At this point, I don't care if there is a buyout or liquidation. Prefer a buyout since from what I have seen on Ballstreams, CSN H is a good channel.
My thoughts, after a brief glance at the brief: 1. I don't see the Astros winning this appeal. 2. On the "fiduciary duty" front, I think the main issue is that the Astros' disclaimer of fiduciary duty comes from a contract among the Astros, Comcast and the Rockets. In the normal course of solvent business, it makes sense to enforce the bargain among the partners/equity holders because it is only they are who are affected. Creditors of the company will get paid 100% of what their contracts say they will get paid and they are not affected by CSNH's internal governance matters. What happens in bankruptcy/insolvency is that a new set of stakeholders-- the creditors-- are now owed fiduciary duty by CSNH's officers and directors because their recovery from the case is now affected by how CSNH is managed. A disclaimer of fiduciary duty that is effective against the other partners who signed the partnership agreement (or whatever contract there is among the Astros, Rockets and Comcast) shouldn't be held against creditors who are not party to this contract. 3. On the question about whether the media agreement can be assumed, the Astros argument talk more about the case of an outright assignment-- like if CSNH sells its rights in the media rights contract to some other random network who may do a crappier job of covering the games-- than a case of CSNH simply "assuming" and keeping the contract. Logically, it makes sense for the Astros to be able to object to its games being broadcast on and its names being associated with a possibly inferior network. But I don't quite see what the business justification is for objecting to CSNH's assumpition if the games are still going to be broadcast on the same TV channel in the same way. 4. Regarding the likelihood of a successful reorganization, even if the only likely reorganization structure is one where Comcast essentially buys out the other partners, it probably still means that the court should give the channel a shot at pursuing this as long as such a reorganization is realistic.
I know it's not specifically about this issue, but it seems oddly appropriate here.. Oh, and NFSW, view at your own risk Spoiler <iframe src="http://www.funnyordie.com/embed/c38fb80a0d" width="640" height="400" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen></iframe><div style="text-align:left;font-size:x-small;margin-top:0;width:640px;"><a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c38fb80a0d/comcast-doesn-t-give-a-f-ck" title="from Greg Tuculescu, Tarik Ellinger, Ian Pfaff, Eliza Skinner, Jason Carden, Funny Or Die, Evan Scott, Jack & Justin, Parker Seaman, Jessica Leigh Schwartz, BoTown Sound, and Andrew Grissom">Comcast Doesn't Give a *****</a> from <a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/tarik_ellinger">Tarik Ellinger</a> <iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?app_id=138711277798&href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.funnyordie.com%2Fvideos%2Fc38fb80a0d%2Fcomcast-doesn-t-give-a-f-ck&send=false&layout=button_count&width=150&show_faces=false&action=like&height=21" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:90px; height:21px; vertical-align:middle;" allowTransparency="true"></iframe> </div>
I hurt myself laughing at that. So true...so VERY true. Sort of what Crane said to all of us who'd followed the Astros since childhood when he sold us out to Selig. Well, that video sums up my response to Selig, Crane and his ALastros.
The move to the AL was going to happen. Drayton was going to sell the team to somebody and MLB has to approve any sale of a team. MLB made it pretty clear (despite saying otherwise) that accepting a move to the AL was required for the league to approve a sale. They wanted to move a team to the AL and this was something they could force with the Astros being up for sale. This gave them leverage. If Crane had walked away and somebody else would have bought the Adtros, the same thing would have happened.
This is 100% true but some will never forgive crane for being the one that bought and moved the team. Makes no sense to blame him, but for some there is no explaining it to them
I get why people are making excuses for Craine, but all it would have taken was for him to seriously threaten to walk away and they'd have caved on the AL move demand. There wasn't anyone else offering within 100 million dollars of what Craine's group was offering, the league wouldn't devalue one of their franchises and cost one of their owners THAT much money over something so ridiculous. Of course Craine didn't care about all of that, he just wanted a team and he'd have done pretty much anything to get one. We should count ourselves lucky that part of the deal wasn't that he had to rename the team the "Silly Nannies" and change the uniform to have a giant braying donkey on the front because Crane would have done that as well. For some the fact that the Gimmick League still sort of resembles actual baseball is enough, for some it's not. I don't see why it's always an argument. I can understand being upset that Craine ended real baseball in Houston, but it's time to move on. By now people should have either picked a new team to follow or checked out of baseball entirely if they can't just watch the BS version of baseball played in the AL and enjoy it.
They would have still made it happen... hell, the owners all gave back $72 million of the sale price in order to get it done (there's your "100 million" argument). Drayton may have done it himself for all we know. Also, I'd bet money that the NL adopts the DH at some point over the next few years... perhaps sooner than that. With an inter-league game every single day now, the NL teams are simply at a huge disadvantage, roster-wise, as they don't slot a salary spot for a dedicated DH. The AL dominates the interleauge matchups every single year with that being a huge reason why.
Yep, within a decade both leagues will have DH If AL baseball is so horrible, how are teams like the Yankees and Red Sox so profitable?
It shows that the owners would rather chip in a couple million dollars a piece rather than devalue a franchise by 100 mil....that goes right along with what I was saying. You may be right, that's why I chose to wash my hands of the MLB after they forced the Astros into the gimmick league rather than picking a new team. If watching AL baseball was enjoyable for me, then I'd follow the Astros still. As a rule, if I'm going to watch baseball being played with Bush League rules, I prefer it be an actual Bush league team and the Skeeters are just down the road.
Would have happened decades ago had there not been a "technicality" on the day the NL owners met to vote on it. They had the "yes" votes... but since one owner couldn't be reached (who would have voted yes), and the representative there wasn't sure what to do, he abstained... and that led to a chain of events as other team's were instructed to vote just as that team did, and etc./etc.... no DH.
Its still money the owners didn't get... and it does matter that they would rather lower the price by that much just so they get the move guaranteed. You said there was no way they would have passed up on the offer if Crane "stood his ground", when really they were willing to take an offer at least "$72 million" less to get it to happen.
He spoke as though Crane alone made the decision to move to the AL. I was correct in my correction of the facts. You have no idea what he may or may not have said about another theoretical owner. Take your disingenuous clown show elsewhere.
I'm not sure you are understanding what I'm saying, they didn't lower the price, the league simply paid part of it. The sale price was still 680 million even though Craine's group only had to pay 610 mil of it....if the sale price had been less than 600 mil, that would be going the wrong way and it would devalue other franchises as a result.
And I'm saying that they still ended up giving money back just to get the deal done, and likely force another buyer (at a lower price) to do the same thing. Sure, the franchise values remain falsely inflated (as the Astros only sold for that price because of the mythical CSN equity that's now worthless)... but the owners wanted this badly enough to give money back... which nullifies any potential "devaluation" that would have led to them losing money anyways. Its basically semantics to say that they "didn't lower the price"... in the end, they got $72 million dollars less just to get the team to agree to move to the AL.
I know you try to stick up for Crane at every turn even though it has made you look foolish. Take your mediocre lawyer who hasn't got **** right show elsewhere.
