Donald Trump has wanted to own an NFL franchise almost his entire (I was going to say adult, but somehow that didn’t seem to fit) grown-up life. He wanted one so bad he even bought a franchise from the upstart United States Football League (USFL) in 1983 and tried to barge his way—in typical Trump fashion—into the NFL by suing them for anti-trust violations. Well it didn’t work and the USFL folded in 86. This desire apparently never went away as recently, in 2014, he allegedly made an offer of a billion dollars cash for the hapless Buffalo Bills, but was outbid.
Now, I don’t doubt that Trump has a list of assets that add up to a substantial sum of money, but this is the guy who brags about using OPM—other people’s money—after all he went bankrupt six times for borrowing so much he couldn’t meet payments on cash cow casinos. So the chances are this guy would have a billion dollars cash laying around to put into an NFL team is a joke!
Nevertheless, he does know people that have billions, many billions laying around waiting to be laundered. As you probably know it has been widely speculated that these people, who are Russian nationals have been buying million dollar condos en mass from the Trump organization to launder their rubles. newrepublic.com/…
However, since the Magnitsky act of 2012 www.slate.com/… certain foreign billionaires can no longer enter the US let alone buy condos in their names. Plus, because it takes a thousand million dollar condo sales to launder a billion dollars this system is awkward and laborious.
This is where my hunch comes in. An NFL franchise is worth $2.5-5 billion. NBA franchise $1.5-3 billion, Major League Baseball $1.5-3 billion and NHL values run from $.5-1 billion. Beats the hell out of buying 2000 million dollar condos to launder $2 billion bucks. The only catch is these billionaires need to remain behind the curtain and need one or more American straw-buyers they can trust to buy these uniquely American institutions, the idea of which turns my stomach.
That’s why I suspect that Donald Trump’s billion dollar bid had PUTIN or one or more of his Oligarchs backing him. Obviously, the President, whom all U.S. Intelligence Agencies suspect the Russians have the goods on would be a perfect choice, for future bids as well, but not while he’s President.
Well that’s my theory. What do you think? And if Russians weren’t involved where would he get the money?