Janice Simpson is putting her 10% stake in the Texas Rangers up for sale in a move that reportedly values the MLB club at $3 billion.
The Rangers took in $405 million in revenue in 2022 versus $335 million in the pre-pandemic 2019 season, according to Forbes.
The team’s Globe Life Field stadium, which opened during MLB’s 2020 pandemic season, is paying off — though with an average of 27,040 fans per game, the Rangers rank in the middle of the pack (17th) in MLB attendance this season.
Simpson’s ex-husband Bob Simpson and fellow oil magnate Ray Davis bought the Rangers out of bankruptcy court in 2010 for $593 million and will continue as majority owners if Janice Simpson sells her minority stake.
The Rangers’ valuation factors in the club’s five-year, $185 million contract given last offseason to two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom, as well as an ongoing dispute concerning their regional sports network run by Bally Sports.
Diamond Sports Group, Bally Sports’ owner, has missed its rights fee payments to the Rangers and several other MLB clubs. The Rangers are owed a reported $111 million per year from Diamond — the fifth-highest annual RSN fee of all MLB clubs.
The Yankees still have the highest valuation of an MLB team at $7.1 billion, while the Dodgers rank a distant second at $4.8 billion, per Forbes. In 2020, Steve Cohen bought the Mets for $2.4 billion, the highest sale price ever paid for an MLB franchise.
