Bernie Madoff’s Involvement

Why would a team agree to pay $30 million over time, as opposed to $5.9 million upfront? The Mets used some of the money to sign another big-name player at the time, but that wasn’t the biggest motivation.

Mets ownership was actually invested in a Bernie Madoff account that promised double-digit returns, and the team was poised to make a huge profit on the $5.9 million investment in the fund, if the account delivered. As we all know now, that didn’t happen, and Bernie Madoff is spending the rest of his life in prison for pulling off this massive Ponzi scheme.