Who Owns The San Diego Padres?

In 2026, the San Diego Padres are entering a new era of ownership. The Seidler family has agreed to sell control of the Padres to an ownership group led by José E. Feliciano and his wife and business partner, Kwanza Jones, in a deal valued at a record $3.9 billion. Major League Baseball has approved the transaction, with the final closing expected in the weeks ahead.

For perspective, Steve Cohen paid $2.42 billion for the New York Mets in 2020 — which was itself a record at the time. The Padres have now blown past that number by nearly $1.5 billion. 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 New Owners

José E. Feliciano was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. He studied mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton, earned his MBA at Stanford, and started his career at Goldman Sachs before co-founding Clearlake Capital in 2006. The Santa Monica-based private equity firm now manages more than $90 billion in assets.

He already owns part of another major sports franchise: Clearlake, alongside Todd Boehly and other partners, acquired Chelsea FC in the English Premier League in 2022.

Kwanza Jones grew up in Los Angeles and also went to Princeton — that’s where she and Feliciano met. She later earned a law degree from Pepperdine and has built a career as an entrepreneur, investor, recording artist and philanthropist. She runs SUPERCHARGED, a media and personal development company, and is co-controlling principal of the couple’s family office.

Together, Jones and Feliciano operate the Kwanza Jones & José E. Feliciano Initiative, a philanthropic organization focused on education, entrepreneurship, opportunity and community investment.

And here’s an important detail: Feliciano and Jones aren’t buying the Padres entirely on their own. They’re leading a broader ownership group that includes longtime Padres minority owner Alfredo Harp Helú, Joey and Jesse Buss — the sons of longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss — and other investors. Members of the Seidler family are also expected to retain minority stakes.

Feliciano and Jones will be the majority owners, with Feliciano serving as the Padres’ control person. The group won a competitive sale process that included other heavyweight bidders such as 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.

A First for Baseball

Feliciano becomes the second Latino principal owner in MLB and the first Puerto Rican-born person to become the control person of an MLB franchise. Jones also becomes one of the most prominent Black women in ownership of a major North American professional sports franchise.

That’s a pretty remarkable change from the ownership landscape San Diego has known for most of its history.

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 control person with a straightforward goal: win a World Series for San Diego. He pushed payroll to record levels, blew past the luxury tax repeatedly, and never stopped trying to build a championship team.

He never won the title. He also never stopped trying.

What he left behind was a franchise that reached the postseason four times in six years and a fan base that became increasingly convinced the Padres were serious about winning. In 2025, the Padres drew a franchise-record 3,437,201 fans at Petco Park and sold out 72 of 81 home games — both new club records. Only the Dodgers drew more fans in baseball, and they play in a stadium with roughly 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.

The baseball operation isn’t being torn apart, either. A.J. Preller remains the Padres’ President of Baseball Operations and General Manager, while Erik Greupner remains CEO. The incoming owners have said they want to build on the foundation Seidler established, be active and engaged owners, and ultimately bring a World Series championship to San Diego.

What This Means for Petco Park

Here’s where things get interesting.

Petco Park is a big reason the Padres command a $3.9 billion valuation. It’s one of the best ballparks in baseball, sitting in the middle of downtown San Diego, in one of the most desirable cities in the country, with weather that makes year-round events possible.

Petco Park isn’t just a baseball stadium in this equation. It’s a year-round downtown entertainment venue with premium seating, hospitality, concessions, sponsorships, concerts and a growing calendar of non-baseball events.

So what might that mean?

The event calendar gets pushed harder. Concerts, dirt shows, festivals, soccer matches and other events are already a significant part of the Petco calendar. The non-baseball calendar has become a business of its own, and new ownership has every incentive to maximize every available date. Eighty-one home games is just the floor.

And the entertainment district around Petco is getting bigger. Live Nation plans to transform the historic Wonder Bread building near Petco Park into a new 4,000-capacity music venue, expected to open in 2028. The restored building will give San Diego something it currently lacks: a purpose-built downtown venue between small clubs and the city’s larger arenas.

That’s good news for the neighborhood around Petco. More concerts mean more people coming downtown for dinner, drinks, hotels and entertainment — and more reasons for downtown to function as a destination beyond Padres games.

The building will continue to evolve. Premium seating, upgraded hospitality, modernized concourses, food and beverage and technology are all areas where a major sports property can create additional value. Don’t expect us to predict exactly what gets renovated or when. But a $3.9 billion franchise creates a pretty strong incentive to keep Petco Park competitive.

The local identity is a business asset. What makes Petco special isn’t generic. It’s the craft beer, the local food, the neighborhood, the views and the fact that the place actually feels like San Diego.

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 blocks around the park are worth watching. Private equity doesn’t buy a prime downtown footprint and ignore the larger opportunity around it. That doesn’t mean some giant new development is about to appear overnight. It does mean the Padres’ role in downtown San Diego — and the relationship between Petco Park, the surrounding neighborhood and the city’s broader entertainment economy — will be worth watching.

A New Era

The ownership transition is more than a change of names on the letterhead.

Peter Seidler bought the Padres in 2012 as part of a larger ownership group and eventually became the team’s control person. After his death in November 2023, control remained with the Seidler family. Now the family is passing the baton to Feliciano and Jones.

The new ownership group has said the right things. They want to win. They want to be active and engaged. They want to invest in the Padres’ future. And they have explicitly embraced the goal Seidler never achieved: bringing San Diego its first World Series championship.

There’s also something interesting about who is sitting around the table. This isn’t simply a billionaire buying a baseball team and disappearing into the owner’s box. It’s a group with experience in private equity, sports, entertainment, media, philanthropy and professional sports ownership.

That could matter.

Petco Park is already one of baseball’s most valuable assets. The Padres have one of the game’s strongest attendance trends. San Diego is an increasingly important destination for concerts, conventions, tourism and entertainment. And the team has a fan base that has shown, very clearly, that it will spend money when it believes ownership is serious about winning.

Feliciano and Jones are walking into a pretty good situation.

They’ve also just paid $3.9 billion for it.

The challenge now is turning that enormous valuation into an organization that San Diego believes belongs to San Diego.

Maintain that belief, and millions of 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, Tim Lincecum Owned the Padres

Not literally, of course.

But for a couple of years, it sure felt that way.

The Giants pitcher routinely roasted the Padres, throwing no-hitters against San Diego in back-to-back seasons, 2013 and 2014. Over his entire career, Lincecum earned roughly $105 million in salary.

At $3.9 billion, the new Padres valuation is enough to pay Lincecum’s entire career salary more than 37 times over.

Or, put another way: $3.9 billion could have paid Tim Lincecum to play baseball until roughly the year 2063.