The Tigers are disputing that the team is for sale, refuting a report from an obscure website that Detroit booster and billionaire Dan Gilbert is in discussions to purchase the baseball franchise.
“We are on the record and have consistently stated that Christopher Ilitch is 100-percent committed to long-term Ilitch ownership of the Detroit Tigers,” Ron Colangelo, a Tigers spokesman, said in a statement.
The sports website, The Spun, reported Tuesday that Gilbert, the Quicken Loans co-founder and owner of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, was in "serious discussions" about purchasing the Tigers.
That story, citing anonymous sources, seemed to lend some credibility to the speculation that Gilbert was indeed interested in adding Major League Baseball to his vast portfolio amid a report by Bloomberg earlier this month that said Gilbert was looking to cash out of the casino business.