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KC Royals: David Glass Sells Team To Snapchat Founder

By John Viril

Nov 1, 2015; New York City, NY, USA; Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost (left) celebrates with owner David Glass after the presentation of the Commissioners Trophy after defeating the New York Mets in game five of the World Series at Citi Field. The Royals won the World Series four games to one. Mandatory Credit: Al Bello/Pool Photo via USA TODAY Sports
Nov 1, 2015; New York City, NY, USA; Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost (left) celebrates with owner David Glass after the presentation of the Commissioners Trophy after defeating the New York Mets in game five of the World Series at Citi Field. The Royals won the World Series four games to one. Mandatory Credit: Al Bello/Pool Photo via USA TODAY Sports /
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KC Royals owner David Glass announced Friday afternoon that he sold the team for $1.5 billion to Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel.

After a long negotiation, Kansas City Royals owner David Glass concluded a deal to sell the defending World Champions to 25-year-old Evan Spiegel who co-founded social media application Snapchat in July 2011. Spiegel, who was named to the Forbes Fortune 400 September 30, 2015, paid $1 billion in cash plus $500 million in Snapchat stock to complete the transaction.

A gratified Spiegel announced:

"“Snapchat has acquired the Kansas City Royals in order to create a revolutionary marriage between sports and social media. This acquisition comes in tandem with a new initiative to take on Vine in the space of instantaneous looping video. In the end, the Snapchat board believed the synergy between the World Champion Kansas City Royals and Snapchat was too good to ignore.”“This day marks a transformation in both the world of professional sports in America as well as social media access to the games we all love.”"

Spiegel promises the Snapchat-Royals merger will offer fans never-before-seen peeks into the lives of major league players:

"“We’re going way beyond a bunch of guys standing around in front of their lockers wearing jockstraps.”"

While he does not expect to roll out the new features immediately, he hopes to eventually add body cameras to all 25 players on the KC Royals roster to provide instant “POV” clips everywhere on the field. Spiegel believes that he’ll “melt the internet” when fans can instant access “game-turning plays” from the point of view of the player who made them.

Spiegel said:

"“Fans will now know what it feels like to make the play to win the World Series.”"

David Glass himself was surprised by Friday’s turn of events:

"“I never wanted to sell the Royals. Dan [Glass, son and Royals Vice President] and I expected to enjoy being the defending World Champions in 2016. But, $1.5 billion was just too much money. Mr. Spiegel paid twice what Forbes said our team was worth. Who could turn that down?”"

Aside from Evan Spiegel’s high-flown dreams of revolutionizing both sports and social media, he offered a much more basic reason for the acquisition after dogged questioning by this reporter:

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    • "“Snapchat needs to become something besides a sexting app if we expect to challenge Facebook for social media supremacy. Naked sex pics can only take us so far.”“Zuckerberg. [Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg] You’re going down!”"

    Kansas City Royals players were stunned by Friday’s turn of events. Among his first acts, Evan Spiegel demanded that all KC Royals players cancel their Twitter and Instagram accounts to interact with their fans through Snapchat.

    Catcher Salvador Perez was particularly disturbed:

    "“Lorenzo [Cain] and I have to use a whole new app instead of going at it on Instagram. The last thing I need to do is waste time learning Snapchat when I’ve got the New York Mets to worry about on Sunday.”"

    Evan Spiegel, however, was much more hopeful about his relationship with his new players:

    "“Hey, It’ll be great to party with some jocks instead of computer geeks. I’m finally going to be one of the cool kids!”"

    Next: Royals Sign Three Players To MiLB Deals

    In the end, we’ll all have to adjust to a deal that only could have happened on April Fool’s Day.

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