As we’re all sitting here decompressing from the largely boring MLB Winter Meetings and trying to figure out whether or not Craig Kimbrel can help the Orioles bullpen in 2024 or not (he can), and twiddling our thumbs waiting for news that the Orioles and Camden Yards will officially be married for the foreseeable future, a bombshell report dropped out of seemingly thin air today.
According to Gillian Tan of Bloomberg, the Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein is in talks to, yes, acquire the Baltimore Orioles.
Carlyle Group Inc. co-founder David Rubenstein is in talks to acquire Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Rubenstein is among suitors pursuing a transaction, said one of the people, all of whom requested anonymity discussing confidential information. Nothing has been finalized and talks may still fall apart, the people said.
Representatives for the Orioles didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Rubenstein declined to comment. Trial lawyer Peter Angelos, 94, is the team’s majority owner.
Rubenstein, 74, was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He has a net worth of $4.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He also hosts a show on Bloomberg Television.
Rubenstein told key backers of the Orioles that he would consider buying the team if it comes up for sale, Bloomberg News reported last year. He has previously eyed the Washington Nationals, another MLB team, and, unlike many of his peers across Wall Street, has yet to make a splashy bet on a sports team.
Per his Wikipedia page, Rubenstein was born in 1949 in Baltimore, where he attended City College High School before heading off to Duke University, and currently lives in Bethesda. The Carlyle Group is described as “a global private equity company based in Washington, D.C.”
A local billionaire taking our Birds from the clutches of the dysfunctional Angelos clan? Dare we dream?
That would be a Christmas miracle indeed. As Tan reports, the Orioles are of course mum on the negotiations, if indeed there are any. Bloomberg also says that, if a deal is indeed finalized, it will be announced “in the first half of next year.”
I’m sorry, but this all seems too good to be true. Just like the O’s signing a free agent to a multi-year deal, or finalizing the lease, or trading away a Top 10 prospect…I’ll believe it when I see it. But all of Birdland will be champing at the bit for more news on a potential sale as the offseason rolls on.
4 Responses
Better the devil we know.
Really? How could things, from an ownership point of view, be worse? John won’t spend money, he’s holding up the lease, and he and his brother were branded first class jerks by everyone who worked in the warehouse 20 years ago. I don’t know how Rubenstein COULD be worse…
I’m a Nats fan but live in Anne Arundel County. I would love to see a new owner for the Orioles. If Angelos isn’t the owner of the O’s and the MASN deal could be dissolved I would be a Nats fan and an Orioles fan. To have a team in each league where I could easily attend both teams games would be great.
As I have gotten older and the Redskins much worse, I have also followed the Ravens. With the Nat’s playing Triple AAA ball the last couple of years and the Orioles now getting better, I have no problem following successful teams. Let’s get new owners all the way around, fix the MASN BS or just get new and separate TV contracts, and move on pissing off the rest of the NFL and MLB playing for championships against each other.