PEORIA, Ariz. \u2014 With the San Diego Padres up for sale, chairman John Seidler said Monday the franchise had drawn \u201ctremendous interest\u201d from prospective buyers, adding that he expected a resolution in the coming months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had tremendous interest,\u201d Seidler said. \u201cSome parties have been reported in the press. Others have not. \u2026 (Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller) likes to say every offseason is different and plays out in its own timing. A sales process also plays out in its own timing. And in the next few months, the process will come to a logical conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seidler announced in November, two years after the death of his brother and late Padres owner Peter Seidler, that he and his family had begun exploring a potential sale. The process has recently appeared to gain momentum after the resolution of a family fight<\/a> over control of the franchise. As The Athletic reported earlier this month, initial bids for the team are due in late February<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reported potential bidders include a trio of billionaires: Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob and two owners of English Premier League clubs, Dan Friedkin and Jos\u00e9 E. Feliciano. Sportico\u2019s latest valuations appraised the Padres at $2.31 billion, almost three times the team\u2019s purchase price in 2012, and league sources have said the Seidler family is seeking a number closer to $3 billion.<\/p>\n Last week, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred told The Athletic\u00a0that \u201cthere is robust interest on what is viewed as a really appealing asset.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked Monday about the qualities he is seeking in a buyer, John Seidler said: \u201cWe would like to see somebody with ties to San Diego, a deep love of San Diego and a deep love of baseball so they can continue doing the work that we do in the community and providing the product on the field that the fans enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n Seidler also addressed rumors from earlier in the offseason that a new owner might consider relocating the franchise.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Padres aren\u2019t moving from San Diego,\u201d Seidler said.<\/p>\n \u201cA new buyer would be nuts to move the team out of San Diego. We had the second-highest attendance in all of baseball last year. We\u2019ve been in the top five (in attendance) for the last five or six seasons. San Diego is a great place for baseball. Baseball is the only major sport in San Diego right now. So, the opportunity is in San Diego, not elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEORIA, Ariz. \u2014 With the San Diego Padres up for sale, chairman John Seidler said Monday the franchise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,165],"class_list":{"0":"post-576534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-padres","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-padres","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-sandiegopadres","15":"tag-sports-business"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116083277618169957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}