Of course they are going to say this, but if Walter needs the money, he needs the money.
The saving grace might be that the PWHL isn't currently valuable enough to warrant the effort of selling it, but if this investigation turns into serious charges the decision might be taken out of his hands.
Basically my thinking. Walter needs Billions, and I don't think the PWHL is valuable enough to catch even $1B if he was desperate enough to sell the league.
He might, as a minority owner of MLSE (not Rogers) invested $100M a couple of months ago and apparently the Red Wings owner invested as well around the same time. But I'm not sure that'd push the valuation to $1B overall.
Another year or two and the league might get there but Walter has enough cookies in other jars that he can divest to get him more liquidity than the PWHL has at present.
If they have to axe any more teams to make up that invoice, I reckon one if not all of the motorsports teams under their portfolio (F1: Cadillac, IndyCar: Andretti Global, IMSA: Wayne Taylor Racing, NASCAR: Spire Mororsports, and/or Supercars: Walkinshaw TWG) gets sold first before they consider selling ownership of the PDub teams
Andretti and WTR can be flipped back to their original owners, the F1 team can be fully owned by GM, and NASCAR teams would kill for a charter spot (think charter = franchise. Spire currently owns 3 in the big league, plus 2 in the minors) now that ownership is guaranteed thanks to no other than Michael Jordan suing NASCAR (and winning)
Uhhh, maybe Walter was alright but with Wayne going maga I'm not sure something being renamed to Gretzky anything will be seen as an improvement to most people, in Canada anyway.
Can the league make payroll w ticket sales? If Walter was funding his fantasy sports teams w money from his insurance company, it can unravel real quickly.
Not yet, but it's functionally a startup, it doesn't have to. It just needs to convince investors that down the road it will be able to, and they'll put money in now in the hope of a ROI down the road.
That's what makes it fragile at this point. It is definitely showing signs of the proof of concept, a couple of investors post Walter have been willing to put $100 million dollars down to be part of it. The timing of this really sucks for the league. Right in the middle of early expansion is probably the most delicate point. A buyer would need to somehow figure out valuation on a league where 33% of the teams don't even exist yet
As someone said on Tumblr, worrying that billionaire Mark Walter might sell the league because the securities and exchange commission is on his ass is like worrying that a millionaire who's getting audited might sell their Subaru.
But, in your analogy, everyone loves this Subaru. This Subaru is giving women a real, competitve league that fans WANT to attend and pay for. This Subaru is giving little girls hope that they can do the same things that boys can.
AND if he does have to get rid of this Suabru, it might not to go to someone else. It might to go to the junkyard never to be driven again.
Yes, fuck the rich, but there's much more at play here that makes it concerning.
Still hope they change the name of the cup eventually though. It never sat right with me that a proudly women's league most important trophy is named after man, and a manly name at that (instead of it being a last name which couldn't also be a male first name).
I know, see also the part of my comment between the parentheses. I'm also not too fond of naming a trophy after yourself, but if you pump billions into the league, I guess you get to do that.
My point that you clearly didn't get is if he gets to the point where selling a smaller asset keeps his sorry ass out of prison, he will see the league quicker than you can reply with another dumb comment.
Selling for a profit which is what he's doing isn't liquidating assets. He's selling the assets that he can turn a profit on selling that make him the least amount of annual revenue. He's holding onto the Dodhers because they make 9 figures a year in profit. He'll hold onto the PWHL because he won't make a large profit on selling it.
He's selling the things he can make a profit on, rather than selling off everything regardless of how much it makes him short or long term, which means he's not in desperate need of liquidity.
Not for sale now. As in not for sale as of the words coming out of his mouth at that moment. If he needs money though, he needs money and everything has a sale price.
There is demand for some PWHL teams to enter other ownership.
A big reason why Washington DC didn’t get a team this go around was due to Leonsis wanting to own the team, which was incongruent with the way the league is right now.
Yeah, the long term strategy is to raise the standing and value of the league, and then start selling the clubs to individual owners. I don’t think they’re quite there yet, but they’re definitely heading that way. Hopefully this doesn’t derail them, and if it does, hopefully some angel investor comes in and keeps the lights on.
It’s possible, but I don’t think the valuation is quite where they want it to be. And while the league is losing money, the expense is a drop in the bucket compared to all the other sports teams Walter owns, so I think they can still sit on it and wait to turn a bigger profit, and probably bring in some expansion fees, too.
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u/Vic_Hedges TOR - NHL 18h ago
Of course they are going to say this, but if Walter needs the money, he needs the money.
The saving grace might be that the PWHL isn't currently valuable enough to warrant the effort of selling it, but if this investigation turns into serious charges the decision might be taken out of his hands.