Fenway Sports Group, the owner of Liverpool Football Club and Boston Red Sox, is in talks with RedBall Acquisition Corp to go public, according to a Reuters report.

The deal being discussed by Fenway owner John Henry would merge his group with RedBall Acquisition Corp and would value the combined entity at around $8 billion including debt.

RedBall is a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that is co-chaired by former Goldman Sachs banker Gerald Cardinale and baseball executive Billy Beane, who shot to fame as the subject of Michael Lewis’s book “Moneyball.”

Moneyball tells the story of how Beane successfully used data and analytics in his management of the Oakland Athletics baseball club. 

The talks were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal newspaper, which said the discussions are in the early stage and could still fall apart.

The newspaper also said RedBall, which raised $575 million in August to buy businesses in sports and sports-related media and data analytics, plans to raise an additional $1 billion to buy a stake in Fenway Sports Group that will not exceed 25%.