More speculation regarding a possible sale of the Baltimore Orioles is causing internal strife inside the team’s ownership.
All speculation regarding the Baltimore Orioles being sold to a third party appeared to be squashed when the team and the state of Maryland announced they had reached a 30-year lease agreement at Camden Yards.
There were worries that a franchise would be relocated to Nashville by outside investors taking advantage of this chance.
However, there is no longer any consideration of a sale as the Orioles will remain at Camden Yards for the foreseeable future.
Well, not in every case.
When his father Peter, who had initially bought the team and assumed controlling ownership, began to decline medically in 2020, John Angelos assumed leadership of Baltimore’s franchise as the “control person”.
Lawsuits were launched about how Peter’s riches would be divided among his heirs after his death, and things turned ugly within the family.
A significant component of this debate is the Orioles.
The Wall Street Journal’s Lindsey Adler and Jared Diamond explain how Peter and John have differing opinions regarding the family’s future engagement in the franchise.
“Court filings from last year revealed that before his health problems, Peter Angelos believed his surviving heirs should sell the Orioles so that his wife, Georgia, ‘could enjoy the great wealth they had amassed together,'” they state.
John, though, is not planning to sell.
As a matter of fact, he sees this new lease as a chance to elevate Baltimore, the neighborhood surrounding the stadium, and the team that he owns in general.
“John Angelos may have goals beyond winning a title for Baltimore if he wants to continue with the family team. He joins the growing number of sports owners who see value in utilizing their teams to underpin some even loftier real estate goals, seeing the Orioles’ downtown ballpark as the hub of a sizable, mixed-use development complex,” they write.
It would be difficult to hold John accountable for seeing this new prospect as a means of increasing Orioles revenue. After all, due to budgetary constraints, this historic club is forced to function as a small market team.
They can invest more in the squad the more money they can make.
The scenario also involves millionaire David Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, who would like to buy the team should it become available.
This continues to be a drama-filled situation with a team that will probably be contending for World Series titles soon, as John shows no signs of wanting to sell and his father wants the Angelos family to no longer own the Orioles once he passes away.