Granville- You keep saying the Crane signed off on the CSN deal. Again,you're wrong. Drayton signed off on the deal. Crane purchased the interest in the existing entity as part of his purchase of the team. You might want to try getting at least a few of the relevant facts correct.
And you might try foolishly nitpicking everything he said. He signed off on the CSN deal as part of buying the team during the due diligence. Go back to where I said in the same reply.... I think that all 3 parties screwed up setting such high revenue expectations. I think the Rockets and Comcast were better positioned to adjust their expectations as were the Astros under McLane. Jim Crane lacked the ability to do so from the get go and rather than back out of buying the Astros because of this significant risk, he gambled on the high revenue projections and lost. You are really desperate these days....
No. You have been so wrong so consistently from a legal perspective throughout this entire thing, I am pretty sure that you are either completely clueless legally about this and don't even know enough to know how wrong you are or you are just trolling. One thing to consider. It is very odd that Drayton would unexpectedly put the Astros up for sale almost immediately after the ink was dry on the CSN deal. Could it possibly be that he knew (or believed) that this was not going to be nearly as good a deal for the Astros as he originally thought and wanted to cash out while the value was still high?
You just can't admit that I just proved you wrong about what you said can you? I put the evidence right in front of your face and you change the focus.
I'm right you are wrong, Hana Nope I'm the smart one and you are stupid I'm right and you are wrong Nope I'm the smart one and you are stupid This is quite a conversation y'all are having
I was wrong regarding your assumption of who signed the documents. For that I apologize. Your continued assertion that Crane cannot afford this business is lunacy at its finest though. There aren't many businesses that can afford to lose $20 million per year for a decade. Mystifying that you think Crane is much different than any other individual investor in that regard. This is especially true considering 47% of the loses belong to the Astros.
No need to apologize, we all make mistakes. Crane is much different than both the other investors who comprise 53% of the 10 year losses, that's why he can't afford to be in a start-up business. He is leveraged to the hilt. It has been reported that eventually the Network will make modest profits, Crane has stated that he will lose his equity (by assumption before the profits roll in). The Rockets are not making that statement because they can wait it out. It only matters what people in this business can afford as they chose to venture in to it at their own free will.
First.... I was pretty sure that Castor wasn't going to tolerate this type of stuff. Second... Would you care to elaborate on why you think this and what you disagree with and why? My opinions on the root cause of why we will likely miss close to 2 season of Rockets basketball were made clear last year. Since then, several editorial articles have come out that provide support to my beliefs.
If you look at the differences in the economic structure of MLB and the NBA, you will see why such losses have a very different meaning for each team.
Which is another factor why Crane in particular can't afford to be in a business that he willfully signed off to be in. With the way his finances are structured he needed pie in the sky revenue and he wound up with pie in the face revenue. You are proving my point with that comment.
Your point is that he needs better economics than his partners. Mine is, it's pretty obvious after his collosal 6 week negotiating failure that what Crane "needs" isn't out there. Now Crane feels he needs to sue McLane and curiously Comcast (who would have no reason to conspire with McLane to deceive someone who they couldn't be sure would buy the Astros since he had backed out once already) to get back the money he invested in CSN H.
It has more to do with the fact that MLB teams rely on local tv revenues a lot more than NBA teams. With the current deal, the Rockete have one of the best local tv deals in the NBA. With the current deal, the Astros are third...in their division. This is not the first time that this fact has been raised in this thread by multiple posters, and you just gloss right over it into more Crane hate speech. The fact that the Astros are increasing their payroll this offseason certainly is not indicative of a team that is financially strapped from being overly leveraged. Recall that Crane wanted out of CSN. He even took the steps toward leaving and getting a better media rights deal elsewhere. This would have allowed Comcast and the Rockets free to do with CSN as they wished. Instead, Comcast decides to file an involuntary bankruptcy case on very murky legal grounds for the express purpose of stopping Crane from leaving via the automatic stay imposed by Section 362 of the Bankruptcy Code. If you want to blame somebody for the Rockets still not being in TV, blame Comcast for filing the BK and halting the progress.
Can you two just exchange emails or phone numbers and argue amongst yourself. Nobody cares which one of you is right or wrong. I clicked on this thread to see if there are any CSN updates and then have to go through several pages of this useless back and forth arguing.
This. Get a room and hash it out. We all just want to see updates, not a Refman and Granville ego contest
Crane's finances have nothing to do with anything. He's not losing money either from the Astros or from CSN-H (media rights + profit/loss), so being leveraged is irrelevant. He doesn't NEED more revenue - he WANTS more revenue, because MLB is structured around local TV revenue. If he can't get it with CSN-H, he wants out to get it elsewhere. As far as people willingly signing off, the Rockets and Comcast also willfully signed off on giving a baseball team they knew has different financial needs than an NBA team and was being sold to an unknown owner having veto power over any rights deal and giving them the ability to blow up the whole deal if they didn't like it, in exchange for them providing the most valuable commodity the network has. Unless, of course, you believe the lawyers are all idiots and didn't know what the various clauses in their agreement meant when put together, in which case you could at least argue that it was perhaps done unwillingly and through incompetence instead.
There are no updates. There likely won't be any updates until the next status conference, which I believe the Court set for January 12.
This all has to do with Crane not wanting to live up to a contract that he willfully took on as part of purchasing the Astros. Where the Astros TV deal ranks in their division was irrelevant once the market for CSN H was established over a year ago. Crane gambled on big numbers and lost when reality set in. Crane didn't like reality so he started Operation Jackass. Crane decided to manipulate the partnership by using the MFN against Comcast causing them to absorb losses on the provider side of the equation by not signing the DTV deal. Comcast had to pay inflated rates until someone else signed. The DTV deal with the MFN kicking in would have gotten Comcast paying market rates albeit with the Network receivinv basically no gain. Like you keep glossing over, the business plan was never for Comcast to keep paying those rates unless someone else did. The gain would have been in picking up the other providers. To counter Operation Jackass, CSN H deliberately stopped paying the Astros knowing what Crane's move would be which was to begin taking action to walk. The next move then was to get this in bankruptcy court so that the trustee (who would understand reality) could get deals signed and get the Network moving forward. Crane made a move to dispute that and here we are. I get it.... You think Crane shouldn't have had to honor a contract that he signed of on by purchasing the Astros and should have been free to manipulate (which is his MO) his business partners until the partners caved by giving him special financial accomodations or the Network folded. The Judge called Crane's bluff and asked him to find this great deal that wasn't brought to him. nstead of doing that, Crane's next move was concoct an illogical lawsuit which blasted one of his partners and made himself look like a huge douchebag to the very people that he was charged with negotiating with. Well guess what, Crane failed miserably and had to turn it over to Les. And...when Crane ended a season with a 13M payroll and the adds he has made still don't even out him at league average. Come on, really?
Why hasn't anyone sued or countersued Crane for breach of contract if he is not living up to its terms? Why did the judge not tell him to honor his contract rather than giving him alternatives?
What does this have to do with anything? More than likely they are still not in position to compete in 2014. They will be spending a lot on the draft again. They continue to pump money into the farm system. The season has yet to start, so their current salary situation is irrelevant. All that being said, it is doubtful they will be at or over the league average this year - so what?
He sunk 326M in to CSN H and is claiming that he will lose his equity (= money). He can't afford to fund the losses on the Network side. Crane has stated multiple times that he is worried about his equity going to zero. If Crane had the ability to fund the losses, he wouldn't lose the Astros equity in the Network.
