{"id":288876,"date":"2026-05-29T13:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/288876\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T13:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:21:13","slug":"miami-marlins-sell-minority-ownership-stake-in-mlb-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/288876\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Marlins Sell Minority Ownership Stake in MLB Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Miami Marlins<\/a> quietly sold a minority stake in the club this spring to help pay down debt. The deal for about 15% of the team was at a valuation of $1.55 billion, according to two people familiar with the details. Another source said the valuation was closer to $1.4 billion.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe buyers were two families with residences in South Florida, although Sportico could not ascertain their identities. Representatives for the Marlins, MLB<\/a> and BDT & MSD Partners, the sell-side banker in the deal, declined to comment on the transaction.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe move arrives during a critical year for MLB, with its collective bargaining agreement expiring in December and many owners pushing for a hard cap-and-floor system, akin to the other three biggest North American sports leagues. On Wednesday, the union made the first formal proposal in CBA talks, and MLB countered with its initial plan Thursday that included a $245.3 million cap in 2027.<\/p>\n

\n\tOwners lament franchise valuation growth that has lagged those in other sports leagues, with the lack of a salary cap often pinned as a reason. The collapse of the RSN model is an equally major drag on valuations.<\/p>\n

\n\tMLB team values are up 39% over the past four years, same as MLS, but well behind the doubling of team values in the NHL (124%), NBA (113%) and NFL (103%). Revenue multiples, which bankers and investors lean on to value teams, are 7.2x on average in MLB, well behind the NBA (13.5x), NFL (10.3x), MLS (9.2x) and NHL (8.4x).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn April, private equity billionaire Jos\u00e9 E. Feliciano and his wife Kwanza Jones reached a deal to buy<\/a> the San Diego Padres<\/a> for $3.9 billion, which shattered the record for an MLB franchise sale, previously set when Steve Cohen<\/a> bought the New York Mets\u00a0for $2.42 billion in 2020. The Marlins LP deal was finalized before the Padres sale.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Padres are one of the strongest businesses in MLB with 2025 attendance of 3.44 million\u2014second-highest in baseball behind the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2014and gross revenue of $530 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Marlins sit on the other end of baseball\u2019s financial spectrum. The club had MLB\u2019s third-lowest attendance in 2025, ahead of only teams playing in a minor league park (Athletics) and spring training facility (Tampa Bay Rays). The Marlins last finished better than No. 27 in attendance in 2012 when they opened their $634 million, largely taxpayer-funded LoanDepot Park.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Marlins have historically been one of baseball\u2019s biggest revenue-sharing recipients, including roughly $75 million last year from big-market clubs. The Marlins were also caught up in the demise of Main Street Sports Group and loss of their local media deal. Last year, the Dodgers generated about 8x the local gross revenue of Miami before revenue sharing.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2017, Bruce Sherman led a group that paid $1.2 billion for the Marlins. Derek Jeter was originally part of the consortium with a 4% stake, and he served as CEO before he left the organization in 2022. In addition to the Marlins\u2019 attendance woes, the team has struggled on the field with only a pair of winning seasons the last 15 years, including a playoff appearance during the 60-game 2020 season played without fans in attendance. And despite rock-bottom payrolls, the Marlins have posted heavy losses leading to a significant debt burden.<\/p>\n

\n\tMiami ranked No. 30 in Sportico\u2019s MLB team valuations<\/a> at $1.45 billion and have ranked last in all six yearly editions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Marlins quietly sold a minority stake in the club this spring to help pay down debt.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,3822,124,3817,53537,75452],"class_list":["post-288876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-marlins","tag-miami-news","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-steve-cohen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}