Red Sox SPAC Talks With Billy Beane’s RedBall Said to Collapse

(Bloomberg) -- Merger talks between the owner of the Boston Red Sox and blank-check firm RedBall Acquisition Corp. have fallen apart, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The transaction that had been discussed last year would have combined the baseball team’s parent company, Fenway Sports Group, with RedBall in a transaction valued at $8 billion, Bloomberg News previously reported.

Billy Beane, the executive for Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics who was featured in the book and movie “Moneyball,” is co-chairman of RedBall, a special purpose acquisition company.

Representatives for Redball and Fenway Sports Group, which also owns the Liverpool Football Club, declined to comment. Axios reported earlier that the deal had collapsed.

It’s not uncommon for proposed SPAC deals to fall apart. Discussions to take Topgolf, AT&T Inc.’s DirecTV and Elite Model World public all failed to get to the finish line with various SPACs.

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