I think that Joe might humor him for at least the rest of this season (or the rest of the window). If Andy makes good decisions, Joe keeps him around. If not, he takes the rest of the club. I don't know. Andy still has the controlling stake, so he's kind of got the leverage here.
So his leverage is that Joe pays for everything while Andi sits on his ass. I don't see that happening, I believe nothing is going the happen the rest of the year (player signing, well a difference makers). If Andi can't hold up his end (half) then Joe buys out Andi. I think that they are talking about the sale of the rest of the team and Joe can run it as he wants.
You guys are going to be happy. Joe doesn't think small. He didn't put his money into the Fire to get back nickels and dimes. He wants the Fire to be something.
I think we'll at least be back on regular TV next year, probably cable/satellite but hopefully a OTA channel like My50 again.
Love to see them on WGN. The Fire could take the place of all the Last Man Standing and Two and Half Men reruns they play on Saturday nights.
I think everyone needs to chill out. I am excited and I think change will happen, but Andy still has 51% of the team.
I agree completely and while I'm happy with what's finally happened, I'm still kind of in wait and see mode.
Jingle Bells Hauptman Sells Nelson signed Katai Well score some goals But have some holes our keepers got one eye.
Whatever Hauptman's intentions have been, the Fire have had all the hallmarks of a cash-poor organization. That has now changed, at least.
This changes nothing. If you think the new Region Rat owner ( I'm a Region Rat) is going to let Andy spend his money especially without control, you are nuts. The more I think about this, this was a SUM purchase.
Why would someone invest millions in 49% of a failing team without any ability to control anything that happened to his investment?
Maybe so, but we're in a wildly better state than we were. Is it nirvana? Of course not. But methinks Mansueto has big plans and he will get control eventually. Highly doubt this is a passive investment scheme.
The obvious answer there is that the investor might see a possibility that with an infusion of money, some investment might be made that the current owner lacks the funds to make, and this might improve the future of the organization such that he profits. For example (and purely speculatively) suppose Hauptman and Mansueto truly believe that if they could buy out the Bridgeview contract and move to Chicago, they could make far more than the buyout costs, but Hauptman doesn't have the cash to do it, it might make sense to add an investor, use his investment cash to make the move, and together enjoy the profits. Not saying this will happen, but that's the sort of move that makes a minority investor a lot of money. Pete (speculates wildly)
The nightmare scenario would be that Mansueto sees the same thing Hauptman does, that ownership of the Chicago MLS market is a goldmine in which a massive payday is guaranteed without doing any of the work of developing the league, and Hauptman was only willing to seek outside investment because the short-term costs were getting too rich for his blood. Both the damage of the US missing the World Cup and the Ricketts jumping in with the USL franchise would make this weird timing to come to that realization though. I'll be guardedly optimistic until we see more.
For those familiar w/ UChicago, Mansueto has been a common name for about a decade now. Joe & Rika's $25M gift yielded the Mansueto Library on campus. It's an amazing building. https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/mansueto/tech/numbers/
I think what some people are indicating, and I do not believe to be true, is that Mansueto is buying in for a shot at expansion fees and SUM income. Basically making him a second Hauptman. In short, he wouldn't care about his investment in the Fire, he would care about his investment in the SUM/expansion fees that are very tenuously related to Fire's success or failure. That is a worst case scenario and literally puts us in no worse condition than we already are, although we would have two morons not spending money instead of one. I find that highly doubtful for a few reasons: 1) Mansueto is no venture capitalist. He's a builder of companies, not a dealer. He's Elon Musk not Mitt Romney. 2) He's local. If he were purely in it for the SUM ownership, I'm sure he could buy in somewhere cheaper as the location is a major part of the increased cost of ownership. That extra cost lowers the average rate of return since the fees earned from SUM and expansion is a flat value to all teams regardless of the cost to purchase. 3) He's local. He seems to love Chicago and, hopefully by extension, its sports teams. 4) He's generally considered one of the good ones in terms of being a billionaire. He's signed Warren Buffett's pledge to give at least half of his fortune away. It could be a cloak to hide behind, but everyone thing I've heard, in writing and anecdotally, make him sound like a decent human being.
My wife is a Maroon alum and knew a hell of a lot more than I did* about him when this was announced. *which was nothing.