CHICAGO,  (Reuters) – The owners of the New York Mets  will be forced to sell the pro baseball team due to huge losses  suffered in the Bernard Madoff swindle, the author of a book  about the disgraced money manager said yesterday.

The Wilpon family, led by Mets owner Fred Wilpon, lost  about $700 million because of Madoff, according to Erin  Arvedlund, author of “Too Good to Be True,” published earlier  this month.

Arvedlund said she does not know the terms of the Wilpons’  bank loans, but said the losses are steep enough that a sale of  the baseball team is certain.

“It’s qualified by when,” she said. “It’s possible they  would have to sell by next year.”
Fred Wilpon was among thousands of investors defrauded by  Madoff, himself a Mets fan. Wilpon bought a stake in the Mets  in 1980, raised his share to 50 percent six years later, and  purchased the rest with his family and others in 2002.

Madoff pleaded guilty earlier this year to running the  biggest investment fraud in Wall Street’s history, which  prosecutors said bilked investors out of as much as $65  billion. Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence.

The team said Arvedlund has no knowledge of the baseball  team or its finances and repeated previous statements that the  Mets are not for sale.

“Her speculation that the Mets — or any part of the team  — is for sale is completely false and is irresponsible,” the  team said in a statement.

A team spokesman told MarketWatch that Arvedlund’s loss  projection is inaccurate.
Some bankers have speculated the Wilpons would be forced to  sell all or part of the Mets, while others said a sale of part  of the Mets cable TV channel SportsNet New York was more  likely.

If the team were sold, it would likely fetch more than the  $845 million that a group led by Tom Ricketts, a Chicago  investment banker and son of the founder of TD Ameritrade  Holding Corp <AMTD.O>, is paying for the Chicago Cubs and other  assets, analysts said.
The Mets play in a larger market, control their own sports  network and play in a ballpark that opened this season.

In April, Forbes magazine estimated the Mets were worth  $912 million, trailing only the New York Yankees among Major  League Baseball teams.