Beckam-led group's Miami bid nears OK
Board approves newly structured ownership for team.
David Beckham’s
MIAMI — odyssey to bring Major League Soccer to Miami, fraught with delays and snags for nearly four years, is expected to finally reach a happy conclusion, with
the official granting of the team expected as early as late January.
The MLS Board of Governors met in New York City on Thursday and approved Beckham’s newly structured ownership group, which includes Miami moguls Jorge
and Jose Mas and Japanese multibillionaire Masayoshi Son, chairman of Sprint and SoftBank. Beckham’s longtime business partner,
entertainment giant Simon Fuller, remains in the group, as does Sprint CEO and parttime Miami resident Marcelo Claure.
Los Angeles Dodgers part- owner Todd Boehly, brought in last April to be majority partner of the Beckham group, is no longer involved. The role of chief negotiator and partner Tim Leiweke is expected to be reduced as well.
Sources indicated the Mas brothers and Son were well-received by the owners, several of whom were famil- iar with them from the tech world and the Mas family’s recent bid to buy the Marlins. The stakes in the new invest-
ment group are expected to be more evenly divided
than they would have been with Boehly, which should
sit well with some MLS owners who were critical of Boehly’s getting into the league by piggybacking on Beck- ham’s deeply discounted franchise fee of $25 million that was one of the perks of the $250 million contract he signed with the league 10 years ago. The current entry fee is $150 million.
The league leadership also was looking for more local representation in the Beck- ham ownership group, and it gets that with the Mas broth- ers, who belong to one of
Miami’s most prominent and wealthy Cuban-Amer- ican families. Their late father, Jorge Mas Canosa, was a vocal leader of the exile community.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in his State of the League address Dec. 8 he remained “confident” they would work out a deal
and suggested a local owner would help overcome some of the hurdles the group has faced.
The Beckham group has already secured a 9-acre sta
dium site in Overtown, of which 3 acres is owned by Miami-Dade County, which has agreed to sell the land to Beckham for $9 million. That sale is being contested in court by nearby-land owner Bruce Matheson. A judge recently sided with the county’s use of state economic-de- velopment laws to approve the sale, but Matheson is appealing.
MLS and Beckham sources said they do not expect that suit to be a deal-breaker. The city of Miami must also approve zoning changes for the site. The plan is for the Miami MLS team to begin play in 2020.