4:17pm: The Royals have issued a press release confirming the agreement.
11:31pm: Royals owner David Glass has agreed to sell the team to Kansas City businessman John Sherman for a sum of one billion dollars, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports (via Twitter). Sherman, currently the vice chairman of the division-rival Indians, will divest himself from the Cleveland organization once the agreement is ratified by the other 29 ownership groups in November. Talks of a potential sale were first reported by Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark of The Athletic earlier this week.
Nightengale tweeted yesterday that the sale of the Royals was motivated by health reasons for Glass, 83. The former CEO of Wal-Mart, Glass purchased the Royals for the sum of $96MM back in 2000. He was responsible for appointing Dayton Moore as the club’s general manager — a decision that resulted in a lengthy rebuild but ultimately culminated in consecutive World Series appearances, including the team’s drought-breaking World Series win over the Mets in 2015.
Sherman, 64, purchased a minority stake in the Indians back in 2016 and has since upped his share of the club. As Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer explored last year, Sherman was a Royals season-ticket holder at the time who’d made a fortune in starting natural gas and energy companies (LPG Services Group, Inergy L.P.) and selling them to larger entities. Indians majority owner Paul Dolan referred to Sherman as his “partner” in that interview with Pluto, underscoring his prominence in that ownership group. Suffice it to say, today’s reported agreement has ramifications for both organization — the specifics of which remain to be seen.
The Royals, under Glass and Moore, have been in the midst of a rebuild over the past couple of seasons. The organizational hope has been that by targeting near-MLB-ready players in trades and prioritizing college players (pitchers, specifically) in the past couple of drafts, that retooling can progress at a considerably more rapid pace than Kansas City’s prior rebuilding effort. The Royals have cut payroll by nearly $50MM in that time and figure to see further dollars stripped from the books this season with Alex Gordon’s four-year, $72MM contract coming off the ledger.
As with any ownership change, the effects could be far-reaching. Recent examples of team sales highlight but a fraction of the possibilities. The Padres, for instance, hired new front-office leadership (headed by GM A.J. Preller) and embarked on an aggressive, win-at-all-costs approach in the first season that the group led by Ron Fowler and Peter Seidler took over the club. When that boom or bust approach fell well short, the Friars embarked on a lengthy rebuilding effort that has yet to reach its terminus.
More recently, Jeffrey Loria sold the Marlins to a group led by billionaire Bruce Sherman and future Hall of Famer Derek Jeter. While Sherman and Jeter added some new front office personnel — most notably, longtime Yankees exec Gary Denbo — their group also retained president of baseball operations Michael Hill and manager Don Mattingly. A long-term approach headlined by the trades of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna was nevertheless put into motion in the Sherman/Jeter group’s first season in place.
What the sale of the club remains for the Royals, of course, can’t be immediately known. Moore is not only among the game’s longest tenured baseball operations leaders, he’s also widely respected by colleagues and peers alike. His contract reportedly runs through the 2020 season. Manager Ned Yost, meanwhile, is signed only through season’s end. There’s been plenty of speculation about the 65-year-old Yost’s future, particularly in the wake of a near-fatal accident last offseason in which he shattered his pelvis upon falling out of a deer stand while hunting. The general belief has been that Yost is in excellent standing with the organization, but the skipper himself has previously hinted that he may not manage beyond his current contractual agreement.
Payroll mandates and the corresponding roster-construction implications for both the Royals and the Indians that stem from the ownership change will play crucial roles in steering both organizations’ immediate futures.
Congratulations to the new owner.
woot! thank you Mr Glass!
Be nice if Gilbert bought into the Indians.
The issue no one is talking about……
Who is going to by Mr. Sherman’s minority stake in the Indians?
Easier said than done.
LBJ
I would much rather have Gilbert buy the Tigers. The Indians seem to be in good standing, whereas Chris Ilitch seems more focused on the Red Wings than the Tigers. Gilbert might help the Tigers reach the playoffs sooner rather than later.
hopefully the new owner puts this crap team back on the map
2 WS appearances and one win in the past 19 years. I think fans of most teams would be happy with that kind of results.
Not when those are their only two playoff appearances and when they’ve been one of the worst teams in baseball practically every other year.
