Report: Billionaire linked to A-Rod's Mets bid only wants team at discount

One of the New York Mets' potential buyers appears to only be interested in the team if the price comes down.

Billionaire investor Wayne Rothbaum only wants to buy the Mets from Fred Wilpon at a heavily discounted price should ownership of the cable network SNY not be included in the sale, sources told Thornton McEnery of the New York Post.

Rothbaum's preferred price for just the team would be around $1 billion even, a source told McEnery.

Rothbaum, the president and CEO of Quogue Capital LLC, was identified as the money behind Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez's reported bid for the Mets by the Post's McEnery and Josh Kosman last week. However, their plan apparently involved acquiring SNY along with the franchise. It's unclear how the 52-year-old's push for a discount might affect his relationship with the celebrity couple.

Fred Wilpon, who has owned a majority portion of the Mets since 1980, and his family are said to be losing money on the team. Last week, McEnery and Kosman reported that the Wilpon family was thought to be losing as much as $90 million on the franchise; that could spike to $150 million if the 2020 season is shortened by the coronavirus pandemic, according to McEnery. SNY, however, is profitable.

A deal to sell the Wilpons' majority portion of the team to Mets minority owner Steve Cohen for $2.6 billion fell through at the last moment in February.