Who Owns The San Diego Padres?

In 2026, the Padres organization will take on new ownership. The Seidler family is in the process of selling the San Diego Padres to a group led by José E. Feliciano and his wife Kwanza Jones for $3.9 billion. The deal still requires approval from 75% of MLB’s 30 owners — a vote expected at the MLB owners meetings in June.

For perspective, Steve Cohen paid $2.42 billion for the New York Mets in 2020 — which was itself a record at the time. That is now in the $1.5-billion-taller shadow of Feliciano’s bill. No baseball team has ever sold for close to this much.

Just how tall? If every single person who attended a Padres game at Petco bought a hot dog, it would take 142 seasons of hot dogs to cover the purchase price.

Meet The Owners

Feliciano was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. He studied mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton, got his MBA at Stanford, and started his career at Goldman Sachs before co-founding Clearlake Capital in 2006 — a private equity firm based in Santa Monica that now manages more than $90 billion in assets. He already owns a piece of a major sports franchise: Clearlake, alongside Todd Boehly, purchased Chelsea FC in the English Premier League in 2022 for $5.24 billion. His estimated net worth is $4.4 billion.

Kwanza Jones grew up in Los Angeles, also went to Princeton — that’s where the two met — and later earned a law degree from Pepperdine. She runs Supercharged, a media and personal development company, and is also a recording artist. Together, she and Feliciano operate the Kwanza Jones & José E. Feliciano Initiative, a philanthropic organization focused on education, entrepreneurship, and community investment.

They won a competitive process. All four finalist groups submitted second-round bids above $3.5 billion, according to the Times of San Diego. The others in the running: Joe Lacob, co-owner of the Golden State Warriors; Tom Gores, owner of the Detroit Pistons; and Dan Friedkin, who controls Everton and AS Roma. Feliciano’s group cleared them all.

A First for Baseball

When the sale closes, Feliciano becomes the first Puerto Rican-born majority owner in MLB history. Jones becomes the first Black woman to hold a majority ownership stake in a major North American sports franchise. In a league that’s been operating since 1869, that’s a home run after very long slump. Long overdue, but still a source of pride for our region.

Take a look at the full history of who has owned this franchise.

What Feliciano Is Actually Buying

The roster is the easy part. What’s harder to put a price on — though apparently not impossible — is what Peter Seidler built here between 2020 and his death in November 2023.

Seidler took over as chairman and primary owner with a straightforward goal: win a World Series for San Diego, spend whatever it takes, worry about profit later. He pushed payroll past $249 million in 2023. He blew past the luxury tax repeatedly. He never won the title. He also never stopped trying. He died at 63 from complications related to cancer, and the city grieved him like a neighbor.

What he left behind: four postseason appearances in six years, a franchise-record 3.47 million fans through the gates in 2025, 72 sellouts in 81 home games, and roughly $500 million in annual revenue — all while operating under a television deal that was far from favorable. The Dodgers were the only team in baseball that drew more fans last year, and they play in a stadium with 13,000 more seats.

Seidler earned something rarer than wins — he earned trust. San Diego fans, historically skeptical of ownership promises, started believing. That belief is now part of the asset Feliciano just paid $3.9 billion for. He’d be wise to treat it that way.

A.J. Preller, the Padres’ President of Baseball Operations, told CBS8 what he’s looking for: “The biggest thing that all Padre fans, the Friar Faithful and myself [want] is a group that loves the game of baseball, loves the city of San Diego and wants to bring a winner here.”

What This Means for Petco Park

Jared Diamond, the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the sale story, explained on 97.3 The Fan exactly why a team in the 30th-largest media market just sold for the most money ever paid for a baseball franchise:

“They play in one of the best ballparks in the game, in a ballpark that is used 365 days of the year because of the incredible weather in San Diego. People with a lot of money see San Diego, they see the Padres, they see them winning, they see the ballpark, they see the city and go ‘that is a place where I can really build something and grow something.’”

Petco Park isn’t just a baseball stadium in this equation — it’s a year-round downtown entertainment venue sitting in one of the most desirable cities in the country. For a private equity firm, that’s not a sports investment. That’s a real estate and media play with baseball on top. Here’s what that likely means:

The event calendar gets pushed harder. Concerts, dirt shows, festivals, soccer matches — the non-baseball calendar is already active, but expect new ownership to maximize every available date. Eighty-one home games is just the floor.

The building will see capital. Premium seating, upgraded hospitality, modernized concourses — these are the kinds of investments that justify a $3.9 billion price tag and keep attendance figures where they are. Expect to see the park continue to evolve.

The local identity is a business asset. What makes Petco special isn’t generic — it’s the craft beer, the local food, the texture of the place. Smart ownership preserves that because it drives loyalty and attendance. It would be a costly mistake to sand it down into something that feels like every other park.

The broadcast situation needs a fix. The Padres have been without a functioning local TV deal since 2023. Feliciano’s Clearlake partner Behdad Eghbali has publicly flagged live sports content as a core investment thesis. Whatever shape MLB’s next CBA takes on local media, the new ownership will be motivated to get fans reliable access to games. That’s both a revenue issue and an attendance driver.

The blocks around the park are part of the conversation. Private equity doesn’t buy a prime downtown footprint and ignore the surrounding real estate. Some version of a broader entertainment district discussion is coming.

The Clock Starts Now

Operationally, the transition has some complications. The sale won’t formally close until the June ownership vote, and as NBC 7 San Diego noted, if new ownership isn’t fully in place before the August 3 trade deadline, Preller’s ability to make moves this summer could get complicated — incoming and outgoing owners would need to consult on anything significant.

But the short-term noise matters less than the long-term question, which is simple: will Feliciano invest in winning the way Seidler did?

The current ownership has played it conservatively since 2023. That’s understandable — the circumstances were chaotic, and the Seidler estate carried roughly $300 million in team debt that Feliciano now inherits. There’s a real financial picture here that will shape decisions.

But the fans who packed Petco Park 72 times last year didn’t do it because ownership was fiscally responsible. They did it because they believed this team was actually trying to win. Maintain that belief, and 3.4 million people will keep showing up. Lose it, and the valuation starts looking very different very fast.

$3.9 billion is a staggering number. It feels good to be wanted. Oh Jose you spoil us!

P.S. At one time the Padres were previously “owned” by Tim Lincecum. A pitcher, Lincecum routinely roasted the Padres, throwing no-hitters against the team in back-to-back seasons, 2013 and 2014. In his entire career, Linececum earned $105 million in salary. $3.9 billion would pay for Lincecum to play until the year 2063.