Whole New Ballgame: Billionaire owner Steve Cohen is a lifelong Mets fan who vowed to bring a World Series back to Queens within five years.
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The bidding war for the most sought-after free agent in baseball history included the usual suspects who have spent freely on superstars for decades—the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox—but none could top Steve Cohen, the league’s new heavy hitter.
The 68-year-old Cohen, whose estimated net worth of $21.3 billion is twice as large as any other Major League Baseball owner’s fortune, reportedly agreed Sunday night to a 15-year, $765 million deal to sign 26-year-old outfielder Juan Soto, who wore Yankee pinstripes last season. The contract averages out to $51 million a year with no deferred money, making it far more lucrative in present value than the $700 million deal Shohei Ohtani inked with the Dodgers last winter, most of which he won’t receive for another decade.
On paper, the math doesn’t add up for the Mets to justify this kind of deal, but Cohen—who made much of his fortune at his hedge fund SAC Capital and now operates Point72 Asset Management—doesn’t need it to. The Mets generated $393 million in revenue last year, according to Forbes estimates, nowhere near their crosstown rivals the Yankees, who led the league with $679 million.
Meanwhile the Dodgers, who defeated the Bronx Bombers in the 2024 World Series and committed more than $1 billion last offseason to free agents such as Ohtani and Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, raked in $549 million to cover their expenses, thanks largely to a 25-year, $8.4 billion local TV deal they landed with Time Warner Cable in 2013. While most MLB teams turn a modest profit, Forbes estimates the Mets booked an operating loss of $292 million.
Going, Going Gone: Soto’s new $765 million contract with the Mets eclipses the Yankees’ offer and makes him the highest-paid player in baseball history.
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The reality is, all Cohen needs to compete with other teams’ systemic advantages is his own wallet. Three decades as one of Wall Street’s most successful hedge fund managers has given him plenty of cushion to withstand a nine-figure loss on his baseball team. His Point72 has $35 billion in assets under management just six years after it opened up to outside investors. (In 2016, Cohen was temporarily barred by the SEC from managing outside capital due to insider trading charges at SAC Capital.) Much of that is Cohen’s own fortune, and he rakes in 2.85% management fees and performance fees of up to 30% annually on the rest.
John Malone, the cable TV mogul who nominally owns the largest stake in the Atlanta Braves as the chairman and top shareholder of Liberty Media, is the next-richest MLB owner with an estimated fortune of $10.8 billion. Most of the league’s owners trail much further behind.
And since MLB is the only one of the four biggest American pro sports leagues with no salary cap on team payrolls, there is little stopping an owner with virtually limitless wealth from spending whatever he wants in pursuit of a championship. The league does have a “competitive balance tax” on every dollar spent on player salaries above a predetermined threshold to restrain the teams with the most resources, but that amount is more of a speed bump than an obstacle. In 2025, that amount will be $241 million, and the Mets’ payroll has exceeded $300 million in each of the last two years. The Associated Press reported the team’s tax bill for the 2023 season alone was over $100 million, a significant deterrent for any other team but essentially a rounding error for Cohen.
When Cohen bought the team for $2.4 billion in 2020, the lifelong Mets fan made it clear that his priority was to win. In his introductory press conference, Cohen said it would be “slightly disappointing” if the team didn’t win a World Series within three to five years. Next year will be the Mets’ last chance in that time period to deliver their first championship since 1986, but Cohen’s ownership has paid some dividends already with two playoff appearances in the last three seasons.
This year’s World Series matchup between the Dodgers and Yankees vindicated the idea that spending on top-dollar players tends to produce championship teams, and in the long-term, it may even be good business. The late George Steinbrenner made the Yankees baseball’s most valuable team at $7.55 billion by signing talent like Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi to eye-popping contracts even without deep pockets like Cohen. Steinbrenner’s heirs led by Yankee Global Enterprises chairman Hal Steinbrenner, who has a net worth of $1.5 billion and owns the team with his siblings, reportedly offered a $760 million, 16-year contract to keep Soto in the Bronx, where he starred last season and helped the team reach its first World Series since 2009.
Cohen’s winning bid for Soto made his biggest statement yet that in the words of Mets broadcaster Howie Rose, he’s done “being the little brother in town. He was taking dead aim at the Yankees and everyone else. It’s on.” And Mets fans have never been more hopeful with a once-in-a-generation hitter entering his prime years locked in as the franchise cornerstone.
Cohen will still undoubtedly be on the hook for losses on the balance sheet in the near-term, but the team is still ensuring fans help him recoup some of his investment. Before even officially announcing the signing, the Mets put single-game tickets for the 2025 season up for sale on Monday morning.
