MLB Rarely Forces Owners Like Stu Sternberg to Sell

The Rays may have a “For Sale” sign on them soon. 

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and several owners are pressuring owner Stu Sternberg to sell the team, according to The Athletic, over the team’s lack of clarity surrounding a long-term stadium. 

This season the team will play at George Steinbrenner Field, the Yankees’ spring training home in Tampa after Hurricane Milton destroyed the roof of Tropicana Field in October 2024. Before the storm, Sternberg had been attempting to get a new ballpark for 17 years and it appears the league office has finally run out of patience. 

Sternberg’s situation is unique, in part because it’s rare for fellow owners to pressure one another to sell their team or for the commissioner to interfere and push for a sale. Alex Meruelo, the former owner of the Arizona Coyotes recently said the NHL “compelled” him to sell the team to current Utah Hockey Club owner Ryan Smith. Former Braves owner Ted Turner was suspended in the late 1970s for free-agency tampering, while longtime Yankees owner George Steinbrenner received multiple suspensions for illegal campaign contributions and for paying off a gambler. Despite those infractions, both still kept control of their teams. Over the years, there have been several situations that could have warranted forcing an owner to sell, yet it’s only been done a handful of times. 

Here are some of the instances in which the MLB forced an owner to sell and in other cases, looked the other way. 

Forced to Sell

Frank McCourt and the Dodgers: McCourt bought the Dodgers in 2004 and helped the team secure multiple playoff berths early in his tenure before running into legal issues. In 2009, McCourt and his wife, Jamie, divorced after 30 years, which put the fate of controlling ownership in the court’s hands. During the divorce proceedings, the California attorney general investigated the Dodgers Dream Foundation—the charity associated with the team—over CEO Howard Sunkin’s $400,000 salary that was roughly a quarter of the foundation’s budget. In April 2011, with the divorce still unsettled, former MLB commissioner Bud Selig announced that as part of a league investigation he would appoint someone to oversee the team, effectively taking control of the organization. The investigation came after it was reported McCourt obtained a loan from Fox to cover the team’s payroll for the first two months of the regular season. The Dodgers filed for bankruptcy in June 2011 and McCourt’s divorce was finalized in October. The team was sold in March 2012 to Magic Johnson and Mark Walter, who have won two World Series titles with the team and have a payroll of more than $320 million for this season. 

Marge Schott and the Reds: Schott owned the Reds from 1984 to 1993, which included a 1990 World Series title in between. In 1993 she received a one-year ban from the team’s day-to-day operations after reports found she made multiple racist, homophobic, and antisemitic comments about her players and staff. One comment expressed support for Adolf Hitler, which extended the ban to 1998. She sold the team a year later for $67 million to Carl Lindner.

Looked the Other Way

John Fisher and the A’s: The Rays situation isn’t that dissimilar from their fellow American League peers. For years, the Athletics sought a new ballpark in the Bay Area to upgrade from the outdated Oakland Coliseum. They never got one. Eventually, owner John Fisher pivoted to Las Vegas, in a move his fellow owners approved in November 2023. But the Vegas stadium, which is set to be on the Strip, has yet to begin construction and has many questioning whether it will be ready for the 2028 season as scheduled. Fisher took heavy criticism throughout the process for the way he treated fans and locals; even Las Vegas’s mayor said the team’s plans “don’t make sense.” Manfred expressed his own frustrations with the team’s move, but never pressured Fisher to sell the team. 

Arte Moreno and the Angels: In 2020, Moreno tried to buy Angel Stadium and its parking lot from the city of Anaheim as part of a larger redevelopment project for the area around the ballpark. In May 2022, it was discovered through an FBI affidavit that Anaheim mayor Harry Sidhu had adjusted the property’s appraisal in hopes the team would make a seven-figure donation to his campaign. Sidhu resigned and the Anaheim City Council later killed the deal. The Angels didn’t contest the decision and the city owes Moreno $50 million as a result, but it’s not his only legal issue. Moreno has not complied as a defendant in the lawsuit brought by the family of former Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, who died from a drug overdose in 2019. Moreno said the team is expected to lose $50 million to $60 million this season despite playing just outside one of the country’s biggest markets. The Angels have just one playoff appearance since 2010, despite having two future Hall of Famers in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani together from 2018 to 2023. In August 2022, Moreno said he was exploring a sale of the team, but decided against it in January 2023. 

Fred Wilpon and the Mets: The former Mets owner invested with Bernie Madoff, who led a massive multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Wilpon reportedly lost $700 million with Madoff (though he later denied it was that much). After the Ponzi scheme revelations came to light in 2008, reports found that Wilpon heavily involved Madoff with the Mets’ finances. For example, Wilpon invested the deferred money from players’ contracts with Madoff before it was due to be paid out. Wilpon took such a hit from the Madoff scam that MLB wound up loaning the team $25 million in November 2010 to help steady its finances, and a year later Wilpon got another loan for $40 million from Bank of America. MLB was prepared to intervene if Wilpon defaulted on his loans, but never forced him to relinquish control. 

Jeffrey Loria, Bruce Sherman, and the Marlins: In 2017, the team boasted an outfield of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna, plus catcher J.T. Realmuto, giving them four of the game’s best hitters. Stanton signed a 13-year, $325 million contract in 2014, then the richest dollar contract in sports. But the Marlins realized shortly after that they signed Stanton to a contract they couldn’t afford. They wound up trading away each outfielder for prospects that never matched the All-Star talent they were dealt for. Realmuto left in free agency, signing with the Phillies in 2019. Loria was a notoriously cheap owner, who once had to raise payroll after the MLB Players Association complained he was pocketing revenue checks instead of using them to invest in the team. The team’s payroll was once $20 million while the league average was $80 million. The team has just two playoff berths since its 2003 World Series title, one of which came in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season. Loria sold the team to Bruce Sherman in 2017, who quickly traded Stanton and Ozuna, and Manfred took most of the criticism for approving a new owner to come in and slash payroll.