As a Nationals/former Expos fan… I’d take that. We haven’t sniffed the World Series in the 45+ years I’ve been a fan. And possibly the better of those chances were cut short by a couple baseball strikes. So yeah, I’d take a WS win and a second appearance…
Love how you characterize their back to back World Series appearances as “playoff appearances”. There are only 7 teams over the past 20 years that have both gone to the WS at least twice & won at least once….& the Royals are one of them.
The least talked about debate in sports: Would you rather be good for a long time or great for a short time?
Championships are fantastic moments, but I don’t think they’re the end-all-be-all in sports. For example, I would argue Braves fans got more out of their streak of division titles than the Royals did in their two-year run.
But then again, I’m also a believer that prospects are ridiculously overvalued and more teams should “go for it” if they have a chance, so what do I know? Cheers!
To be fair though the Braves won the same number of championships in that span as the Royals did so of course I’d rather have that situation. I think the big debate would you rather be the Braves who won 14 (I believe) straight divisions but one chip or the Giants who’ve made the playoffs four times this decade but won three rings.
Several teams have as few or fewer playoff appearances. The question I have is do you want more playoff appearances or more championships? Most fans want the WS win.
Nearly every fan and player I know would trade 10 winning seasons for one World Series win.
As a Braves fan, I am in the group that would rather be competitive for a long stretch and only have one title. Titles are really short-lived, and having ZERO chance of even making the playoffs nine out of ten years is the worst. I would rather be in the hunt the majority of the time and come up just short over and over again than tuning out the season after the first month each and every year.
The Giants actually were competitive in many of those non-title years, so maybe I have a better example. I think the Marlins are a prime example of how titles cannot make up for sucking the majority of the time. The Marlins fan base is one of the most bitter, annoying, undeserving and ungrateful fan bases in sports. No thanks.
I think the Marlins is a bad example as Baseball and Florida have always seemed a March thing throughout the State. When the team won there was still never a reaction like in other cities. KC fans have supported the team and deserve a competitive team. George Brett would be remembered as the best of his generation had Mike Schmidt played in a different era.
Congrats. You got what you wished for. A whole bunch of also-ran teams. No one remembers 3rd place.
I think the business model depends a lot on market size. A team like Atlanta can cover their mistakes more easily, and afford to hire better free agents. A team like KC, with limited resources, needs to go deep into the draft in order to rebuild the farm system and develop prospects, so a rebuild may take longer.
I do like the Brave’s business model. They never seem to go overboard on payroll, and always seem to have a stream of young prospects to build around. They also don’t sign ridiculous long term free agent contracts that almost never work out.
I don’t think so
That’s a nice 942% return for him and his investors.
Not too shabby huh? Haha
And if the IRS cuts capital gains taxes for 2019, he’ll be even richer.
That’s what happens when you keep payroll at a minimum and don’t field competitive teams for fans to come and watch
Flags fly forever.
Amen Friend !
2 WS appearances and 1 title in 19 years. That is really good. Most teams in MLB have not even had an appearance in the WS since 2000.
The Royals have had MLB payroll in the upper ranges of % of revenue every season that Glass has been the owner. Its unrealistic to try to compare the Royals payroll to the Yankees or Red Sox when they have less than half the revenue. But then a smart business man would know all those things and you don’t.
They’ve been god-awful the other 17 years. They’ve only been competitive in those two years. The WS is nice, but they’ve been terrible every year except two.
Not god-awful in all the other 17 years. Near or over .500 in a few of those years.
Yeah we know since you just made the exact same point above.
And what you call “smart business” I’d characterize as the US government bending over backwards to make sure Glass and his ilk don’t pay their fair percentage of taxes and expecting the average taxpayer to foot the bill for their stadiums.
“fair percentage of taxes”…?
So in a country of over 320million… that would be a $5trillion budget split 320 million ways… or $15,625.
Is that what you paid in taxes last year? doubtful… Glass most likely paid 10 to 20 times that.
Some people pay nothing in taxes and get a return… or pay way less than the tax return they get because of child credits, mortgage credits, and the earned income credit.
So spare me you “fair share” song and dance until your paying a net bill off $16k to the federal government.
5 seasons over .500. That is not god awful. For more than half the teams in MLB that is better than they did over that same period.
Especially when you can’t keep the team you developed together.
