Warriors owner Joe Lacob isn’t part of Sacramento’s MLB expansion bid, sources say
A key aspect to Sacramento’s pitch to land a Major League Baseball expansion franchise will be finding a primary owner willing to foot an expansion fee expected to be north of $2 billion and take a controlling stake in the club.
One prominent name has been linked to Sacramento previously but is not in the running: Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob, who recently bid on the San Diego Padres and has expressed interest in buying the Angels and A’s in the past, was approached by Sacramento officials and declined to be part of their expansion campaign, according to three people with knowledge of the situation but who were not authorized to comment.
Lacob, those three people said, would prefer to buy a pre-existing team while expansion, which is likely years away, wouldn’t meet his timeline. Key to the Sacramento campaign’s success will be finding a primary investor, which hasn’t been locked down, they said.
Sacramento officials on Thursday launched the “Sacramento Pitch” campaign, a formal announcement that Sacramento will pursue a permanent MLB team, joining Salt Lake City, Portland and Vancouver as western cities in the running. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has made it clear that he wants his expansion agenda to be outlined, with cities decided, before his term is up in January 2029.
Thursday’s event included the announcement of a fully entitled 50-acre site in West Sacramento’s Bridge District which currently serves as the parking lot for Sutter Health Park, the 26-year home of the Sacramento River Cats Triple-A team and temporary home for the Athletics ahead of their planned move to a new Las Vegas ballpark in 2028.
Officials also announced $2 billion in “public-private” funding, $1 billion from West Sacramento via tax increment financing, hotel taxes and “additional sources.”
But not mentioned in the announcement was the underlying need for a primary financier who would likely be responsible for paying the $2 billion expansion fee and taking on primary ownership.
“We have options,” Sacramento mayor Kevin McCarty said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee. “We’re talking (to) a number of lead investors. We’re evaluating what makes sense for Sacramento, for our bid and for them. This is a big transaction for somebody.
“One thing that I think is important for us today is we’re laying the foundation as far as a shovel-ready site where the stadium will be, the public-private partnership with the city of West Sacramento, and not significant for local investors that add up to nearly a billion dollars.”
The public-private partnership officials discussed includes the potential stadium site owned by Mark Friedman, the chair of the “Sacramento Pitch” campaign; the Sacramento Kings, who own Sutter Health Park and the River Cats; and two Native American tribes, the Shingle Springs Miwok Indians and United Auburn Indian Community Indians.
“We’re basically looking at this as a $4 billion effort,” Friedman told The Bee, noting that was the price the Padres sold for earlier this month. “Obviously, MLB hasn’t established what the franchise fee will be, but we think it will cost about $2 billion to build the stadium, and then the franchise fee will be on top of that. So our goal is to raise $4 billion so we can compete effectively.”
