Steve Cohen sees sports teams as value buys that bring his face into the public, that are sheer fun and that are appreciating over time.
He called the Mets “an unpolished gem” that drew him in.
After three up-and-down and often chaotic years, Cohen said he would do it all over again — though he won’t seriously invest in another major sport until or if the Mets are rolling.
Cohen did buy a New York team in the newly formed TGL — a golf league backed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy that Cohen called “speculative” — but he said more significant purchases won’t come until the current mission is accomplished.
“I gotta get the Mets right,” Cohen said Wednesday at Sportico’s “Invest in Sports” conference at the Times Center in Manhattan. “Once I get the Mets right and get the model down, then I can think about doing something else. … Maybe down the road, but I gotta get this right. And I haven’t gotten it right yet.”
Plenty went wrong during a 75-win season that essentially ended at the trade deadline, when Cohen and then-general manager Billy Eppler presided over a fire sale that built for the future.
During a talk with Sportscorp Limited president Marc Ganis, Cohen touched on several aspects of the Mets operation, particularly business-oriented, but did not address Eppler’s resignation.
Cohen’s former GM is under MLB investigation for alleged improper uses of the injured list, sources said.
Approached after the summit, Cohen declined comment to reporters.
The new leader of the front office is David Stearns, whose contract with the Brewers Cohen waited out until it expired after this season.
“I was really patient, and I think that was the right move,” said Cohen, who still needs to hire a president of business operations and said he has been just as patient.
Cohen signaled he might be getting close to a hire because there is a candidate who has gotten through two successful interviews — usually, Cohen said, he has started souring on a candidate after a second interview.
Other takeaways from the half-hour conference:
• Cohen said he had dinner with Francisco Lindor on Tuesday night ahead of the shortstop’s elbow surgery.
Cohen said he likes getting to know his players in part because “I want them to be ambassadors for me,” spreading the Word of Steve.
“I know a lot of owners don’t like doing that because you don’t want to get too close, and then you have to trade them and that type of stuff,” Cohen said. “I look at it differently.
“I want them to go out in baseball and go, ‘That was a great experience.’ ”
• Cohen spoke often about trying to build up the land around Citi Field and has discovered what could be a new source of revenue at the park itself.
At the end of the season, Mets players Jeff McNeil and Kodai Senga played video games using the enormous video board that Cohen installed. ESports could follow.
“[It] actually gave me an idea about how to use the facility to have people actually use this big scoreboard when we’re not there for events for video games and that type of stuff,” Cohen said.
• Cohen tweeted far less often this season than in past seasons. He called his early Twitter jabs “a pandemic thing.”
“I was sitting there — there was nothing to do, right?” Cohen said.
He has since cut down on his tweets.
“Twitter acts as a tough place to connect with fans,” Cohen said. “It’s pretty controversial and hostile and especially if your team’s not doing well.”
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