Page "Kansas City Royals" Paragraph 21

At the start of the 1990s, the Royals had been hit with a double-whammy when General Manager John Schuerholz departed in 1990 and team owner Ewing Kauffman died in 1993.

Shortly before Kauffman's death, he set up an unprecedented complex succession plan to keep the team in Kansas City.

The team was donated at his death to the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and Affiliated Trusts with operating decisions of the team decided by a five member group chaired by Wal-Mart executive David Glass.

According to the plan the Royals had six years to find a local owner for the team before opening ownership to an outside bidder.

The new owners would be required to say they would keep the team in Kansas City.

Kauffman had feared that new owners would move it noting, " No one would want to buy a baseball team that consistently loses millions of dollars and had little prospect of making money because it was in a small city.

" If no owner could be found the Kauffman restrictions were to end on January 1, 2002 and the team was to be sold to the highest bidder.

In 1999, New York City lawyer and minor league baseball owner Miles Prentice, vowing not to move the team, bid $ 75 million for the team.

This was the minimum amount Kauffman had stipulated the team could be sold for.

MLB rejected Prentice's first bid without specifying any reason.

In a final round of bids on March 13, 2000, the Foundation voted to accept Glass ' bid of $ 96 million, rejecting Prentice's revised bid of $ 115 million.