An Arizona businessman is very close to fianlizing a deal to buy the Minnesota Vikings and in the process become the first African American owner of an NFL franchise.

Poor Guy!!!

Can we can safely assume the new owner won't be signing paychecks for one Randy Moss?

Well from everything being reported, the Vikes want to trade Moss. But the problem may be that few, if any, teams want to take on the huge contract plus the Imelda Marcos-sized baggage especially at the price the Vikes would expect to get. Again, from the reports I've heard/read Minnesota is looking for two #1 draft picks or a #1 plus a huge impact defensive player. The major players right now are the Ravens, raiders and Jets, none of whom have the impact defensive player I'd want to see the Vikes take. Obviously the Ravens have Ray Lewis but they aren't trading him. The Jets have John Abraham and they can keep him, IMO.

And if a deal isn't struck before the team's sale goes through it is very possible the new owner may decide to keep Moss. And maybe Randy will find some extra motivation in playing for the first black owner.

Man the Vikes organization is really screwed up. All those draft day gaffes. The Randy Moss mess. The annual season ending gag jobs. And now this potential new owner who fabricated much of resume. Seems as if he led people to believe he played pro football, played in the Little League World Series, had a degree from the Unoversity of Wyoming and is happily married. Turns out the first two aren't true at all, he has a degree but not in the field he claims and may be going through a divorce.

Now why is the marriage thing important? Because if he is suppossedly worth X amount of money, it will be half that if he gets divorced thereby possibly leaving him without enough money to purchase the team. Also if he lies about such incidentals why on earth would the other owners trust him? And why would the city of Minneapolis trust him when he tries to negotiate a new stadium for the team? Another day, another mess for the Vikes!

Is there really a chance his deal won't be approved because of this? Well, at least he got caught in his lies before he actually took over -- not like the guy who bought the NHL's Islanders some years back and turned out to have much less money than he stated, if I recall.

Joe

Well the NFL wants a minority owner badly. But this will make some owners think a little longer and a little harder before voting in favor of the transaction. He needs 24 owners to say yes and could see a few of the old timers vote no based heavily on this stuff.

The league approved the sale of the Vikings for $600 million to a mall tycoon from New Jersey named Zygmunt Wilf. Don't know anything about him but that name would score alot of points in Scrabble!

Reggie Fowler, the African American who made a bid to buy the team a few months back, is still part of the group purchaing the team Guess he'll be a minority minority partner.

[ May 26, 2005, 08:13 AM: Message edited by: George_Twinsfan ]