket? And IIRC there was a signed agreement in place with one of those cities that went sideways.
"Went sideways" doing a lot here. LL's ownership group is pretty far from blameless about the decision to bail in favor of W.
 

Ale Xander

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Quite unlikely that anyone in the area could put together a bid in the same area code as MegaMiLB, LLC's.. But Larry was almost certainly aware of that when he made his fatuous statement about wanting to sell locally.
How many more teams would Diamond need to buy for DOJ/FTC to start to investigate?

Kind of getting sick of them tbh.

disappointed that the tri-city ValleyCats settled a month ago but will be interesting to see a future challenge to the antitrust exemption but that’s an issue for another forum
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Quite unlikely that anyone in the area could put together a bid in the same area code as MegaMiLB, LLC's.. But Larry was almost certainly aware of that when he made his fatuous statement about wanting to sell locally.
Then what should he have said? Or what should he have done? Sold it for under market price?
 
Mar 30, 2023
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Then what should he have said? Or what should he have done? Sold it for under market price?
He could've not bought a beloved community institution expressly for the purpose of using tax-payer funds to personally enrich himself, ripping the institution from the community itself to do so, and then immediately cashed out, while paying lip service to an idea of local ownership that he had no intention of actually following through on, and then sold it to a group that has no connection to the community that currently supports the institution and would not hesitate to subsequently rip it away again in the future if it makes financial sense for them to do so.

For 38 years this team was owned by someone who cared about the community that supported it, was from the community that supported it, and never would have considered so callously screwing over that community. Now, thanks to Larry Lucchino, it no longer is.

How is it so hard for so many people to see that using the unique emotional ties that sports teams create to extort local governments for personal financial gain is not cool?
 

bosockboy

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He could've not bought a beloved community institution expressly for the purpose of using tax-payer funds to personally enrich himself, ripping the institution from the community itself to do so, and then immediately cashed out, while paying lip service to an idea of local ownership that he had no intention of actually following through on, and then sold it to a group that has no connection to the community that currently supports the institution and would not hesitate to subsequently rip it away again in the future if it makes financial sense for them to do so.

For 38 years this team was owned by someone who cared about the community that supported it, was from the community that supported it, and never would have considered so callously screwing over that community. Now, thanks to Larry Lucchino, it no longer is.

How is it so hard for so many people to see that using the unique emotional ties that sports teams create to extort local governments for personal financial gain is not cool?
Did that 38 year owner have a gun to their head? Takes two to tango.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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How is it so hard for so many people to see that using the unique emotional ties that sports teams create to extort local governments for personal financial gain is not cool?
I get the emotional part. But I don’t get the whole blaming LL for Pawtucket’s loss, and “extortion”, and having this evil plan to enrich himself all along stuff. Do you think the town Fathers and Mothers of Worcester are kicking themselves today for having been taken advantage of by this slick city charlatan?

I think LL would have been very happy to keep to team in Pawtucket or Providence but when that didn’t happen and the Worcester arose, he did what was best for business and baseball. We LOVED going to McCoy, and went there a ton. More than we would have gone to Worcester. But the Worcester product, once the parking gets fixed (and Pawtucket was no great shakes for parking and egress) is a much better product, and that is part of the reason why the value of the team went up. It’s also a good time for Minor League baseball values, perhaps due to scarcity from the cutbacks that I don’t think LL knew were coming. Although I am happy to be shown that he was on the committee that made that decision, in which case I would reconsider that part of my opinion.
 
Mar 30, 2023
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I think LL would have been very happy to keep to team in Pawtucket or Providence but when that didn’t happen and the Worcester arose, he did what was best for business and baseball.
He would've been happy to keep the team in Rhode Island if the taxpayers paid for it. Like, yeah, obviously it's good for business if you can get a local government to foot your capital costs and assume the risk while you retain the profits for yourself. It still makes you an asshole.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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He would've been happy to keep the team in Rhode Island if the taxpayers paid for it. Like, yeah, obviously it's good for business if you can get a local government to foot your capital costs and assume the risk while you retain the profits for yourself. It still makes you an asshole.
And when they wouldn’t he went to Worcester where the taxpayers happily footed the costs. And I think they would do it again if the situation arose.

I totally understand the distaste of having a team ripped from a city. I don’t understand the feeling that LL is some evil ogre here. He did what dozens and dozens of sports owners and thousands of other business owners have done, which is what is best for business, which may include moving the business. I don’t think he lied or operated in bad faith at all here. And he reached an age where he was ready to retire and he took the best (only?) option offered.
 

