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American Morning

Students Want to Buy Expos

Aired February 27, 2002 - 09:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Time to get some business insight now from "Fortune" magazine editor at large Andy Serwer. The boys of summer out of mothballs and in to baseballs. That's not a bad line.

ANDY SERWER, EDITOR AT LARGE, "FORTUNE": Whoa.

CAFFERTY: Did you like that?

SERWER: Yeah, all right, we'll take it.

CAFFERTY: Exhibition games begin this week. It won't be long now. It will be "play ball" here in the Big Apple, and the Yankees will win the World Series this year.

SERWER: If Jason Giambi is healthy.

CAFFERTY: The rest of the teams can just phone it in, because it is already over.

SERWER: Especially the Montreal Expos, and that is the story I have got for you here, Jack. A very interesting situation. You know, there is a lot of talk about contracting the league, shutting down some of the weaker teams, especially the Montreal Expos. We see them here. Really interesting story, a group of students from the University of Pennsylvania is now starting a grassroots movement to buy the Montreal Expos.

CAFFERTY: Okay.

SERWER: I think this is great. This is a Disney movie in the making, okay? These kids have a web site.

CAFFERTY: It's a Rod Serling movie.

SERWER: Yeah. These kids have a web site. They are led by a senior named Jesse Spector. There you can see, they have got $1.5 million they've raised so far from all over the world, from Europe, they've got a bunch of Eskimos who sent money in...

CAFFERTY: That is probably enough to pay the ground crew for the first three games.

SERWER: But they are gaining some momentum.

CAFFERTY: What would the realistic price of the Expos be?

SERWER: That's the interesting -- not that much, because have you ever seen how many people go to those games now? I mean, you can hear a dog bark in the next neighborhood. I'm telling you, it is...

CAFFERTY: But the money in these things, obviously, is made in the local TV rights and radio rights and stuff like that, but a million and a half dollars -- you're talking major league baseball.

SERWER: No, that's not going to do it, but I don't think more than $100 million, so maybe they're getting there. I mean, the point is, these guys are trying to do this thing. You can go to their web site. Which is buytheexpos.poptopix. They got to get a better web site. It should just be buy the Expos.

CAFFERTY: Yeah, period.

SERWER: The leader of this group is Jesse Spector, who was a senior and the former sports editor of the newspaper at Penn. Lot of qualifications there. And they admit that they have got a couple of problems. The ownership group is bankrupt, -- quote -- "we're college guys, we don't have any money."

CAFFERTY: Yeah, right.

SERWER: They have no outside legal counsel, which may be a good thing, and no way to collect the money so far, they said. But they are seeking help. So anyone, any lawyers out there want to help these kids out and save a baseball team, go for it.

CAFFERTY: Their heart is in the right place.

SERWER: I think that is about right.

CAFFERTY: All right, thanks Andy.

SERWER: Okay.

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