Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez Reportedly Laying Groundwork to Buy New York Mets

Could a New York Yankee and a Bronx-born girl become the new owners of the Mets? It would certainly add some interesting twists to the interleague rivarly between the teams. Would Mets fans embrace A.Rod owning their team?

We bet if he could bring home a championship for them the way he did with the Yankees, they’d be just fine with it.

It could happen, too, as Alex Rodriguez and fiancee Jennifer Lopez are reportedly laying the groundwork for just such a purchase. The Mets were in negotiations to be sold as recently as last December, but that deal ultimately fell through and current majority owner Fred Wilpon is still interested in selling.

According to a source at Variety, the superstar couple has retained the services of JPMorgan Chase to help them raise capital toward putting in a bid to take over the MLB franchise.

The New York Post was first to report the couple was interested in adding the team to their portfolio back in February, with their own source confirming the latest maneuvers, saying, “It’s real.”

Back in March, Rodriguez said on “The Tonight Show” of buying the Mets, “If the opportunity came up, I would certainly look at it.” Rodriguez even joked that he’d like Fallon to go in on the deal. Who knows, perhaps that conversation is happening for real now.

The combined net worth of Rodriguez and Lopez is approximately $700 million, but one can assume they won’t be looking to invest nearly that much in this venture. With the deal in its nascent stages, it’s impossible to say what kind of interest Rodriguez is looking to have.

As Variety pointed out, his teammate Derek Jeter similarly invested in the Miami Marlins, but only with a 4 percent financial interest. He put in $25 million toward the purchase price of $1.2 billion, with an assist from venture capitalist Bruce Sherman. When the Mets deal fell through, the bid for the team was sitting at $2.6 billion.

That deal fell apart because the Wilpons wanted to maintain control of the team for the next five years even after the sale, but there are no such control stipulations reportedly tied to this latest deal.

In fact, the bidder who backed out of the last deal — 8 percent stakeholder Steve Cohen — could still emerge as a potential buyer under these friendlier terms.

Regardless, it would take a pretty substantial partnership for Rodriguez and Lopez to afford the Mets, which is where JPMorgan Chase comes in.

With A.Rod’s baseball pedigree, and the fact that this team is also based in New York, fans will be paying close attention to how this one plays out to see if he will gain any control over the team, or just hold a financial interest in them.

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