YTF

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He would've been happy to keep the team in Rhode Island if the taxpayers paid for it. Like, yeah, obviously it's good for business if you can get a local government to foot your capital costs and assume the risk while you retain the profits for yourself. It still makes you an asshole.
Why do local governments offer tax breaks and other incentives to get businesses to relocate to their area and shouldn't they be expected to succeed?
 
Mar 30, 2023
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Why do local governments offer tax breaks and other incentives to get businesses to relocate to their area and shouldn't they be expected to succeed?
If it's a conventional business, it might be because the local government wants to add jobs or facilitate the development of new industry. If it's a sports team, it's because billionaires have spent the last 30 years playing on the emotions inherent to the sports industry to convince local governments to give them money, even though it's been proven time and time again that publicly financed stadia do not economically benefit the local areas themselves.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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If it's a conventional business, it might be because the local government wants to add jobs or facilitate the development of new industry. If it's a sports team, it's because billionaires have spent the last 30 years playing on the emotions inherent to the sports industry to convince local governments to give them money, even though it's been proven time and time again that publicly financed stadia do not economically benefit the local areas themselves.
True, but they provide social pride in many cases that seems to be sufficient that the programs continue even though they are not economically beneficial. And for Worcester here, it was the lynchpin of a neighborhood revitalization whose value can’t be measured simply against the cost of the charity to the team.
 
Mar 30, 2023
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And when they wouldn’t he went to Worcester where the taxpayers happily footed the costs. And I think they would do it again if the situation arose.

I totally understand the distaste of having a team ripped from a city. I don’t understand the feeling that LL is some evil ogre here. He did what dozens and dozens of sports owners and thousands of other business owners have done, which is what is best for business, which may include moving the business. I don’t think he lied or operated in bad faith at all here. And he reached an age where he was ready to retire and he took the best (only?) option offered.
I guess I just fundamentally disagree with the idea that a person can't be criticized for something they did as long as it made personal financial sense for them.
 
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Mar 30, 2023
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True, but they provide social pride in many cases that seems to be sufficient that the programs continue even though they are not economically beneficial. And for Worcester here, it was the lynchpin of a neighborhood revitalization whose value can’t be measured simply against the cost of the charity to the team.
The idea of stadia as "lynchpins of neighborhood revitalization" is largely a myth. And if Worcester's goal was simply to revitalize Kelley Square, it would have been far more effective for the government to invest in housing and transportation.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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I guess I just fundamentally disagree with the idea that a person can't be criticized for something they did as long as it made personal financial sense for them.
that’s not what I said
Nothing. He shouldn't have brought "local ownership" into at all. It was a gratuitous misdirection.
username checks out :). I said we loved games in Pawtucket, I’m on your side. And we have zero knowledge if there was a local alternative. Do you think LL went into this sale with the buyer already in the bag? I’d like to think, and I believe @Midnight Ryder Jones would agree, that if a local buyer had popped up, especially one with more money, he would have sold locally. Had a local buyer shown up with a slightly lower bid it would have been interesting to see the result. But we never heard of an alternative offer . . . Should LL have just waited for that local buyer to arise a year or five from now?
The idea of stadia as "lynchpins of neighborhood revitalization" is largely a myth. And if Worcester's goal was simply to revitalize Kelley Square, it would have been far more effective for the government to invest in housing and transportation.
There are many ways to revitalize a neighborhood. Worcester in 2023 is a whole lot different than Worcester in 1993 or even 2008. It has a higher population than Providence does. This opportunity presented itself and the city took it. Were they regretful of the choice twelve months ago? Are they now? If not then I’m not sure how you can say this was a bad choice for them. And the population is up 15% in the past twenty years, so I think housing has preceded this development.
 
Mar 30, 2023
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There are many ways to revitalize a neighborhood. Worcester in 2023 is a whole lot different than Worcester in 1993 or even 2008. It has a higher population than Providence does. This opportunity presented itself and the city took it. Were they regretful of the choice twelve months ago? Are they now? If not then I’m not sure how you can say this was a bad choice for them. And the population is up 15% in the past twenty years, so I think housing has preceded this development.
The population of Worcester has increased, but the housing supply hasn't even come even close to increasing proportionally. And this isn't a problem unique to Worcester; Massachusetts is in the midst of a state-wide housing crisis, largely because local governments here (like in much of America) have spent the last ~80 years making it extremely difficult to build housing (usually with racist and classist motives in doing so). The fact that governments make it harder to build housing while literally subsidizing stadia for billionaires is gross, and Larry Lucchino is gross for taking advantage of that for personal gain. The fact that, as you pointed out, countless other sports owners have been doing for decades all over America doesn't exonerate him.
 

P'tucket rhymes with...

