> That's what they did, and that's what was rejected here, right?

Except they weren't the highest bidder?

They were if you count the amount they claimed to be putting in from their award:

“The total value of The Onion’s bid was $7 million, including $1.75 million in cash put up by Global Tetrahedron, with the rest coming from the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, who essentially opted to put a portion of their potential earnings from a defamation judgment against Mr. Jones toward The Onion’s bid.”

Their bid was essentially "something that economically feels like $100k more than the next highest bidder to people who aren't us" which is a clever contractual construction but not an auction bid.