Of Course Jeff Wilpon Is Reportedly The Person That Fucked Up The Cohen Deal

NYDN- Steve Cohen is absolutely not playing around. The hedge-fund billionaire informed the Wilpons he is walking out of his prospective bid to purchase an 80% stake in the Mets franchise after ownership changed the terms of the original deal.

Under the original agreement, announced on Dec. 4, Fred Wilpon, 83, would remain in his role of Mets CEO and control person and Jeff Wilpon would remain in his role of COO through the 2024 season. According to a source familiar with the situation, the Wilpons wanted team control beyond the five years they agreed to and also wanted to extend their control of SNY, the Mets’ cable network, for longer than the 20-year rights deal.

The Wilpons’ desire for extensions late in the process caused Cohen to walk out of the deal. Cohen is still willing to restore negotiations, but only if they are under his terms and possibly only if those discussions involve immediate control as majority owner, according to a source.  Mets president Saul Katz, brother-in-law to Fred Wilpon and uncle to Jeff Wilpon, and his children want no part of owning the team and would prefer to sell. Among the Wilpons/Katz family, only Jeff Wilpon wants to extend his ownership of the Mets, according to a source.

I think we can file this report in the No Fucking Shit folder. Anybody who has followed the inner-workings of the Mets has read about Jeff Wilpon being a meddling motherfucker that has helped turned this franchise into a laughingstock. Instead of listing all the reports here, I will just link the Good Fundies article we referenced roughly a billion times last season on We Gotta Believe.

Of course the guy that is capable of fucking up a wet dream would be the snag for the Wilpons cashing in their franchise for a billion dollars than it was reported valued at. I'm sure Jeff made very nice ice cream sundaes for Portnoy and Frankie Borrelli. But that's about where his talent ends.

Just think about it for a second, who else out of the main characters involved would ruin this deal? Not Fred Wilpon who seems to have one foot in the grave. Saul Katz is likely counting down the milliseconds until he no longer has to deal with the dipshit Wilpons. And Steve Cohen wants to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming Mets owner ASAP since he's not exactly a spring chicken at the age of 63.

I bet Steve Cohen went into this deal knowing the kind of bullshit he would have to deal with. A shark like Steve would usually eat up a mamaluke like Jeff alive. I imagine Jeff showing up to negotiations with his fly down and using his entree fork for his salad. Uncle Stevie would look past all that as well as the 5 year waiting period nonsense just to get his shiny new baseball team. But then Jeff pulled A Wilpon, which means changing the goalposts at the very last minute, like him and his dad did back in 2011.

This is not the first time the Wilpons changed provisions of an impending deal to sell the team. In 2011, hedge fund manager David Einhorn was in line to become majority owner, but the Wilpons altered the original agreement, which led to the end of those negotiations and later broke off the deal.

So where does this all leave us? Apparently with Steve Cohen furious (or furiously pulling negotiating tactics to force the Wilpons to sell) along with a bunch of articles in the papers telling us the same reheated stuff. Here's to hoping we get final word on something sooner rather than later because this is slowly killing me.

Make sure to subscribe to We Gotta Believe for any Emergency podcasts for whatever fucked up twists and turns the Mets do next.