New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon, who recently announced the team was "bleeding cash" and could lose up to $70 million in 2011, is expected to announce today that a less-than-49% minority stake in the team has been sold to hedge fund manager David Einhorn, according to ESPN New York.
The sale is being done primarily to bring the team an infusion of cash and does not include any interest in SNY, the regional sports TV network in New York started by and owned by Wilpon.
Wilpon has been in the news recently not only for losing much of his personal fortune in the Bernie Madoff scandal, but for comments he made about Mets players in an article by Jeffrey Toobin in this week's New Yorker magazine. He is the longest-running current owner in MLB; Wilpon and his partner Saul Katz, along with some cash from the Doubleday publishing family, purchased the Mets in 1980.
For more on this story, please visit SB Nation New York and our SB Nation Mets site Amazin' Avenue.