Never Say Never

Sky Sports News tweeted out the following on Wednesday:

The key five words here are, of course, "if the price is right".

As one reply succinctly put it:

OK, so it was my reply and I'm biased, but of course the Glazer family would sell any asset at "the right price".

For example, Ron Noades sold Crystal Palace in 1998 after Mark Goldberg offered him £23.8m, a sum at least double what the club was worth at that time. 

Noades was reluctant to sell, and regretted the deal later, but the offer was simply too good to turn down. Noades even lent Goldberg £5m to allow the deal to go through.

Perhaps Goldberg knew that Palace were destined to be one of the biggest 25 clubs in the world, ahead of "Super League" club AC Milan!

The point is that everything has its price. I mentioned the Berkshire Hathaway Annual General Meeting in a recent post, and one of the questions asked was whether the company would be open to a call from Elon Musk with a request to insure SpaceX's future mission to and colonization of Mars.

The question was directed at Ajit Jain, who runs Berkshire Hathaway's insurance business.

“Specifically he wants insurance to insure SpaceX’s heavy rocket, capsule, payload, and human capital. Would you underwrite any portion of a venture like that?”

Without hesitation, Jain responded, “This is an easy one. No thank you. I'll pass.”

Buffett chimed in with:

“Well, I would say it would depend on the premium. And I would say that I would probably have a somewhat different rate if Elon was on board, or not on board.” 

Buffett gets it, and perhaps it's no surprise that Buffett's successor will not be Ajit Jain, though that decision appears to have been based on the latter's age rather than his questionable response, as the chosen one is Greg Abel who is a mere 58 years old. 

The lesson for bettors is that any sporting outcome can be value if the price is high enough. Bet for value, not for who you think will win, and you will be a long term winner. In other words, bet numbers not teams.