Latest on Angels sale

[HaloBronco]

2 hours ago, Warfarin said:

It seems PSS (going to go by this, just easier to type) is the name tossed around the most.  That doesn't mean he will win a bid of any kind, but it appears he is the most visible name.

What are some of the negative issues that have popped up with his involvement with the Lakers?  I don't follow basketball too closely, so I'm not really familiar with his involvement with the Lakers.

Is there any idea of how willing he would be to spend a ton of money on this team?  Sure, as referenced by @Chuckster70, he is enormously wealthy, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll spend money.  I'm hopeful, but again, I just don't really know much about him.

 

The Lakers are a burning dumpster fire. 
 

They sold their soul to Lebron James…….

At this point it’s going to take decades for them to recover…….

[Stradling]

7 minutes ago, HaloBronco said:

The Lakers are a burning dumpster fire. 
 

They sold their soul to Lebron James…….

At this point it’s going to take decades for them to recover…….

It never takes decades in the NBA. 

[cals]

Since nobody would specify the issues with Soon-Shiong’s daughter I was forced to Google it.  

She’s a SJW.  @Taylor would love her.  

From Wikipedia:

“Soon-Shiong became involved with the Los Angeles Timessince 2020, when in June that year, she called out the Times for their use of "looting" in their headlines during the George Floyd protests, with the Timeslater limiting itself on its use of the word. That next month, when there were fears of layoffs, Soon-Shiong urged her father to meet with Black and Latino employees; the layoffs were never done. In February 2021, when the Wall Street Journalspeculated that Patrick Soon-Shiong was looking to sell the Los Angeles Times, Soon-Shiong echoed told the Wall Street Journal in a tweet that they were "100% wrong."[8] On June 25, 2021, it was announced that Soon-Shiong joined the Committee to Protect Journalists's board of directors.[9]

On September 13, 2021, Soon-Shiong was appointed to the Public Safety Commission by West Hollywood councilmember Lindsey Horvath. As a commissioner, she advised the concerns of the citizens. She questioned the use of police in West Hollywood and pushed back against police in the city.[10][11] Soon-Shiong was met with backlash, with Horvath responding to the backlash against Soon-Shiong saying it was "rooted in racism."[12] In June 2022, the West Hollywood City Council voted to reduce the number of sheriffs in the city and replace them with unarmed security guards, a move which Soon-Shiong called "pragmatic and fiscally responsible," but said it "could have gone further."[13]

In July 2022, Soon-Shiong announced that she would be stepping down as a Public Safety Commissioner in August 2022 to pursue a degree at the University of Oxford, which she had been in her third year of her PhD where she had been remotely enrolled.[14][15]Columnist and radio host John Phillips wrote of her departure as not being "bothered to stick around and live with the consequences of her reckless actions," criticizing her for the rise in crime in West Hollywood during her tenure. It is clear that she is too radicalized to serve in public office.“

[Warfarin]

24 minutes ago, HaloBronco said:

The Lakers are a burning dumpster fire. 
 

They sold their soul to Lebron James…….

At this point it’s going to take decades for them to recover…….

31 minutes ago, HaloBronco said:

Unfortunately looking at how the the LA Times is ran, I’m worried the team would be ran the same way. 
 

Very concerned about that. 

Okay, but I guess more specifically - what is it about his style of management that is poor?  What is wrong with the LAT that is worse than other similar kinds of media (i.e. newspapers in general)?  What has he done with the Lakers (given he is only a minority part of ownership) that has led to poor results?

[BTH]

If Soon-Shiong is impulsive, like the Politico article said, I can see why he’d be a frontrunner.

As @Warfarin said, Arte’s past tells us that he’s impulsive. So, if he wants to sell the team quickly, who better to make a deal with than another impulsive billionaire?

Edited January 1, 2023 by Trendon

[Stradling]

3 minutes ago, Trendon said:

If Soon-Shiong is impulsive, like the Politico article said, I can see why he’d be a frontrunner.

As @Warfarin said, Arte’s past tells us that he’s impulsive. So, if he wants to sell the team quickly, who better to make a deal with than another impulsive billionaire?

Other billionaires that want to buy the team?  

[BTH]

5 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Other billionaires that want to buy the team?  

My point is that Soon-Shiong’s personality may be conducive to striking a quick deal, like Arte may want.

Other billionaires may be more methodical and calculated than Arte may want.

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, Trendon said:

My point is that Soon-Shiong’s personality may be conducive to striking a quick deal, like Arte may want.

Other billionaires may be more methodical and calculated than Arte may want.

