The owners of the Baltimore Orioles agreed to sell the team to billionaires David Rubenstein and Mike Arougheti. Rubenstein co-founded The Carlyle Group and family office Declaration Partners while Arougheti started Ares Management. Both men are private equity underwriters (PEU).
Rubenstein, who is from Baltimore, will become the club's "control person" with Major League Baseball -- a fancy way of saying the franchise's main decision maker.
- Rent a Declaration Partners owned apartment and get free Orioles tickets.
- Buy a ten pack of Vault COVID tests and enter a drawing to sit with Rubenstein in his skybox.
- Buy Paxos Gold cryptocurrency and get a free Orioles NFT showing you with Cal Ripken
If you buy your Orioles tickets on StubHub anchor investor Rubenstein gets a cut through Declaration.
The commercialization cross selling opportunities are incredible.
Update 2-4-24: CNN ran a story on why tickets to games are unaffordable for families.
Ticketmaster and StubHub use sophisticated dynamic pricing algorithms that change minute-by-minute based on demand. Teams such as the New York Yankees have taken a stake in ticket resale platforms. These clubs see an opportunity to make more money by taking a cut of the secondary ticket sale between buyers and sellers.
Billionaire team owners rely on public funds for their new stadiums/arenas:
“The new generation of stadiums are designed to maximize the number of really good seats at the expense of large numbers of cheap seats,” Matheson said. “You design arenas for a super-premium experience. There’s no sense in trying to make arenas that have large numbers of cheap seats.”
The public pays but doesn't garner the benefits. It's a familiar PEU refrain....
CBS provided more names in the ownership group headed by Rubenstein. It's a club deal for a baseball club. In addition to Rubenstein and Arougheti new owners include:
Mitchell Goldstein and Michael Smith, Co-Heads of the Ares Credit Group; Orioles' legend Cal Ripken Jr.; Kurt Schmoke, former Baltimore Mayor; Grant Hill, NBA Hall of Famer; Mike Bloomberg, entrepreneur and philanthropist; Michele Kang, business leader; and other investors.
Update 2-12-24: CNN reported:
Professional sports teams are becoming real estate empires, building luxury apartments and shopping malls.
Billionaire owners have built dozens of new stadiums and arenas, often with hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding. State and local governments spent $33 billion in public funds to build stadiums in North America between 1970 and 2020, with the median public contribution covering 73% of costs, a study published last year found. As part of teams’ agreements with cities and states, they have been handed the rights to transform the land around these ballparks into offices, apartment buildings, hotels and shopping malls.
David Rubenstein cut his PEU teeth selling Alaskan Native tax losses to corporations. Surely he can take advantage of a few poor people who live around a ballpark by making the area more billionaire friendly.
Carlyle did a joint venture with Atlantic Realty Partners in 2014 for apartments close to the new Atlanta Braves stadium.
Update 3-10-24: Yardbarker reported:
...the MLB Ownership Committee recommended approval of the sale to David Rubenstein.Next step is full vote of MLB club owners.
"Winning is the most important thing both on the field and in the community, and I am committed to winning a Super Bowl championship together.
As for the on-the-field product, Tepper said there are no plans to make changes to a team that has made the playoffs in four of the past five seasons, including the Super Bowl in 2015, under coach Ron Rivera.