Preach brother preach! I work with a bunch of younger folks who make the same as I do and they will get $7000 back and I will owe.My kids are out of the house but I still help support them.These punks can’t wait until January to get their checks back to get a curved 70 inch 4K tv
and spare me your whining til the 300k plus churches in this country pay their net bills first (since so many of them have latched on to the republican party, despite their massive tax breaks not allowing them to do so).
Cubs fan here. Want to talk about awful?? lol We gave away a lot to win the WS and I would make those trades 100 out of 100 times to win it again
And have a president whose interests matches yours. Expect to see more sales if there is a real threat of politics shifting.
Purchased at Walmart prices and sold at Neimann Marcus prices.
Congrats to the new owner, let’s hope he does his best to turn the Royals into a better team. Good luck.
Maybe now they’ll be willing to pay more than $1.95 clearance price for free agents.
The Royals spent $67MM in the 2013-14 offseason and $69MM in the 2014-15 offseason, reaching the World Series in both years. They re-signed Alex Gordon ($72MM), extended Danny Duffy ($65MM) and Sal Perez ($52.5MM) and spent $182MM in free agency (including the Gordon deal) following their World Series win.
Obviously not all of those moves worked out, but to suggest that they didn’t spend any money under Glass is categorically false. They spent in the wrong places (Ian Kennedy), however, which didn’t do them any favors.
They spent when it mattered but if they’d spent at all in other times then it would have mattered much more often.
That’s pure BS. You certainly are not a fun or realistic Royals fan.
It’s easy to spend other people’s money.
Look up the history of the organization since he bought it. It took until Dayton Moore came for him to spend anything at all internationally. It’s about more than just spending on free agents so I guess my original post wasn’t really complete. I will give him credit though, he did begin to put more money into the team since Moore got here but the Ian Kennedy deadline non-deal speaks volumes about poor baseball decisions due to saving money.
I think YOU need to look up the history of the team since Glass bought it. 5 seasons over .500 2 WS appearances. 1 WS win. Most major league teams have not seen that kind of success. Glass’ teams spent more money as a percentage of revenue than 2/3 of teams. What do you expect a new owner is going to do better than that?
They had to make choices. The Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, etc. have one more choice they can make when deciding on players: all of the above. Big difference especially when you can double down after making mistakes.
As a Sox fan I’m jealous. that cheap old fart refuses to spend and said theyll have to rip the team from his cold dead hands. Sox are screwed for at least another 15-20 years
I mean… they offered Machado $250 million guaranteed this last offseason, with incentives and options pushing total value to $300-$350 million.
Sure, they got outbid, but it’s not like they didn’t make a competitive offer.
And given how low their payroll is for 2020, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in on some big names like Cole, or Rendon.
Not a fan of the Royals but I always found it funny how glass always preached “we want to be competitive and win“ but absolutely refused to spend any money. Hopefully this new owner can bring the Royals back to the prominence they had in the 1980s and actually spent money on this team.
they didn’t win in the 70s and 80s by spending money.
The Royals have won with Glass as owner. They have two appearances and one title since 2000. Most MLB teams have not even had one appearance. As to spending, the Royals have been in the upper third of spending relative to their revenue every year that Glass has been the owner. They have spent what they had coming in at a rate higher than the the Yankees or even Red Sox have spent. They have less half the revenue of the Yankees or Red Sox. You can’t expect them to spend as much money.
35 dollars should do it.
If only someone would make Pirates owner Bob Nutting an offer he can’t refuse.
I agree.
Mark Cuban has said he’ll buy the Pirates any time, any day, however MLB refuses to allow him into the “club”. Which is an enormous slap in the face to fans in Pittsburgh – they are stuck with Thanks for Nutting.
Where do you come up with that BS?
MLB owners would love for Mark Cuban to buy the Pirates.
He looked into it the finances and said he was not interested in buying a small market team. He would however storing for a large market team. When the Dodgers were last up for sale he was a bidder, but fairly quickly dropped out when he saw what the ultimate purchase price would be.
What are you talking about the MLB owners blocked Cuban from buying the Cubs and they stuck us Brave fans with this Liberty Media nonsense so they wouldn’t put the team up for sale
They want nothing to do with Cuban
So Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon to the Royals confirmed.
Rendon is staying in DC or I’m leading the revolt.
