Baseball's cash stash

By Tim Arango, Fortune writer

(Fortune Magazine) -- Funded with close to $75 million chipped in by the 30 teams, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the league's Internet arm, could be worth as much as $3 billion if it goes public, according to estimates from investment bankers. In other words: three times what baseball's most valuable franchise, the New York Yankees, is worth.

Two years ago the owners considered taking a piece of MLBAM, which owns MLB.com, to the public markets, but backed off over worries about opening their books to public scrutiny and concerns that the players would demand a cut. But eventually the owners will want to monetize their investments.

The worry inside baseball circles is that the players will make the argument that MLBAM is nothing without them-and interfere with an IPO by demanding a portion of the proceeds or seeking a steep rise in licensing fees.

"There's a lot of value here. As we go forward I'd expect the board to periodically review it," says Bob Bowman, CEO of MLBAM. A representative for the players' union declined to comment. So despite the owners and players hammering out a new collective-bargaining agreement meant to ensure five more years of labor peace, it is a smart bet that billions of dollars in potential Internet riches could fry détente faster than Chris Carpenter's fastball.  Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.