He's Nobody's Fool

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that Duquesne Capital Management founder Stanley Druckenmiller has his limits:

According to a source who has intimate knowledge of the New York hedge fund manager's dealings with the Rooney brothers, Mr. Druckenmiller will not get caught up in a high-stakes bidding war to purchase the shares necessary to become majority owner if Goldman Sachs & Co., the Wall Street investment bank that is serving as financial adviser for the Rooney brothers, opens the process to public bid.

Far be it for us to tell a group of millionaires (i.e. the Rooneys) how to treat a billionaire they are recruiting to bail them out, and this is not the first place you will have read this, but the Pittsburgh Steelers are more than a football team ~ it is a public institution and the Rooneys have always managed it as such. While ensuring that the family receives a fair price for the 84% of the team that is, apparently, for sale is smart business playing competing billionaires off one another in an effort to grovel for every possible penny would be . . . unbecoming. Additionally, this team, this institution shouldn't simply be open to the highest bidder.

In Chicago and Los Angeles residents are witnessing what happens when someone of limited creativity and vision, but with a great deal of money and/or creative financing, gains control of respected local institutions. The franchise celebrated its 75th anniversary last season, and the Rooney family owes it to the city of Pittsburgh and the legion of Steelers' fans to ensure that the greatness of this franchise endures for another 75 years ~ if not more.