They can’t afford to pay both Rendon and Scherzer big money. They gonna have to choose one.
The Nats have $111 million on the books for next season (guaranteed contracts plus pre-arb eligible players) not including about $50 million in arbitration cases. They have the money to spend.
They’ve routinely spent proportionate to their revenues; fans of lots of other teams can only wish their owners did the same. They made mistakes….who doesn’t? It’s baseball, not crystal ball, as John Hart says.
A beautiful park that’s only gotten better, a solid TV fan base, a good (if not excellent) historical brand. It’s a fair price. Sherman’s seen how the Indians (another efficient organization) does things; that can only help.
That’s what people don’t get sometimes, payroll is based on the team’s revenue, not whatever net worth you google up for the principal owner of the team.
I found a set of used lawn chairs at a garage sale for $5. Best purchase all month long.
Mr. Shermen there is coming out of the Indians organization. A kind way to describe that ownership would be frugal. This ownership cut payroll, not when the team was terrible and needed a rebuild but when the team was competing for it’s division and everyone thought they were the clear favorite to win the Central. They cut payroll when adding it was at its greatest need.
Now maybe Shermen was the one lone voice railing against this but it might be wise for Royals fans to hold back any hope until you get some indication as to what Shermen wants to do.
One Billion for this team? Someone got fleeced!
Forbes valued the team at $1.o25 billion in April of this year. Sounds to me like roughly market value was paid.
So will KC sell of all there good players for 5 cents on the dollar like Miami did?
The Marlins seem to have received great value for the guys they traded away.
Someone will jump in here and bring up Yelich as though everyone should know that he would transform from an above average outfielder into a perennial MVP candidate.
I don’t think the Marlins got good returns at all for their players. The lose most trades by a wide margin.
The Yelich trade brought in 4 players who don’t look like they will be start in the bigs (maybe Diaz), and the biggest prospect has a .188 AVG in 1 1/2 seasons worth of plate appearances. It’s too early to tell of course, but at this point if they get 2 everyday players out of that group they would be happy.
Ozuna trade looks decent so far but Magnus Sierra looks like a bust for now. Realmuto trade looks decent too although that will mostly depend on if Sixto Sanchez can develop into a decent starting option.
They got absolutely nothing for Stanton who was coming of an MVP year. Did they really think some team would give up decent prospects for Starlin Castro? I think this one might end up being even worse than the Miguel Cabrera trade.
It’s not like they only botch the big trades. They got nothing for Anibal Sanchez and Ricky Nolasco, who were both serviceable starters at the time they were traded
And then when they do trade for established players they give up the wrong guy. Paddack for Rodney, Eovaldi and German for Phelps and Prado, Luis Castillo + for Dan Straily, etc. .
I know that this is all hindsight, and that some of these trades looked good at the moment they were made. But most returns haven’t been good at all. They trade away so much value that I think they would’ve been better off if the did nothing the past few years. (Yes that’s bold and would lead to a bloated payroll, but i think you get what i’m trying to say with this.)
Only trade the Marlins lost under Jeter was Yelich. They were about to lose Ozuna and Realmuto anyway and then just getting out from under Stanton’s contract makes that trade a win.
Only trade Jeter has made that he lost was Christian Yelich. And that trade would look a lot better if the so-called headliner didn’t completely bust.
C’mon Wilpons, you’re next!!
A Las Vegas team will win the World Series before that ever happens.
Congratulations! I mean good luck.
I wonder if the Indians , Rangers, Marlins, Padres, Mariners, Tigers, among others would trade the last 15 years or more with the Royals?
*in Dr. Evil voice with pinky finger pointing towards mouth*
“One BILLION dollars!”
From $96 million to $1 billion in 19 years. I say that’s one heck ova return on their investment. And the Royals are considered a small market team.
What a joke these owners with the cryin broke nonsense.
Baseball needs a true salary cap more than ever
Baseball needs to increase the revenue sharing and then maybe they can talk about a salary cap. Until then there is no way the MLBPA will allow a cap because it will lower the share of the pie the players get and they are already getting less than 40% of revenue.
Every other sport the revenue is split in half or damn near close to it. Baseball needs a salary cap so they can negotiate getting more of the pie. That also brings a salary floor.
Thanks to Walmart.
Go braves!