The Texas Rangers Saga Continues

The issue that has come up now, is when will the auction be held to determine the purchaser of the Texas Rangers. There was originally a hearing scheduled for August 4, where the bankruptcy court would hear bids from potential buyers. However, creditors and a court-appointed restructuring officer want the hearing delayed in order for other potential bidders to have time to obtain financing. On Wednesday, Nolan Ryan, current team president and the head of one of the groups looking to purchase the Rangers, asked the judge to go ahead with the auction as planned on August 4th. Ryan claimed he was asking this as team president, because postponing the auction could prevent the Rangers from keeping Josh Hamilton, as he is eligible for salary arbitration this offseason, and he must be too expensive for a team in bankruptcy to afford. However, there is a little conflict of interest here, as more time would mean more buyers for Ryan to compete with.

In a related note, Mark Cuban was given the go ahead to submit a bid to purchase the Rangers. However, don’t read into this too much. As you remember, Cuban also submitted a bid to purchase the Chicago Cubs a few years ago, and then was essentially blackballed by MLB. As sources state, Cuban had submitted the highest bid for the Cubs franchise, however, a potential MLB owner must be approved by the other owners, and few were willing to approve Cuban due to his brash style and previous happenings as owner of the Dallas Mavericks. So it will be interesting to see how this progresses…