expected in early to mid-April<\/a>, with an agreement possible before the end of that month.<\/p>\nGores and his Beverly Hills, Calif.-based private equity firm, Platinum Equity, bought the Pistons in 2011 for $325 million. Four years later, Gores purchased Platinum Equity\u2019s stake to become the sole owner of the NBA franchise. In October, Forbes estimated that the Pistons\u2019 value had grown to $3.65 billion, while Sportico appraised it at $4.17 billion.<\/p>\n
Gores also is a part-owner of the Los Angeles Chargers, having acquired a 27 percent stake in 2024. His president of basketball operations with the Pistons, Trajan Langdon, was the Padres\u2019 sixth-round draft pick in 1994 and spent three summers in the organization as a minor-league third baseman.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Gores did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n
A Padres sale of about $3.5 billion would easily surpass the current MLB record, established when Steve Cohen bought the New York Mets in 2020 for $2.42 billion. Multiple sources close to the process said a number north of $3 billion is a safe expectation and that a price above $3.5 billion is plausible, though the final net amount will depend on debt and other terms. The Padres, according to league sources, are carrying roughly $300 million in debt.<\/p>\n
If the Padres indeed sell for more than $3 billion, the ramifications of the deal would reverberate across the industry. MLB\u2019s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1. A record-setting franchise sale could strengthen the Players Association\u2019s argument that club values continue to rise even without a salary cap, the major change owners are expected to pursue in labor talks.<\/p>\n
At the same time, one source cautioned against treating the Padres as a proxy for the market, pointing to the San Diego market\u2019s relative affluence, the team\u2019s recent surge in non-media revenue and the scarcity of California-based clubs likely to come up for sale in the near future.<\/p>\n
If anything, the Padres might be an outlier. In August, the Pohlad family reversed course following a nearly yearlong effort to sell the Minnesota Twins for a believed asking price of $1.7 billion. In 2024, the Lerner family pulled the Washington Nationals off the market after seeking approximately $2 billion for close to two years.<\/p>\n
Those numbers stand in contrast to the interest surrounding the Padres, which, aside from playing in oft-sold-out Petco Park, may stand to benefit more than most teams from potential labor reform. Should the league achieve its aims in negotiations for national media rights deals starting in 2029, each club could begin receiving hundreds of millions annually as a result. Currently, the Padres rank near the bottom of the league in local media revenue.<\/p>\n
In addition, a possible system that includes a payroll cap and floor would most directly impact the Padres\u2019 chief rival, the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Even a modified version of the current CBA likely would include greater restrictions on teams at the top of the game\u2019s salary structure, working to the Padres\u2019 benefit.<\/p>\n
This month, Sportico and Forbes each estimated the Padres\u2019 value at $3.1 billion, a 59 percent year-over-year increase for the latter publication. As recently as 2024, Forbes put the franchise\u2019s worth at only $1.8 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought (the Padres) were undervalued because I think they play in a great market, and if deep-pocketed owners wanted to take this to the next level, it\u2019s available,\u201d said Irwin Kishner, co-chair of the Sports Law Group with New York law firm Herrick Feinstein. \u201cThat increase in valuation did not shock me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gores and his fellow bidders certainly appear to have deep pockets. Friedkin, the owner of three European soccer clubs, including the English Premier League\u2019s Everton, has a net worth of $11 billion, according to Forbes. The same magazine estimates a $3.9 billion net worth for Feliciano, whose private equity firm is the majority owner of EPL club Chelsea. Lacob, purportedly worth $2.3 billion, owns the Golden State Warriors and the Golden State Valkyries and has pursued MLB ownership across multiple decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With strong interest from four wealthy bidders \u2014 including a previously unreported group led by Detroit Pistons owner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7017,1334,74,76,75,2611,12902],"class_list":["post-236967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}