{"id":145223,"date":"2025-09-09T23:32:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/145223\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T23:32:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:32:04","slug":"future-of-orlando-mlb-movement-uncertain-as-primary-investors-move-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/145223\/","title":{"rendered":"Future of Orlando MLB movement uncertain as primary investors move on"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">The primary financial backer for a group attempting to bring an MLB team to Orlando has \u201cjoined the group in the process of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/07\/14\/report-rays-sale-expected-to-be-completed-by-september\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/07\/14\/report-rays-sale-expected-to-be-completed-by-september\/\">buying\u201d the Rays<\/a>, according to J.C. Carnahan of the ORLANDO BUSINESS JOURNAL. Rick Workman, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/04\/29\/orlando-group-unveils-investors-behind-mlb-push\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/04\/29\/orlando-group-unveils-investors-behind-mlb-push\/\">anchor investor for the Orlando Dreamers<\/a>, will \u201cown a portion of the Rays once owner Stu Sternberg finalizes the sale of the franchise to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/08\/18\/zalupski-poised-to-be-rays-control-person-once-sale-goes-through\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/08\/18\/zalupski-poised-to-be-rays-control-person-once-sale-goes-through\/\">Jacksonville-based developer Patrick Zalupski<\/a>.\u201d Workman will have the \u201cthird-largest stake in the team.\u201d It is \u201cunclear what this means for the Dreamers as the group pursues an MLB franchise through either expansion or relocation of an existing team.\u201d The group in April announced it had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/04\/25\/orlando-group-pledges-15b-in-push-for-mlb-team\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/04\/25\/orlando-group-pledges-15b-in-push-for-mlb-team\/\">raised roughly $1.5B<\/a> for a team. But John Morgan, the other major investor in the Dreamers, in an email said, \u201cI\u2019m out. The fix is in. \u2026 I\u2019ll have to find another place to invest 300 Million.\u201d Morgan: \u201cWhat I believe will now happen is this group will seek a sweetheart deal in Tampa, while stringing the prospects of Orlando as a bargaining chip\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/orlando\/news\/2025\/09\/09\/dreamers-baseball-mlb-tampa-bay-rays-workman.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/orlando\/news\/2025\/09\/09\/dreamers-baseball-mlb-tampa-bay-rays-workman.html\">ORLANDO BUSINESS JOURNAL, 9\/9<\/a>). Carnahan in a separate piece notes the Dreamers \u201crecently downplayed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/03\/14\/orlando-mlb-group-to-make-pitch-for-rays-ballpark\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/03\/14\/orlando-mlb-group-to-make-pitch-for-rays-ballpark\/\">Rays-centric component<\/a> of their effort&#8221; at an Aug. 21 St. Cloud Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Dreamers co-founder &amp; COO Jim Schnorf instead \u201cemphasized the goal of landing an expansion team or capitalizing on stadium issues for several other teams including not only the Rays,\u201d but also the White Sox, Royals, Brewers and D-backs (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/orlando\/news\/2025\/09\/09\/john-morgan-dreamers-mlb-workman-tampa-bay-rays.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/orlando\/news\/2025\/09\/09\/john-morgan-dreamers-mlb-workman-tampa-bay-rays.html\">ORLANDO BUSINESS JOURNAL, 9\/9<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The primary financial backer for a group attempting to bring an MLB team to Orlando has \u201cjoined the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[167,363,99],"class_list":["post-145223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-deals","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}