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that’s not what I said
username checks out :). I said we loved games in Pawtucket, I’m on your side. And we have zero knowledge if there was a local alternative. Do you think LL went into this sale with the buyer already in the bag? I’d like to think, and I believe @Midnight Ryder Jones would agree, that if a local buyer had popped up, especially one with more money, he would have sold locally. Had a local buyer shown up with a slightly lower bid it would have been interesting to see the result. But we never heard of an alternative offer . . . Should LL have just waited for that local buyer to arise a year or five from now?
I'm not really arguing from the point of view that LL abandoned Pawtucket and should burn in hell or do penance forever, nor do I think he was somehow morally obliged to sell locally and/or at a lower price than he would otherwise get. But a nineteen-day span between his announcement about intending to sell and identifying the purchaser makes me suspect there's a very good chance the sale was in the bag at the time of the initial announcement, or that he had a pretty good idea of where it was going. There was no reason for him to create an expectation that he was going to try to sell locally, just as there will be no reason for his inevitable proclamation that no local groups emerged as viable during his exhaustive nineteen day search. If you're going to take the money and run, just fucking do it and get lost.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Considering the lack of any local buyer popping up during those days or after the announcement of the buyer, I expect there were no local offers and I don’t know how long LL should have to wait for one to arise. It is quite conceivable the buyers approached LL out of the blue with a great offer and he made at least a token effort to find an alternative, so yeah, it was in the bag. We will never know for sure. But he did at least let folks know this was on the market as opposed to just announcing a sale.

If he hadn’t announced the team was for sale and just taken the money would you be OK with that?

We have no idea if he needed to close this by a certain deadline. We have no idea about a whole lot of this.
 

Van Everyman

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As a sort of distant observer, I always assumed that LL bought the Paw Sox to stabilize the park situation as a kind of favor to/special project for Henry and Werner. Not necessarily to move the team per se but to explore all the options and not let the problem fester. Then, once resolved to sell it to someone with deep pockets so the situation would remain stable for the foreseeable future.

Is that not what happened here? I do feel badly for the Pawtucket faithful but it seems like this was not a particularly nefarious process, but rather a somewhat cold hearted business decision designed to minimize any sort of risk to or uncertainty for the major league franchise. That it went to a Gateway City similarly in need like Worcester may be cold comfort to Pawtucket fans but it isn’t a bad outcome IMO.
 

Beomoose

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He would've been happy to keep the team in Rhode Island if the taxpayers paid for it. Like, yeah, obviously it's good for business if you can get a local government to foot your capital costs and assume the risk while you retain the profits for yourself. It still makes you an asshole.
He had an agreement with RI and Pawtucket for a roughly $90m ballpark, the team paying for a bit less than half and the rest split between city and state, signed by the Governor in 2018. The team's cited reason for bailing on that agreement was RI refusing to guarantee the bonds in the wake of G38's videogame company mess. But, within months of the may 2017 announcement they would build a new Ballpark in Pawtucket, the ownership had started negotiating with Worcester for what became the Polar Park deal. So, an ultimately $160m ballpark agreement with the city and state covering $100m and the team's payments for their $60m massively back-loaded. This wasn't a case of "they couldn't get a deal" in RI, or even that they tried to use Worcester as a stalking horse to drive up RI's investment, they seem to have detected pretty early on that W would cut them a sweetheart agreement and went for it.
 

The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa

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I'm not really arguing from the point of view that LL abandoned Pawtucket and should burn in hell or do penance forever, nor do I think he was somehow morally obliged to sell locally and/or at a lower price than he would otherwise get. But a nineteen-day span between his announcement about intending to sell and identifying the purchaser makes me suspect there's a very good chance the sale was in the bag at the time of the initial announcement, or that he had a pretty good idea of where it was going. There was no reason for him to create an expectation that he was going to try to sell locally, just as there will be no reason for his inevitable proclamation that no local groups emerged as viable during his exhaustive nineteen day search. If you're going to take the money and run, just fucking do it and get lost.
I think you are exacty right, and the bolded part is key. I find it hard to believe that a more locally based investor, or short of that, a non-conglomerate investor who could plant local roots, might eventually emerge to purchase one of the marquee teams in minor league baseball, *if* LL allowed enough time for a market to develop. For the short amount of time that lapsed between announcing the team was for sale to the time a buyer was announced, it is highly unlikely that any one could have put together a legitimate purchase proposal from scratch (unless they were already wealthy enough to have $50 million in loose change rattling around in their pockets).