It’s a long process that really doesn’t allow for a quick impulsive deal.  The interested parties have to get league approval and go through a vetting process, then they get to see financials. All along there would be dialogue. 

[Warfarin]

Whoever it is that ultimately takes over, these are the things I'd like to see:

1. A Dodgers-esque like financial infusion in the entire draft and development process.  This includes the whole package - scouting, analytics, etc etc.

2.  A payroll that hovers in the upper 200s (or higher?!), starting next year (2024 season), for at least the next several years, as the minor league system fills out and gets stronger.  Then they can dip below and do whatever luxury tax shenanigans they need to do, likely in conjunction with graduating a number of young players from the burgeoning minor league system.

3.  And, of course - a 500+ mil contract to Ohtani, or whatever it is he requires.

Do the above, and I feel strongly about our competitive chances moving forward.

[cals]

It would seem like this dudes daughter would force the team to change its name to the “Los Angeles Non-denominational Spiritual Guides of Anaheim”.

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

12 hours ago, Chuckster70 said:

Damn. He's got the money, let's go! 

https://wealthygorilla.com/patrick-soon-shiong-net-worth/

Patrick Soon-Shiong Net Worth

$10 Billion

Edited January 1, 2023 by Ace-Of-Diamonds

[BTH]

3 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

https://wealthygorilla.com/patrick-soon-shiong-net-worth/

Patrick Soon-Shiong Net Worth

$10 Billion

that change in net worth alone would give him enough to buy the Angels

[Warfarin]

1 minute ago, Trendon said:

that change in net worth alone would give him enough to buy the Angels

A lot of these net worth estimates are wildly inaccurate, but I think it's pretty safe to assume he is worth a ton of money and we would not run the risk of a McCourt situation unfolding.  But even with all that money, net worth and willingness to spend money on payroll are not necessarily correlated.  That's the part that we can all be hopeful about, but not really know.

[Taylor]

He seems like one of those typical billionaires who thinks they're good at everything just because they struck gold and ended up with a ton of money (like Elon).

And his daughter seems like a typical performative billionaire's child who has no idea how to leverage her privilege to make an actual difference.

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

14 minutes ago, Taylor said:

He seems like one of those typical billionaires who thinks they're good at everything just because they struck gold and ended up with a ton of money (like Elon).

And his daughter seems like a typical performative billionaire's child who has no idea how to leverage her privilege to make an actual difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Soon-Shiong

Patrick Soon-Shiong (born July 29, 1952) is a Chinese-South African transplant surgeon, billionaire businessman, bioscientist, and media proprietor. He is the inventor of the drug Abraxane, which became known for its efficacy against lung, breast, and pancreatic cancer. Soon-Shiong is the founder of NantWorks, a network of healthcare, biotech, and artificial intelligence startups;^[1] an adjunct professor of surgery and executive director of the Wireless Health Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles; and a visiting professor at Imperial College London and Dartmouth College.^[

[jsnpritchett]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/01/how-patrick-soon-shiong-made-his-fortune-before-buying-the-la-times

"Few figures in modern medicine have inspired as much controversy as Soon-Shiong. “He gets very enthusiastic, and sometimes he might exaggerate,” Hentz said. “He can embellish a little.” Outcomes for his diabetes treatment were disappointing, and one case ended tragically. While pursuing this therapy, he also began researching chemotherapy. At the center of his fortune is a cancer treatment that costs more than a hundred times as much as another drug, available as a generic, that is prescribed for some of the same conditions. Soon-Shiong has been repeatedly accused of financial misrepresentation, self-dealing, price gouging, and fraud. He has been sued by former investors and business partners; he has been sued by other doctors; he has been sued by his own brother, twice; he has been sued by Cher.

Nevertheless, in recent years, Soon-Shiong has emerged as one of Los Angeles’s most prominent civic leaders. He paid five hundred million dollars for the L.A. Times, along with its sister paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune—double what Jeff Bezos spent to buy the Washington Post, which had three times the number of subscribers. Hoping to turn the Times into a multimedia platform, Soon-Shiong appointed Norman Pearlstine, who had run Time Inc.’s editorial operations, as executive editor. “He made the acquisition with very little due diligence, because he thought that it had to be easier than curing cancer,” Pearlstine told me. “I’m not sure whether he still believes that.”

