Who Wants the Globe
Two big journalism stories from late last week. First, The Wall Street Journal reported that the New York Times Company was trying to sell its stake in the Red Sox, which makes sense.
Second, the Financial Times reported that the Times Company is trying to sell the Sox stake and the Globe for something like $200 million. (Links via Adam Reilly’s blog).
As Reilly pointed out, the Financial Times piece has all kinds of strange assertions such as a group of local business leaders who have “discussed other broader scenarios to improve the state of local media,” and a rumor about Pat Purcell, Ottoway, and the Herald.
This afternoon, the Globe got Jack Connors to deny he was interested in the paper, while Purcell denied the last part in a statement saying the FT story was, “completely unfounded and not rooted in reality.”
Huh.
Something is definitely (probably) happening, however, because the Times Company is staring down a $400 million credit line that goes poof in May. There are two scenarios in play, and each has several different offshoots.
If the Times Company is able to shed its Red Sox investment, and then sell its stake in the Globe, that would seriously shake up the media world as we know it. Aside from no more A-1 stories on Red Sox promotions (hoo-ray), NESN would be untethered from the Globe, as well, which would open up a whole other front in their ratings battle with Comcast SportsNet (where I sometimes appear as a talking head). That’s about five moves down the line, however.
Of more immediate interest is who would buy the Globe, and if not Connors, who else? In the January issue of Boston magazine (on newsstands tomorrow complete with a flashy new redesign!) James Burnett sat down with Mike Barnicle for an extended interview. We’ll post the whole thing tomorrow, but here’s an interesting snippet:
Burnett: How serious was it?
Barnicle: Very serious. There was an offer on the table. A pretty good one too.
Burnett: It’s a big number, for most people, but it’s not the crazy number you might think it would be.
Barnicle: Well it wasn’t then. It was a different economy then. It was a different world then. They couldn’t get one third of what that offer was today.
Burnett: Of what you wanted for it. How much was it?
Barnicle: I think it was around $600 million.
They couldn’t get one third of what that offer was today.
UPDATE: I just cruised over to Dan Kennedy’s site where he posted a copy of Barclays report that listed the value of the Globe as between $12 and 20 million. Dan is a little incredulous over the numbers.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
[...] everywhere, as we all know. Rumors are swirling that the New York Times Company is trying to unload the paper, which seems to be oddly valued by Barclays at between $12 and 20 million. Everyone is jumping the [...]