The Mets are Still Paying the Best All-Stars from the mid-90s

Fortune - As owners now shop a 49% stake in the team, it's been widely reported that the franchise has around $430 million in bank debt. But a potential investor who spoke to Fortune on condition of anonymity points out that the team's liabilities are closer to $625 million, from a buyer's perspective.
According to the source, Mets financial statements disclose another $100 million in what the team calls "contingent liabilities." Much of that is deferred compensation still due to players long gone from the Mets roster. The documents give two examples of these liabilities: Bobby Bonilla, who left the team in 1996 and has $1.2 million per year coming to him for the next 25 years, and Bret Saberhagen, who left in 1995 and is owed $250,000 annually through 2029.

This article goes into awesome detail about how fucked the Mets are from a financial standpoint. As a baseball fan who hates all things New York, this is such a fun article to read. But the only part I'm really interested in is the details around all the deferred money the Mets owe to players who retired like 15 years ago. For instance, the Mets owe Bobby Bonilla $1.2 million per year for the next 25 years!! That's incredible. A guy who hasn't played for them in 15 years still has a quarter of a century left on his contract. And Bret Saberhagen, who hasn't played for the Mets in 16 years and has been out of baseball all together for more than a decade, is owed $250K for the next 18 years.

Incredible numbers...

Let's do some rough math here and assume the Mets have yearly revenue of about $250 million (I pulled that out of some obscure Forbes article). If they are paying Bonilla $1.2 million against that yearly revenue, that's the equivalent of me paying a friend $400 a year for the next 25 years for him to provide nothing to me. Imagine if you lost a bet with a friend for a shitload of money, and you had to defer the payment because you couldn't cough it all up at once. And then you'd be paying this asshole for the next 40 years...sure it's only $400 a year, but that's so obnoxious. "Oh, yeah here's your check for doing nothing, again, for the 27th year in a row. You sure you don't wanna just call it even, man?"

And the article says that Bonilla & Saberhagen were just 2 examples of players that are owed money. The Mets probably have a full 25-man roster worth of ex-players they have to pay off for most of the 21st century.

I can't believe no one is jumping at the chance to buy this franchise. Sign me up!