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Bernard “Ponzi” Madoff’s Got CitiField Season Tix!
Straight from the dept of: “You can’t make this stuff up” comes the Bernie Madoff rip-off scam of the century which takes an even more bizarre turn with the news that this week’s Wall St public enemy #1 is also the proud owner of 2 CitiField Seats right behind home plate!
Obtw, they’re in the second row and will be clearly visible on SNY all season long.
DOH!
For those of you yet to catch wind the situation it’s relatively simple:
Bernie Madoff (wall street weasel extraordinaire) just got busted running the biggest “Ponzi” scheme in history. Guys like Fred Wilpon, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, and banks across the world invested 50B on Madoff’s promise of insanely high returns on their money. It was a win/win… until it turned out to be one giant pyramid scheme.
DOH!!
Madoff ran his hustle by paying out to existing investors with the money coming in from new ones. That is until the recession crunch hit and people started cashing out and all of sudden the gig was up.
It’s being reported The Wilpons lost upwards of 300M bucks.
BMF’s initial reaction to hearing that number was – MAN those Wilpons sure do have a lot of money!
Not surprisingly the vultures wasted no time trying to swoop in as Georgi Vodka owner, and Met fan, Martin Silver floated out a 700M offer to buy the team which, according to the NYT Jeff Wilpon quickly responded, “The team is not for sale, not a piece of it, not a part of it”.
Ownership also made clear the team, network, stadium and the 1st Family of the Mets will not be adversely effected.
Honestly I don’t doubt it. I gotta believe the Mets, SNY and the stadium can all generate enough money to operate in the black even if the Wilpons were suddenly penniless.
But it’s got to be a real kick in the nuts to Wilpons knowing Bernie Madoff not only stole their money but then used some of it to buy 2 super premium season tix for the tidy sum of $80,190. That’s $495 per seat if you do the math.
Regarding Madoff ticket’s Dave Howard, the Mets’ VP of biz ops, said on Wed, “They are current with their payment for two seats in the second row”
DOH!!!
I’m sure after losing 300M the Wilpons aren’t too keen on giving away another 80K but BMF thinks it would be a cool move to permanently donate those 2 seats to charity. I dunno it just might be a nice way to make something good come from something bad.
Hmmm, I wonder if Madoff bought himself any Shea Stadium seats as an early Hanukkah gift before he got pinched…
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Emma takes her Mets VERY seriously!
December 18th, 2008 at 6:47 am
I dont care what anybody says….when anybody loses that much amount of money, it hurts! …..now, with that being said, I think it might affect the team in future seasons to come but maybe not this year, if this situation doesnt fix itself…
December 18th, 2008 at 7:46 am
It’s less than he paid Doubleday… General rule of thumb is that you only invest what you can afford to lose, so while losing $300M sucks, I’d bet they are still sitting on at least 2x that…
December 18th, 2008 at 8:29 am
It’s rainy day money. Ferd’s big games are real estate and the Mets. If HE (Fred) didn’t have control over it, it couldn’t have been all that significant. The other people who are not businessman are going to hurt more.
Anyway, the Mets have to honor those seats - Madoff is only accused.
Also, you have to wonder how some of these pretty smart guys didn’t know what was going on. This fraud wasn’t perpetuated in a vaccum. I’m not saying Fred knew, but he’s a successful guy and if he was under the impression that someone does better than him, he should have done a double take. I’m not blaming him in the least - it’s a compliment. As a rock star, you have to doubt that someone else is more of a rock star.
December 18th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Greed can be blinding…
December 18th, 2008 at 8:42 am
And for the record, I don’t mean that as a diss… I’m certainly from the Gordon Gecko School of Thought as well, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize it’s limitations…
December 18th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Since Bernard “Made-Off” with 50 Billion perhaps he would be interested in obtaining the naming rights from CitiGroup for the stadium. “Made-Off with the Loot” Field would be my pick.
If the Vodka guy wants in on it too then “Made-Off with the Vodka” Field has a nice ring to it.
December 18th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Given the last two September’s, a partnership between the Mets and vodka seems appropriate…
December 18th, 2008 at 9:21 am
What if the Wilpon’s run out of money before new Shea is complete? Hurry up and start putting old Shea back together. BTW - I find those pictures more than disturbing - they rip my heart out.
December 18th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Charity’s a good idea, or paint them in gold leaf and sell single-game tix as a premium gimmick.
I didn’t even watch the K-Rod coming out, forgot!
December 18th, 2008 at 10:42 am
If somebody owed me 300 million (a laughable idea, admittedly)–hell, if somebody owed me three hundred dollars, or even thirty dollars– which they had no intention of repaying, and then that same somebody was to say send me a check for his season tickets (another unlikely proposition) I certainly would take the money from the tickets and use it as a bit of payback on what I was owed. Wouldn’t you?
December 18th, 2008 at 10:48 am
So, I would take that 80, 190 dollars (does that include a “Diamond Club” membership, I wonder?) and subtract it from what I was owed, and then I would send out a fresh bill for say $299,919,810 dollars. And only when that 299,919,810 dollars was paid in full would I allow his sorry ass to occupy a seat in my ballpark. In fact, if he showed up before it was paid off I would send out a couple of hot dog vendors to turn him upside down so I could collect his pocket change. Which I would then take off his tab. Obviously.
December 18th, 2008 at 10:52 am
From what little I know, Madoff is the Wall St. legend a was/is the Chairman of Nasdaq…if he comes to you and says…give me 100mil and turn it into 200, you do it with out even thinking twice…it sounds like the scam was working for a very long time…the story says Fred lost 300mil, but they don’t say how much money Fred made off the scam (not saying Fred did anything wrong) or how much money he originally invested…
anyways, I’m not surprised that Mets/SNY are not going to be affected, It’s usually good business to keep all of your fiscal ventures separate…If one fails, it won’t take down the others…
but 300Mil?!?!?! I’d love to have just 1% of that money…I’d be living like a king….or at least be able to buy one year season tickets at Spankee Yank-me-ium
December 18th, 2008 at 11:49 am
lip you really are a jack&ss..honor those seats..what are you nuts? “fred is a business man”..you think he made all his money giving away 300mm at a clip.. oh and if you haven’t realized the major reason the economy is in the sh*tter is bc of all the credit tied to real estate…
December 18th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Those photos make my chest hurt.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Whether or not the Mets honor the seat purchase is probably moot. If Madoff is convicted, the seats will likely be forfeited as the proceeds of a criminal enterprise, if he is not convicted (snowball’s in hell have a better chance), then he has the right to keep them.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
You got it right FGMF - the real crime here is what’s being done to Shea
December 18th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
How about Ponzi Park?
They could build a giant Pyramid in CF for the apple to come out of
December 18th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Grenzo - it’s so far removed from the real estate investor. Secondly, Fred Wilpon does not make unsound investments (for the most part), the crap mortgages were chopped up and sold. A lien on Freddy’s land is very good debt and not causing the economy to go anywhere.
You can’t break a contract for seats in retalliation of an allegation against a fan.
December 26th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Is anyone aware that there are NO 7-packs for next year at CitiField-only 15 packs. that’s a lot of games and they are, of course, expensive packages as well.