One other interesting thing to note is that this summer, Worcester's city manager attempted to dissolve the special Ballpark Commission, a citizens' board designed to "overseeing the ballpark lease agreement and the financial status of the ballpark facilities, issuing approvals, permits, and licenses for events, and keeping the city manager informed of ballpark issues." Instead the ballpark would have been overseen internally by the city's department of public facilities. In October, city council overruled the city manager's plan and kept the board in tact.

Given that the city manager's office has been in the bag for this ownership group from the beginning, I would not be surprised if the sale to Diamond was agreed to in July and one of their asks was for the ballpark commission to get dissolved and its oversight placed in the administration's hands, both to increase the team's ability to influence decisions and to decrease transparency (and if for nothing else, the city manager's office is excellent at obfuscation and running interference for its favorite stakeholders).
 

OBPercent1

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He had an agreement with RI and Pawtucket for a roughly $90m ballpark, the team paying for a bit less than half and the rest split between city and state, signed by the Governor in 2018. The team's cited reason for bailing on that agreement was RI refusing to guarantee the bonds in the wake of G38's videogame company mess. But, within months of the may 2017 announcement they would build a new Ballpark in Pawtucket, the ownership had started negotiating with Worcester for what became the Polar Park deal. So, an ultimately $160m ballpark agreement with the city and state covering $100m and the team's payments for their $60m massively back-loaded. This wasn't a case of "they couldn't get a deal" in RI, or even that they tried to use Worcester as a stalking horse to drive up RI's investment, they seem to have detected pretty early on that W would cut them a sweetheart agreement and went for it.
This is very accurate. Just a few things to add to it . When Mondor died he left the team to his widow and gave Mike & Lou each a piece of the team. Lucchino and the other folks bought it for around 25 million . Lou took his buyout , and bought another AAA team and passed away before he was able to see his new stadium open for the Omaha Storm Chasers. Mike is still with them in a " title " only role. They brought Skeffington in to get a new deal done in Providence, and if anyone was going to get it done it was him. He died not long after while trying to get the deal done. They were working to try to get the deal done, but LL has been around long enough to not pull all his eggs in one basket. They still had a deal with RI, and at the last minute the state tried to double the cost of the teams investment . The state figured they would never leave, and LL called out their bluff by having Worcester in their back pocket.

Flags fly forever and LL had a major part in bringing them to Boston, and remember he is a lawyer by trade so he always wants to win a deal. They had an offer over a year ago to sell the Woosox, and passed on it. They got a Godfather offer recently ( my guess is for close to 75 million) , and would have been foolish to pass it up. When LL when on a few weeks ago he mentioned the team was for sale they already had the Godfather offer in hand. He should not have said the " local ownership" part but he knew he would get roasted anyway. The guy is 78 and has had a HOF career, and some medical issues over the past several years let him do his thing and cash out .He still has an ownership stake in Fenway Sports Group, and is staying on in Worcester in the Chairman role.
 

YTF

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This is very accurate. Just a few things to add to it . When Mondor died he left the team to his widow and gave Mike & Lou each a piece of the team. Lucchino and the other folks bought it for around 25 million . Lou took his buyout , and bought another AAA team and passed away before he was able to see his new stadium open for the Omaha Storm Chasers. Mike is still with them in a " title " only role. They brought Skeffington in to get a new deal done in Providence, and if anyone was going to get it done it was him. He died not long after while trying to get the deal done. They were working to try to get the deal done, but LL has been around long enough to not pull all his eggs in one basket. They still had a deal with RI, and at the last minute the state tried to double the cost of the teams investment . The state figured they would never leave, and LL called out their bluff by having Worcester in their back pocket.

Flags fly forever and LL had a major part in bringing them to Boston, and remember he is a lawyer by trade so he always wants to win a deal. They had an offer over a year ago to sell the Woosox, and passed on it. They got a Godfather offer recently ( my guess is for close to 75 million) , and would have been foolish to pass it up. When LL when on a few weeks ago he mentioned the team was for sale they already had the Godfather offer in hand. He should not have said the " local ownership" part but he knew he would get roasted anyway. The guy is 78 and has had a HOF career, and some medical issues over the past several years let him do his thing and cash out .He still has an ownership stake in Fenway Sports Group, and is staying on in Worcester in the Chairman role.
Thanks for shedding a bit of light on things.
 

mauf

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Here’s a puff piece about the deal in the Worcester paper. LL is staying on as the chairman and still holds a minority stake. It’s unclear if $70M is the purchase price or the valuation of the club (with LL and two others retaining minority stakes, I assume the club is valued at $70M and the money changing hands is less than that, but the article doesn’t explicitly say that.)

https://www.telegram.com/story/sports/mlb/woosox/2023/12/07/diamond-baseball-holdings-peter-freund-pat-battle-purchase-worcester-red-sox/71819245007/