Portland Sea Dogs sold

mauf

Anderson Cooper × Mr. Rogers
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Speier tweeted this five minutes ago, so no in-depth coverage yet.

View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1600160000768282624?s=20&t=BkVJ4ugilRYVFLVn1MmenQ


The Double-A Portland Sea Dogs, a model minor league franchise that has been owned since their inaugural season in 1994 (including their affiliation with the Red Sox since 2003) by the Burke family, have been sold to Diamond Baseball Holdings.
Edit: adding a link to the club’s press release.

https://www.milb.com/news/portland-sea-dogs-announce-diamond-baseball-holdings-as-new-owner

Here’s an excerpt:

The Portland Sea Dogs baseball team today announced it has entered into an agreement with a new owner, Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH), an organization that owns and operates select minor league clubs affiliated with Major League Baseball (MLB). The Club will continue to be managed by the current Sea Dogs staff, led by President and General Manager Geoff Iacuessa, and remain the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
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Oct 31, 2013
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DBH is owned by private equity firm Silver Lake. They operate a bunch of Braves affiliates too.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Jan 23, 2009
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Not all that surprised. The Sea Dogs have been family owned since the team was founded. The Burkes got hit pretty hard by the COVID shutdown, during which they committed to and followed through on not laying anyone off. They took losses in 2020 (no games) and 2021 (capacity limitations). Even some of their successful attempts at alternative revenue didn't turn out great. They set up target golf in the park during the lost season and the third party vendor that did all the online bookings went belly up before they fully paid the team, so they ended up taking a loss there too. Have to imagine 2022 wasn't quite enough to fully recover and they had enough.

Hopefully not a whole lot changes with the new ownership. The Red Sox are committed to them for at least the next eight years, and the Burkes have made a bunch of recent improvements to the ballpark so it's in really good shape.
 

Manuel Aristides

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Apr 7, 2009
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This is sad. The Burkes put a lot of love into that team/park. The joy of minor league baseball ought to be in large part connection between team and community, and this just makes that so much less likely.
 

Vinho Tinto

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Dec 9, 2003
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This is sad. The Burkes put a lot of love into that team/park. The joy of minor league baseball ought to be in large part connection between team and community, and this just makes that so much less likely.
Agreed. I would go to roughly 10 games a year when I lived in Portland. Besides watching the team, you could feel that the Sea Dogs were a family owned entity. I get why they did it, but this is sad to hear.
 

Manuel Aristides

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Apr 7, 2009
224
Agreed. I would go to roughly 10 games a year when I lived in Portland. Besides watching the team, you could feel that the Sea Dogs were a family owned entity. I get why they did it, but this is sad to hear.
Yeah I don't blame them and I'm not mad at them... just too bad a local group couldn't step up here...