00:00Chelsea Football Club making a number of management changes.
00:03The club is buying chairman Todd Boley and director Mark Walter in deals
00:07that set the enterprise value for the team of almost $7 billion.
00:11Clear Lake now gets full control of the club.
00:14Here with more is Bloomberg senior reporter Randall Williams.
00:17And Randall, you and the team have been doing a great job of reporting
00:19just how much discontent there had been between these two ownership groups.
00:24What is the impetus for Boley selling?
00:25Is it just the turmoil in Mark Walter's empire?
00:28That's the basis of it.
00:30I mean, when Mark Walter sold the Lakers, everyone thought that there was going to be a fire sale.
00:34And I think this was the reason why, because of the Clear Lake deal.
00:39And I think when you look at it, he has said and the president of the Dodgers said,
00:43look, we're not selling the Dodgers, we're not selling Cadillac F1.
00:48But these two things he got ridden of.
00:50Let me put a question to both of you.
00:51And I should say I'm sitting next to somebody who's not a disinterested party in what's going on.
00:55I'm incredibly biased. I will accept that.
00:56This is a franchise that's been kind of a mess.
00:58In recent years, no?
00:59Yeah, a mess and one that has been a money pit, too.
01:03I think it's fair to say.
01:04To be fair, this season, they're looking much stronger.
01:06But yeah, I mean, this has been a lot of money that they've thrown at this club to improve it.
01:11It's very similar to the Mets in that, you know, you spend a lot of money on things that you
01:15think will be successful.
01:16And it hasn't been.
01:17And ownership dysfunction is not something that is new to sports.
01:21But this is something that probably needed to be resolved.
01:23And with the ongoing things that are happening in Mark Walter's world, you know, him getting some extra money to
01:28help throw at those problems is probably a solution.
01:31A lot of fires to put out.
01:32Yeah, exactly.
01:33Not a fire sale, but fires to put out.
01:35I was going to say, is this a fire sale, a five billion pound EV?
01:39I don't consider it that until one of the Dodgers or, you know, Cadillac F1 go.
01:44If those things were to go for sale, then I would say yes, absolutely.
01:48Or the professional women's hockey league.
01:49He has not said that those things are happening.
01:52However, at the same time, everything is not for sale.
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