Rangers Sale Setbacks

It’s high noon in Dallas and Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks is gearing up for a showdown with a few lenders.

Hicks, who’s in the hole to a group of banks including J.P. Morgan Chase, has made a grab for $90 million from the pending $530 million sale of his baseball team, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The banks aren’t having it.

Hicks Sports Group was lent approximately $540 million for the Rangers and its Dallas Stars NHL hockey team, but the teams reportedly failed to make enough money to cover debt obligations and HSG put out the feelers for a possible sale.

A potential deal for the Rangers was reached in January when Hicks entered negotiations with Pittsburgh sports investor Chuck Greenberg and Rangers president Nolan Ryan, the WSJ said. Hicks is also apparently looking to sell off the Stars through a New York sports firm.

The Rangers deal includes a 47-acre parcel of land that Hicks claims is worth $90 million and the banks say is worth much less.
That disagreement is holding up the sale. But the lenders aren’t the only ones Hicks will have to wrangle with before he can say goodbye to the Rangers.

Two architecture firms that previously worked on the development of the land, which sits between the Rangers’ Ballpark in Arlington and the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, recently filed suit in Dallas County District Court, according to Forbes.

The firms, RTKL and VCC, claim they are owed millions for the work they completed toward Hicks’ vision of an urban residential and commercial development.