Fresh off an American League best 101 win campaign, the Baltimore Orioles are set to welcome new ownership into the fold ahead of the 2024 season.
Majority owner John Angelos has agreed to sell the club to a group led by David Rubenstein for a reported $1.725B on Tuesday. Rubenstein is the cofounder of the Carlyle Group Inc., which is a global investment firm currently boasting north of $382B worth of assets under its management portfolio.
While the sale must still be approved by Major League Baseball’s board of governors, insiders believe it’s a “done deal” with approval expected to be formalized at the owners meetings in Orlando, FL next week. A Baltimore native himself, Rubenstein’s investment team also includes Michael Arougheti, however the 74 year old will assume the role of controlling owner once the vetting process is complete.
The Angelos family have owned the Orioles since 1993, and have overseen some extremely lean years prior to the team’s recent success. However with a $1.725B price tag, the family will see a roughly 10x return on investment from their original $173M purchase 31 years prior.
News of the pending sale comes on the heels of the team finalizing an agreement with the Maryland Stadium Authority to remain at Camden Yards for the next 15 years. The new agreement also includes provisions to be able to expand that stay up to 30 years if certain conditions are met.
This isn’t Rubenstein’s first foray into MLB, as he was previously linked to Washington Nationals when ownership expressed an interest in exploring a sale. Instead, the billionaire will acquire his hometown team, and help usher in a new era of Orioles baseball.
With a deep pocketed ownership group now in place, fans will hope that the club will continue to build around franchise cornerstone players Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. Top prospect Jackson Holliday is also nearing his MLB debut as well. But despite the fact that team led the American League in wins last season, Baltimore has had a relatively quiet offseason, and has shown a propensity to pinch pennies in the past.
That pattern of “cost effective baseball” is one that the Orioles faithful hopes to see thrown out the window once the sale is finalized. Rubenstein’s bid must be approved by at least 75% of MLB owners at the meetings next week in order to move on to the next stage of the sale process.
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