Joey Saputo Meets The Media Concerning Montreal's Bid For Mls

[gregro]

Maybe "worth" is a poor choice of words.

At $40 mil, even if people are willing to pay it, it is a very poor investment.


That remains to be seen. The only way to know if it is a poor investment or not is to wait a few years and see what the value of the franchise is.

I have to believe that these guys are pretty smart and have read the financial prospectus before investing but then again, look at our economy right now. So maybe the suits arn't so smart after all. ;)

[the shelts]

SounderMan - If you look again at what I posted my diatribe was not against Saputo and his business model. I'm not talking about the bid and subsequent decision, I'm talking about Don 'foot-in-mouth' Garber and his jack___ way of announcing to the media.........try and keep up. Your girlfriend analogy is so off base its laughable and a testament to the decline in education standards in this country, the steak dinner at least makes sense, but that wasn't what I was posting.

It was against the amateur night way that Garber (mis)handled it.

They had a good bid on the table..........(remember September the Canadian dollar was worth more than our greenback) and were told to resubmit. So then he has to call down and was told to fly down.

Now this is where I get mad at Garber, first he says that the Impact don't have the cash, then 2 days later MLS website revises' that and says the bid wasn't accepted.

Garber insulted Saputo, for that I think the guy is wrong. Its just not what you expect a CEO of a for-profit entity to do against an investor.

You say it behind closed doors and put out a mutual statement thanking everyone for their interest.

GArber mickey-moused this thing good.

SounderMan - I come across like a real p---- in this, that wasn't my intention. Apologies.

Zoidberg - I'm not interested in the bridge you bought recently. Sadly your knowledge of the situation is sub-par.

[SounderMan]

SounderMan - I come across like a real p---- in this, that wasn't my intention. Apologies.

Zoidberg - I'm not interested in the bridge you bought recently. Sadly your knowledge of the situation is sub-par.

No hard feelings. Just think there is more to the story (on both sides) than what Saputo said yesterday. Thta's where the "girlfriend" analogy came in. You can't take one side of a story as pure truth in situations like this. Carry on.

[Q Exp]

The more I hear about this the more disappointed I become with this situation. Montreal in my opinion is the best soccer market without an MLS Team. A Montreal-Toronto rivalry would have been natural. Sometimes you've got to swallow your pride for the betterment of your league. As long as Saputo didn't overly greedy, I would have done whatever it takes to get them into the MLS. I hope the MLS won't seriously regret this someday.

[SounderMan]

The more I hear about this the more disappointed I become with this situation. Montreal in my opinion is the best soccer market without an MLS Team. A Montreal-Toronto rivalry would have been natural. Sometimes you've got to swallow your pride for the betterment of your league. As long as Saputo didn't overly greedy, I would have done whatever it takes to get them into the MLS. I hope the MLS won't seriously regret this someday.

They won't regret it. MLS doesn't NEED to expand. MLS doesn't NEED Montreal either. Would it have been a good market?? I do believe so, but you can't let someone in on potential merit. Rochester is a great example of that. Saputo new the rules going in and if he didn't...... that's on him. The fee was announced at $40 mil US, not $40 mil in any other currency. The fee is not negotiable.

[mednus]

All this shows is that you know zero about Joey S, his business, his ego, his past history, his penchant for a loud mouth/hot air/blatant BS and lying, his questionable business ethics and business 101.

Note - Garber was very gracious considering what an absolute jerk JS has been in this process...and he has. To believe JS is to believe Bill didn't inhale and there are still WMD in Irag somewhere.


Did Joey buy out your local cheese factory and close it down?:eek:
As Granny would say you have your kickers in a knot!:D

[joga_bonito]

I read in a Montreal newspaper that Saputo didn't hear from the MLS since their initial offer, they didn't have good contact with each other. The last he heard from Gerber is when Gerber rejected the offer. Saputo wanted an explanation to why they were being rejected because he would have wanted to negotiate and pay even more than the 40 million to join the MLS.

[Rick O'Shea]

Reading the statement that the expansion of the stadium did not involve public funds then it would seem that the sums Saputo is banding around included both the stadium costs and the franchise fee. After paying for the stadium there could be little or no monies payable for the franchise. Whilst I think Montreal would be a great competitor for Toronto, I can well understand their lack of enthusiasm for this offer. If you were another owner paying the franchise fee of $40M then you would bitch like hell if Saputo got away with this.

It needs to be filed in the tray marked "try-on and come back with a proper offer next time".

[Real Corona]

I heard numbers thrown about saying that the stadium expansion was $20 million. Now maybe I'm wrong, but assuming those were correct, that leaves $20 million for the expansion fee. That's $20 million less than other bids. As much as I really wanted Montreal to get a team, St. Louis, Vancouver and Portland are all strong markets and if they are willing to pay $20 million more than Montreal, it's a no brainer from the leagues point of view.

It does seem however, that the league wasn't as enthralled by Montreal's potential as many originally thought. If they wanted them just a little bit, they might have at least called and said "are you kidding, it's $40 million." I guess they felt secure with the other bids coming in. I just pray we don't see Barca FC.

[Rick O'Shea]

I heard numbers thrown about saying that the stadium expansion was $20 million. Now maybe I'm wrong, but assuming those were correct, that leaves $20 million for the expansion fee. That's $20 million less than other bids. As much as I really wanted Montreal to get a team, St. Louis, Vancouver and Portland are all strong markets and if they are willing to pay $20 million more than Montreal, it's a no brainer from the leagues point of view.

It does seem however, that the league wasn't as enthralled by Montreal's potential as many originally thought. If they wanted them just a little bit, they might have at least called and said "are you kidding, it's $40 million." I guess they felt secure with the other bids coming in. I just pray we don't see Barca FC.

Even if it is correct that the stadium costs are $20M, experience shows that more often than not actual costs over-shoot the estimate which means using Saputo's formulae that MLS would be absorbing the additional costs. I suspect right from the beginning they made it clear that they could not go along with this arrangement and that if he was serious he would need to line up with the other bids. Sapato is trying to make out he was snubbed but he knew the score and never came up with a viable proposition. He is probably miffed that he missed the original chance to buy a franchise for $10M and will become increasingly upset when the price rises in the future!

[Real Corona]

Even if it is correct that the stadium costs are $20M, experience shows that more often than not actual costs over-shoot the estimate which means using Saputo's formulae that MLS would be absorbing the additional costs. I suspect right from the beginning they made it clear that they could not go along with this arrangement and that if he was serious he would need to line up with the other bids. Sapato is trying to make out he was snubbed but he knew the score and never came up with a viable proposition. He is probably miffed that he missed the original chance to buy a franchise for $10M and will become increasingly upset when the price rises in the future!



Yeah I was just picking a number for the construction costs. Basically the failure of this bid was Saputo's fault. You don't walk into an auction offering less than half the price of other bidders. Montreal is a great market and would add a lot to this league, but so would Vancouver, St. Louis and Portland, and they appear willing to pay. I've said before, things do not look good for MLS in Montreal for the next decade. I doubt Saputo will suddenly decide to pony up $50 million tomorrow.

[Daniel from Montréal]

Stadium costs were $15m and as it's private money (and as we've seen with the base stadium), cost overruns are less likely.

So that's about $30m CAD for the expansion fee, well short of the $40m USD.