Herald de Paris: Wilpons Will Move the Mets to Montreal and Tear Down Citi Field

Speculation about the future of the Mets from Herald de Paris. A grand conspiracy to make billions. Credible?

Here is the crux of it from HdP:

...The Wilpons are, first and foremost, developers. Fred Wilpon was handed $500 Million worth of city-owned property, known as Shea Stadium, on which he built Citi Field. Then Fred was handed the adjacent Willets Point property by the City. The development of the Flushing-Corona location fulfills a proposed plan by NYC urban planner Robert Moses, the same guy who drove Walter O’Malley to take the Dodgers to Los Angeles, by planning to relocate them from Brooklyn to Flushing. Would a developer, like Wilpon, invest in the construction of Citi Field to secure $1 Billion worth of free land from the City of New York? In a heartbeat.

With the Willets Point project moving forward, how much more valuable would the adjacent Citi Field site be if it were also developed as a mixed-use development, and no longer played home to the Mets? Fully developed, each piece of the Flushing-Corona properties could easily yield $4-5 Billion. Thus, the Wilpons are sitting on a $10 Billion section of New York. Maybe more. They just need to move the Mets off the site to realize their developer dreams. All they really need to do is strip the club of its top players and its high salaries, then drive the fan base away with a lousy product on the field. They seem to be doing just fine, in that regard.

The Flushing-Corona location is a developer’s dream. It has water, sewer, an electrical grid, roads, a subway platform, a LIRR stop, highway access, and is located close to LaGuardia Airport. Nothing makes a developer drool more than a property which needs no infrastructure, as it has already been provided by the municipality. That the property is free, to boot, is like a perfect storm scenario for a property developer.

Say the Mets move to Montreal, where baseball fans and elected officials are so thirsty for major league baseball that they would gladly build a new ballpark for a new ownership group. The sale of the team would yield the Wilpons $2 Billion, more than covering their ill-fated ballpark construction, and help Selig fulfill his shell game of moving teams hither and yon. And if the WIlpons don’t sell the franchise? Jeff Wilpon owes Montreal a favor, for the Expos having drafted him. But why would Selig want the Mets out of New York? The 2000 Subway Series, between the Mets and the Yankees was great for New York. It was a nightmare for MLB.

Selig has insisted he is leaving the Commissioner’s post since 2012. His latest decree has him in the position until January, 2015. Is Selig part of the whole plan? Seems likely. It also seems likely that upon exiting the Commissioner’s Office, Selig will turn up as a trustee of the Corona-Flushing development.

Inevitably, New York baseball fans would clamor for another National League team in New York. Ultimately, MLB would have to allow another National League team to move to NYC, or the league would have to expand to accommodate two new teams. Where would a new team in New York build a ballpark? Why, Brooklyn, of course, the fashionably revived Borough which has already become the home of the NBA Nets and the NHL Islanders. And who owns the baseball rights to Brooklyn? None other then the Wilpons, who have a minor league team at Coney Island. Could it be true? Sadly for this Mets fan, it could.

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