FanPost

Texas Rangers Bankrupt

Heh, our Texas division rivals are bankrupt and need financing from MLB to stay afloat through bankruptcy proceedings.

Andrew LeBlanc, an attorney for the top lenders, said he had “grave concerns” about the Rangers receiving more funds from Major League Baseball, which has already provided $18.45 million in loans since last year.

The best part is that A-Rod is one of the largest unsecured creditors, with $24.9 million in deferred compensation owed to him.

The Rangers filed for bankruptcy Monday, saying it was the only option to proceed. Among the top 30 unsecured creditors is Alex Rodriguez, who is owed $24.9 million in deferred compensation six years after he was traded.

Of course, it's not really that surprising after seeing the Rangers' owners run Liverpool, the most storied soccer team in England, into the ground with debt. It looks like they are trying to sell Liverpool and the Dallas Stars as well as the Rangers.

So what place should debt have in sports? Soccernomics, a moneyball-like book about the business of soccer, has a chapter on debt and basically concludes that the most successful clubs have a little bit of debt. It also shows that having a lot of debt or no debt hurts a teams competitiveness. More importantly, if a team is going to use debt, they should use it to finance an asset - either a new player acquisition or a stadium upgrade. Debt should not be used the way Gillett and Hicks have used it - in leveraged buy-outs of a sports clubs old shareholders.