Report: Mets Eye $1.3 Billion Price Tag in Fundraising Effort

Despite the financial turmoil engulfing the franchise, the owners of the New York Mets believe their baseball team is worth a whopping $1.3 billion.

According to the New York Post, the Mets believe an effort to raise $200 million in exchange for a 25% stake will result in a valuation just shy of the $1.6 billion price tag placed on their archrivals, the New York Yankees.

The math would go as follows: $200 million sale price, multiplying it by four and adding the   team’s $500 million debt load, the paper reported.

“It’s beyond absurd,” one source told the Post.

According to Forbes, the Mets are valued at $858 million, good for Major League Baseball’s third-most valuable franchise, trailing only the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. The team is estimated to have brought in $268 million in revenue and turned a $26.2 million profit in 2009.

However, the Mets have been thrown in chaos by the Madoff Ponzi scandal. Late last year, the trustee seeking to recover the Madoff money sued Mets owner Sterling Equities and others for up to $1 billion, alleging principal owner Fred Wilpon knew or should have known the investment fund was a fraud.

Wilpon has adamantly denied wrongdoing, saying he is a victim in the scheme.

According to the Post, the new valuation on the Mets was passed along recently to at least one of the pre-qualified groups of potential bidders by Allen & Co., the Mets bankers. However, a source close to the Mets denied to the paper price expectations have been mentioned.

Suitors reportedly include a group led by Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) exec David Heller and a group that includes Anthony Scaramucci, the general manager of SkyBridge Capital.