Huge news for the sports-rights industry: MP & Silva has defaulted on payments to multiple sports-rights holders, raising questions about its future: https://t.co/RMynf8FGCd— Robin Jellis (@robinjellis) July 12, 2018
MP & Silva is said by multiple informed sources to be in a “state of paralysis”, with senior management, under president and chief executive Seamus O’Brien, having waited five months to discover whether Baofeng and Everbright will give a green light to new business plans. So Seamus O'Brien sells the Cosmos to Rocco and a few months (10/17) he becomes CEO of Rocco's company!
I only wish that every "haha MLS sux" commenter back when the "offer" came out would be forced to read this article.
MP & Silva is Silva's company, not Rocco's. That being said, O'Brien sold World Sport Group back in 2008, but it wasn't merged into Legardere until 2015, at which point Seamus was a free agent and, apparently, joined Silva's company..
Someone in here brought up the whole "make offer, get pro/rel instituted, say you can't afford 4 billion, say pro/rel has to stay" gambit. I'm not trolling through 107 pages to find it but identify yourself so I can rep you since you were pretty much spot on here.
Didn't Silva offer millions to MLS if they would institute pro/rel? I mean they weren't taken up on the offer--but still how can you make an offer when you cant even meet your minimum payment obligations to current business partners? More to the point how do Silva and Commisso propose to keep NASL afloat when Silva can't even keep his own business afloat? This looks bad for Silva and Commisso if the lawsuit against MLS goes to trial.
I'm so confused. I didn't even realize a Chinese company owned 65% of MP & Silva. Now, with assistance from a hedge fund, Silva personally becomes a co-owner of AC Milan -- but his company (which he doesn't own) is in danger?
I suspect that may have been a deal where AC MIlan itself is the collateral, in exchange for the money from the hedge fund. Much like the mortgage on a house perhaps excpet dealing with a private hedge fund instead of a bank.
It was $4 billion from 2023. But as I understand it was $4 billion based on global TV rights. He would have been a broker, or intermediary, while MLS prefers to sell TV rights directly with the TV companies.
Thanks for clearing that up. That he was going to pay the money as a result of selling the global tv rights makes more sense. It also would have made the deal very contingent !! MLS was smart in rejecting it.
Because it makes perfect sense to hire O'Brien, a guy who paid Mohammed bin Hammam tens of millions of dollars in bribes in order to acquire Asian Confederation TV rights for WSG, then refused to cooperate with FIFA's investigation and was the main culprit in the disappearance of all the related financial records along with the accountant himself. Yeah boy, he's just the guy any soccer outfit thats totally on the up and up would want running things. Just incredible.
And people still wonder why MLS said thanks but no thanks when he tried to bring the Cosmos to MLS.............