Also:

"Soon-Shiong has a tendency to wander into areas in which he has no background. The NantStudios soundstage in El Segundo features “the Volume,” a wraparound visual-effects wall that he hopes will replace the green screen. About the size of a baseball infield, it surrounds actors on all sides with L.E.D. backdrops, then uses rendering effects from a video-game engine to create seamless perspectives for the camera. “It’s the next generation of how movies, commercials, and TV production will happen,” Soon-Shiong said. The technology is impressive—but it was developed by Lucasfilm’s visual-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic, and many production companies are building one. In Soon-Shiong’s telling, he and Michele had built the movie studio of the future. In reality, they had joined a crowded field."

Edited January 1, 2023 by jsnpritchett

[Second Base]

How old is Arte? I wonder if the sale of team may be due to health concerns. 

[Jay]

1 hour ago, Trendon said:

My point is that Soon-Shiong’s personality may be conducive to striking a quick deal, like Arte may want.

Other billionaires may be more methodical and calculated than Arte may want.

The problem with this forum is people waste so much energy posting nonsense.

[BTH]

Just now, Jay said:

The problem with this forum is people waste so much energy posting nonsense.

What about that is nonsense?

It’s documented that both of those guys have an impulsive nature.

[Second Base]

1 hour ago, cals said:

Since nobody would specify the issues with Soon-Shiong’s daughter I was forced to Google it.  

She’s a SJW.  @Taylor would love her.  

From Wikipedia:

“Soon-Shiong became involved with the Los Angeles Timessince 2020, when in June that year, she called out the Times for their use of "looting" in their headlines during the George Floyd protests, with the Timeslater limiting itself on its use of the word. That next month, when there were fears of layoffs, Soon-Shiong urged her father to meet with Black and Latino employees; the layoffs were never done. In February 2021, when the Wall Street Journalspeculated that Patrick Soon-Shiong was looking to sell the Los Angeles Times, Soon-Shiong echoed told the Wall Street Journal in a tweet that they were "100% wrong."[8] On June 25, 2021, it was announced that Soon-Shiong joined the Committee to Protect Journalists's board of directors.[9]

On September 13, 2021, Soon-Shiong was appointed to the Public Safety Commission by West Hollywood councilmember Lindsey Horvath. As a commissioner, she advised the concerns of the citizens. She questioned the use of police in West Hollywood and pushed back against police in the city.[10][11] Soon-Shiong was met with backlash, with Horvath responding to the backlash against Soon-Shiong saying it was "rooted in racism."[12] In June 2022, the West Hollywood City Council voted to reduce the number of sheriffs in the city and replace them with unarmed security guards, a move which Soon-Shiong called "pragmatic and fiscally responsible," but said it "could have gone further."[13]

In July 2022, Soon-Shiong announced that she would be stepping down as a Public Safety Commissioner in August 2022 to pursue a degree at the University of Oxford, which she had been in her third year of her PhD where she had been remotely enrolled.[14][15]Columnist and radio host John Phillips wrote of her departure as not being "bothered to stick around and live with the consequences of her reckless actions," criticizing her for the rise in crime in West Hollywood during her tenure. It is clear that she is too radicalized to serve in public office.“

It's what no one wants to say out loud because certain people on the board will be outraged if point out the obvious. Evidently the obvious only belongs in the political spin portion of the board, unfortunately.

[Second Base]

Also, to be fair, if I was a billionaire and owner of an MLB civ, I would be overly involved and meddlesome. So I totally get it. 

[cals]

13 minutes ago, Second Base said:

It's what no one wants to say out loud because certain people on the board will be outraged if point out the obvious. Evidently the obvious only belongs in the political spin portion of the board, unfortunately.

The issue seems that this dude lets his lefty nut job daughter affect business decisions.  

That seems problematic.

[cals]

No way she’d sign off on Bauer.

[Revad]

27 minutes ago, Trendon said:

What about that is nonsense?

It’s documented that both of those guys have an impulsive nature.

We’re bloody lucky about this sale in the first place.  There was no way forward with Artie, just an endless loop.  If we’re lucky enough to get investment in all aspects of the organization, a little meddling is no big deal compared to the gain.

[Warfarin]

35 minutes ago, Revad said:

We’re bloody lucky about this sale in the first place.  There was no way forward with Artie, just an endless loop.  If we’re lucky enough to get investment in all aspects of the organization, a little meddling is no big deal compared to the gain.

That is the way I see it too.

I don't really care about the new owner's politics or even how "meddlesome" they may be, as long as they are willing to invest significant amounts of money into the team.  George Steinbrenner was extremely meddlesome, but his team won a bunch of titles because he was willing to spend a lot of money on them.  If PSS becomes our new owner and invests tons of money into all aspects of the team, with the aim of creating a juggernaut, then I'm good with that.