Jeffrey Scott Wilpon (born December 9, 1961) is an American businessman who is the executive vice-president of

Sterling Equities Sterling Equities in Great Neck, New York, is a diversified, family-run group of companies whose portfolio consists primarily of holdings in real estate, sports, and media in the New York area. These include the New York Mets, the Brooklyn Cyclon ...

, and the owner of the

Overwatch League The Overwatch League (OWL) is a professional esports league for the video game ''Overwatch'', produced by its developer, Blizzard Entertainment. The Overwatch League follows the model of other traditional North American professional sporting le ...

Esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional sports, professional players, individually or as ...

team the

New York Excelsior The New York Excelsior (often stylized as NYXL) is an American professional ''Overwatch'' esports team based in New York City, New York. The Excelsior compete in the Overwatch League (OWL) as a member of the league's West region. Founded in 20 ...

. He is the former COO of the

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major lea ...

baseball team and son of the former principal owner of the New York Mets Fred Wilpon. Jeff and other Wilpon family members invested with

Bernie Madoff Bernard Lawrence Madoff ( ; April 29, 1938April 14, 2021) was an American fraudster and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the NASDAQ ...

ponzi scheme A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are comin ...

that collapsed in 2008. Unlike many who lost their investments, it was revealed in the Madoff firm's court case, ''Securities Investor Protection Corp. vs. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC'' (USBC SDNY No. 08-01789), that the family partnership run by Wilpon made $48 million in their dealings with the firm. He is a member of the board of directors for the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust h ...

in Washington, D.C.

Biography

Wilpon was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family, the son of Judy (née Kessler) and Fred Wilpon, the co-founder of the real estate development firm

and former majority owner of the

. He has two siblings. His sister, Robin Wilpon, is married to Phillip Wachtler, son of former Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals,

Sol Wachtler Solomon "Sol" Wachtler (born April 29, 1930) is an American lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He was Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1985 to 1992. Wachtler's most famous quote, made shortly after his appointment ...

. His brother, Bruce Wilpon, is a partner at Sterling Equities and was married to Yuki Oshima-Wilpon, daughter of Japanese billionaire Kenshin Ōshima. His uncle is

Saul Katz Saul Katz (born February 17, 1939) is a real estate developer, former president of the New York Mets and accused Bernie Madoff co-conspirator. Biography Katz was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn.Roslyn High School in

Roslyn, New York Roslyn ( ) is a village in the Town of North Hempstead in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. It is the Greater Roslyn area's anchor community. The population was 2,770 at the 2010 census. History Ros ...

. He was drafted by the

Montreal Expos The Montreal Expos (french: link=no, Les Expos de Montréal) were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in ...

in 1983 as a favor to his father but was cut by the

Jamestown Expos The Jamestown Expos were a minor league baseball franchise located in Jamestown, New York. The team existed under various names from 1939 through 1993 and played in the New York–Penn League and its predecessor, the Pennsylvania–Ontario–New ...

without appearing in a game. He served as chief officer of development and construction and oversaw the planning and development of

Citi Field Citi Field is a baseball stadium located in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in New York City, United States. It opened in 2009 and is the home field of Major League Baseball's New York Mets. The stadium was built as a replacement for the adjacent ...

. He now serves as the executive vice-president of Sterling Equities.Times Herald Record: "Jeff Wilpon won't rest until Amazin' mission is complete" By Michael P. Geffner
March 29, 2008

Criticism

Wilpon has been criticized by some for being too much of a meddler in the baseball operations for the New York Mets. In 2010,

Joel Sherman Joel Sherman (born 1962), nicknamed "GI Joel", is a top American Scrabble expert and former world champion. He is chronicled in Stefan Fatsis's book ''Word Freak'', in Eric Chaikin's film ''Word Wars'', and in Scott Petersen's film ''Scrabylon' ...

of the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'' wrote, "Let's give Jeff Wilpon the benefit of the doubt here for a moment. Let's say he is not short-tempered. Tone deaf. A credit seeker. An accountability deflector. A micro-manager. A second-guesser. A less-than-deep thinker. And bad at self-awareness. Fine, he's none of these things. But here is the problem: This is his perception in the industry as the Mets try yet again to fix their baseball operations department." Sherman also cited a baseball executive in regular contact with the Mets, who said, "Jeff is the problem with the organization, and he is never going to realize that. He cannot help himself. He has to be involved. He will never hire anyone who will not let him have major input. He will not hire anyone who does not run every personnel decision through him." An AL executive added, "The only person with a worse reputation than Jeff Wilpon in the game is arlins president David Samson." In 2009,

Peter Gammons Peter Gammons (born April 9, 1945) is an American sportswriter, media personality, and musician. He is a recipient of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for outstanding baseball writing, given by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Early ...

told ESPN Radio that Mets GM Omar Minaya "isn’t the General Manager. Jeff Wilpon is. Omar's the one out there to take the heat." In 2003, the team's previous partner, Nelson Doubleday, Jr., told ''

The Star-Ledger ''The Star-Ledger'' is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to '' The Jersey Journal'' of Jersey City, ''The Times'' of Trenton and the '' Staten Island Advance'', all of ...

'': "Mr. Jeff Wilpon has decided that he's going to learn how to run a baseball team and take over at the end of the year… Run for the hills, boys. I think probably all those baseball people will bail... Jeff sits there by himself like he's King Tut waiting for his camel." Many commentators on the internet and in broadcast media have referred to Jeff Wilpon as "Fredo" Wilpon, after the ineffectual member of the

Corleone family The Corleone family are fictional characters in both the novels and the films created by Mario Puzo, first appearing in his 1969 novel, ''The Godfather''. They are an organized crime family originating from the Sicilian town of Corleone, and ba ...

, Fredo Corleone, played by

John Cazale John Holland Cazale (; August 12, 1935 – March 13, 1978) was an American actor. He appeared in five films over seven years, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: ''The Godfather'' (1972), ''The Conversation'' (197 ...

in ''

The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caa ...

'' and ''

The Godfather Part II ''The Godfather Part II'' is a 1974 American epic crime film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The film is partially based on the 1969 novel ''The Godfather'' by Mario Puzo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Coppola. ''Part II'' s ...

''. In September 2014, Wilpon was named as a defendant in a lawsuit by Leigh Castergine, the first female senior vice president of ticket sales in the history of the Mets. According to the civil complaint filed by Castergine's attorney, Wilpon repeatedly disparaged her for having a child out of wedlock and then terminated her employment when she complained to human resources.

Personal life

He is married to Valerie (née Goldman) Wilpon. Their son, Bradley Wilpon, was drafted by the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...

in 2014, and has played two summers for the

Newport Gulls The Newport Gulls are a wooden-bat, collegiate summer baseball team based in Newport, Rhode Island. The Newport Gulls Baseball Club is a member of both the New England Collegiate Baseball League and the NECBL's Coastal Division. Since 2001, the Gu ...

of the NECBL.

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three gradu ...

announced in July 2017 that Wilpon has bought ownership in the

, one of the first seven teams planned for the professional esports

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilpon, Jeff 1960s births Living people People from Brooklyn Jewish American baseball people Major League Baseball executives American chief operating officers Wilpon family New York Mets executives New York Excelsior Esports businesspeople 21st-century American Jews Palm Beach State Panthers baseball players