First came his purchase of the Montreal Expos. Loria had spent years trying to buy a major league club, making early inroads through his purchase of the Triple-A Oklahoma City 89ers, then ratcheting up his association with the
Lords of the Realm through his failed attempt to buy the Baltimore Orioles in 1994. When he finally bought into the Expos in 1999, it was for a minority share in the franchise. Still, a 24 percent stake in a major league franchise for the modest sum of about $12 million in U.S. dollars was a coup, even for a team as troubled as the Expos were. That was just the beginning. Loria quickly realized that the limited partners who controlled the rest of the franchise had no interest in putting a dime into the team beyond their initial investments. So he triggered a series of cash calls, heard crickets each time, and steadily increased his stake in the Expos. When he couldn't strong-arm the provincial government into building him a new stadium and saw that the team was doomed, Loria sold the Expos back to the league for $120 million. This was a substantial profit just from the effective $50 million valuation at which he'd first bought in. Tack on Loria's much larger stake by the time the sale took place, and he made a small fortune for his two-plus years of investment.
As thanks for the noble sacrifice he'd made in stewarding the dying Expos for a couple of years, Loria was allowed to purchase the Marlins for $158.5 million in 2002. The deal included a $38.5 million no-interest loan from the league, plus an attached discount that kicked in when Loria couldn't secure a new stadium within five years of the purchase. Those league handouts were nice, but there was a lot more money to be squeezed out of Loria's position of power. When government officials initially refused to cave to his demands for a new Marlins ballpark, Loria played the oldest trick in the book, the relocation threat. "San Antonio is a very viable market, and they're very serious,"
Loria said in April 2006. "Read my lips: They're very serious." It would take three more years of increased threats from Loria and stepson David Samson, plus the usual unwavering support (and more threats) from Bud Selig and his surrogates, before the Miami-Dade County Commission finally agreed to pay for the lion's share of a new stadium. In the end, the Marlins agreed to pay $125 million of the stadium's total $634 million in construction costs, with $35 million coming from another interest-free loan, this time from the county. (There's an ongoing SEC probe that's
looking into the stadium's financing. We'll see if anything comes of it.) The same rigged system that put Loria in power and summoned the extortive powers of the commissioner's office to his side had also succeeded in cajoling a sweetheart stadium deal out of feckless elected officials, with yet another baseball club passing costs to taxpayers and reaping a disproportionate share of the profits. In getting a stadium built in South Florida, Loria succeeded where his predecessor John Henry failed. Of course, Henry won control of the Red Sox as part of the same merry-go-round that landed Loria in Miami, despite not submitting the highest bid for the Boston nine. Cartel membership has its privileges. The total cost of the bonds the county will need to pay off over the next 40 years is estimated at $2.4 billion.
