Marc Lasry’s PE Firm Steps Into Minor League Baseball

Marc Lasry’s Avenue Sports Fund is taking its first big swing with a new business that has agreed to buy two Minor League Baseball teams, Front Office Sports has learned.

OnDeck Partners, a new entity owned by Lasry’s private-equity firm Avenue Capital Group, has purchased the Montgomery Biscuits and the Visalia Rawhide. The Alabama-based Biscuits are the Double-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays, while the California-based Rawhide are the Single-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The deals, which have been approved by MLB, will be announced later Thursday morning. Financial details were not disclosed.

OnDeck CEO Mike Carney says his first job will be to earn the trust of the teams’ fans and surrounding communities.

“We are going to be an authentic brand,” Carney told FOS ahead of the announcement. “Because if we’re not, the fans are going to be able to sniff that out pretty fast.”

OnDeck will not make any immediate changes to the teams. Instead, the focus will be on building out the business side: adding staff, upgrading facilities, and turning both ballparks into year-round entertainment venues that can host concerts, festivals, and more.

Carney declined to comment on what stake OnDeck will hold, and wouldn’t say what kind of involvement, if any, the existing ownership groups will retain. A group led by boxing promoter and TV producer Lou DiBella bought the Biscuits in 2017, while the Rawhide were purchased by the Sigal family, led by former Minor League Baseball announcer Sam Sigal, in 2019.

“I’ve developed nice friendships with both ownership groups, and that will continue,” Carney says.

Carney joined OnDeck because it was the right cultural fit. He grew up an Orioles fan and joined the Nationals in 2015 to work on business-side data analytics. When MLB took control of MiLB in 2020, he “worked closely” with the former to help professionalize and standardize the latter. 

As Avenue Capital sought a CEO to lead what became OnDeck, it was MLB that recommended him to Lasry, the former part-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, whose firm is invested in the soccer-focused Men in Blazers Media Network, women’s soccer ownership group Mercury13, and more.

Avenue Capital, formed in 1995, closed its debut sports fund in September after raising more than $1 billion. 

“Minor league baseball is not like your usual business that PE can come into,” Carney says. “It’s critically important that we get this right.”

Lasry echoed that sentiment in a statement, saying, “OnDeck is building something special and important: not only supporting the success of the teams in which it invests but also contributing to the dynamism of the communities in which they are located.”

Is it possible OnDeck will become the next Diamond Baseball Holdings? That entity owns 48 Minor League Baseball clubs, including three Astros affiliates it just purchased Tuesday. Carney is coy about how many teams OneDeck might eventually buy, telling FOS that “we’re starting with these two clubs and developing the playbook.”

He’s also not revealing what other areas OnDeck might invest in—a press release being issued Thursday says the company will invest in “fun, affordable entertainment.”

“We’re focused on Minor League Baseball at the outset,” Carney tells FOS. “However, we wanted to keep the door open to other opportunities down the road. We need to prove the model with these two acquisitions first.”