was reportedly sold for a baseball-record $3.9 billion, pending approval by Major League Baseball\u2019s club owners.<\/a><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/wpdash.medianewsgroup.com\/2026\/04\/17\/padres-agree-to-sell-team-to-businessman-jose-feliciano-for-record-price\/<\/p>\n
Considering that the Angels sit in the country\u2019s second-largest media market \u2014 Los Angeles \u2014 while the Padres stand 26th in media market size among the 30 clubs, the Padres\u2019 and Angels\u2019 situations would seem upside down.<\/p>\n
In theory, at least, the Angels would be the team with the bigger player payroll every year and well-regarded support staff. These advantages,\u00a0in turn, would boost on-field success and attendance.<\/p>\n
![\"Fans](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SUT-L-padres-0420-01.jpg\")
Fans react in the first inning between the Los Angeles Angels and the San Diego Padres at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on April 19, 2026 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Joe Scarnici\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
In reality, the Padres are outperforming the Angels on all fronts.<\/p>\n
When owner Arte Moreno explored selling the big-market Angels in recent years, the team attracted no offers near the $3.9 billion that private-equity billionaire and Chelsea FC co-owner Jos\u00e9 E. Feliciano and his wife, entrepreneur and philanthropist Kwanza Jones, have agreed to pay for the Padres.<\/p>\n
In attendance, it\u2019s the Padres who resemble a big-market giant.\u00a0They\u2019ve ended up second to fifth of the 30 teams every year since 2021, and trail only the Dodgers this season.<\/p>\n
The Angels? Twelfth to 17th, and now eighth.<\/p>\n
Factors outside each franchise must be taken into account.<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 Forbes-estimated revenue of $432 million beat the Angels\u2019 total by $22 million last year and will swell to an $80 million advantage this year, per the business magazine. This coincides with the collapse or steep decline of both teams\u2019 local TV partners, which effectively leveled a playing field that had advantaged the Angels.<\/p>\n
On the baseball side, Padres owners Peter Seidler and Ron Fowler outperformed Moreno when they hired A.J. Preller and, crucially, stuck with him after he made a few large errors.<\/p>\n
Preller has evolved into one of the better team-builders in MLB.<\/p>\n
Seidler had the audacity to lift Padres payrolls to a level that ran afoul of the industry\u2019s rule, a fact that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred noted publicly more than once.<\/p>\n
But as Manfred also acknowledged, Seidler\u2019s big bet helped to fuel the franchise\u2019s astounding attendance and revenue growth.<\/p>\n
Even so, this story of San Diego outperforming an L.A.-market team at the gate can\u2019t be told without the ballpark economics.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SUT-L-padres-0420-03.jpg\")
The Padres\u2019 Fernando Tatis Jr. is greeted by teammates after scoring during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels, Sunday, April 19, 2026, in Anaheim, Calif. (AP Photo\/Caroline Brehman)<\/p>\n
Petco Park is a destination.\u00a0Anaheim Stadium, not so much.<\/p>\n
MLB\u2019s fourth-oldest venue, trailing only Fenway Park (1912), Wrigley Field (1914), Dodger Stadium (1962) and Kansas City\u2019s Kauffman Field (1973), the still-attractive but much-neglected \u201cBig A,\u201d which opened in 1966, may need to be replaced for a billion dollars or so for the franchise to reach its potential.<\/p>\n
What Seidler, Preller and other Padres leaders have done is leverage an ideally located gem of ballpark made possible by San Diego taxpayers, John Moores, Larry Lucchino, Kevin Brown, Tony Gwynn and Susan Golding, plus the landscape-altering departure of the Chargers in 2017.<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 game experience, described by Seidler\u2019s widow Sheel Seidler as a joy machine, has accompanied the franchise\u2019s overall ascent.<\/p>\n
A pro-Padres vibe at home games has prevailed. The next step has been Padres fans becoming more of a presence on the road. It was so jarring that as Miller jogged toward the mound Saturday night, the noise brought him up short for a moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt surprised me a little bit,\u201d said the closer, acquired from the Athletics last summer. \u201cI never heard that on the road before. Today, the same thing. You hear the atmosphere, you feel the atmosphere. As soon as I came out the (bullpen) gate, that\u2019s a pretty awesome feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The potential San Diego power couple, Feliciano and Jones, have no doubt done their due diligence on the franchise.<\/p>\n
But they may want to consider, or further consider, this scenario: If the Padres were to win their first pennant since 1998, and the city\u2019s first major sports title, what would the fallout be?<\/p>\n
A joy machine in overdrive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM \u2014 \u201cLet\u2019s go Padres! Let\u2019s go Padres!\u201d I don\u2019t recall a louder Padres road crowd than Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,853,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,185,3546],"class_list":{"0":"post-679522","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-latest-headlines","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-padres","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sandiegopadres","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116434440251586453","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679522","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=679522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}