This is how it began for Peter Angelos — sweating in a hot August New York courtroom in 1993, bidding up a million dollars at a time against art dealer Jeffrey Loria to buy the Baltimore Orioles in bankruptcy court.
One side said $154 million, the other $155 million. Angelos would come back upping the bid, and Loria would do the same.
Georgia Angelos, Peter’s wife, turned to his banker Joe Foss — who would soon become team president — and said, “Peter is going to buy this baseball team.”
Foss told Georgia Angelos, “There is a price where economically we should stop.”
She replied, “I know that. But you don’t know my husband. We’re going to buy this baseball team.
Peter Angelos did just that — for $174 million (the price was adjusted to $173 million because the Angelos group was given a $1 million credit for legal work in drawing up the contract).
“If it had gone to $200 million, I would have gone to $201 million,” Angelos said. “There was no way I wasn’t coming back to Baltimore without a baseball team.”
He returned as a hero, the Baltimore native who saved the franchise from another generation of out-of-town owners — out of town being the District, in the case of Williams and Jacobs. Even then, with a 30-year lease and sold-out crowds since Camden Yards opened in 1992, Maryland officials and fans were paranoid about losing a team, and had been since losing the Colts to Indianapolis in 1984. They still are.
A little more than 30 rocky years later, the cheers this time are for Angelos — 94 years old and incapacitated for several years — selling the team for $1.725 billion to another savior, David Rubenstein, a Baltimore native who, like Williams and Jacobs, has become a Washington fixture.
This time, it was Georgia Angelos who was calling the shots, pushing for the team to be sold now, according to sources. The timing caught some by surprise, as did the price — considered low by some observers, including, in all likelihood, the Lerner family. The owners of the Washington Nationals have flirted with selling their team but reportedly sought north of $2 billion. The Orioles sale obviously will impact that process.
As for the Orioles, sources said the formula using revenues generated by the team set the $1.725 billion price.
Will new ownership of the Orioles result in the dissolution of the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, freeing up the Nationals to make their own TV deal and taking that roadblock out of the way of selling the franchise? It’s difficult to believe that Major League Baseball will let the sale go through without some sort of resolution. But MASN right now is an asset for Rubenstein included in the purchase.
Buying the Orioles takes Rubenstein out of the equation as Ted Leonsis’ partner in a bid to buy the Nationals. Will Transparent Ted still be a player in the Nationals’ bidding?
It was common knowledge that the Orioles would be sold off once Peter Angelos passed away. But talks heated up after John Angelos, the son who was named the control person for the franchise after his father became incapacitated, was unable to secure development rights around the ballpark.
Originally, John Angelos sought a 99-year agreement to allow him to develop the land surrounding the stadium, Camden Station, the B&O Warehouse and the nearby parking lots. He had zero leverage though — despite the paranoia, Major League Baseball would not allow the Orioles to go anywhere — and he wound up agreeing to a 30-year lease that gives the team just a four-year window to negotiate development rights with the state. Once it was clear that the sales price wasn’t going to be pumped up to include development rights, the price was set, and the sale moved forward.
Rubenstein, the co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private equity company that has reportedly invested nearly $20 billion in real estate across the country, said he plans on pursuing those development talks with the state.
The lease also gives the Orioles to get out of the lease in 15 years if those development rights are not granted in that four-year period — again, likely useless, as baseball is not about to abandon Camden Yards, one of their crown jewel ballparks, especially after the state just approved $600 million to improve the 32-year-old ballpark.
Baltimore is not Oakland.
Rubenstein, worth an estimated $3.8 billion, will purchase 40% of the team now and be designated as the team’s top decision-maker. He will have the option of buying the remaining 60% after Peter Angelos passes away, according to sources.
His partners include Mike Arougheti of Ares Management; former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg; former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke; former NBA star Grant Hill; Y. Michelle Kang, owner of the Washington Spirit of the NWSL; and former Oriole great and Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., among others.
The Ripken name is an important one in this deal. He has long talked about the opportunity to be involved in a major league baseball team, whether in management or ownership. He has waited a long time for this moment. Peter Angelos has a relationship with Ripken, but there were always questions and tensions between them that prevented this move before.
“The Orioles have been part of my life since I was a child, and this is a special day,” Ripken said in a statement. “I look forward to this opportunity and will do whatever I can to help the organization. Let’s go O’s.”
Whatever that role is, you can be sure Ripken hasn’t waited all this time to be a cheerleader with a good seat in the owner’s box. His voice will have value.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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