The Golden State Warriors hadn’t played in the NBA Finals or even reached the conference finals for 34 years before Joe Lacob and Peter Guber purchased the team in 2010. Now Lacob has his sights set on another downtrodden franchise with a history of penury, misguided trades, and playoff disappointments.
Somehow, he’s competing with Drew Brees for the acquisition.
Lacob is reportedly among five ownership groups competing to buy the San Diego Padres, who are up for sale following the untimely death of former majority owner Peter Seidler in late 2023. Seidler was the grandson of Walter O’Malley, the longtime Los Angeles Dodgers owner who became less popular than chain stores and monogamy in Brooklyn after moving his team to California.
One of Lacob’s rivals in pursuit of the Padres is Dan Friedkin, an heir to a family fortune built on low-cost air travel and Toyota dealerships. He’s the chairman of Auberge Resorts, a luxury hotel chain, and purchased Italian soccer club AS Roma and English club Everton in the past seven years. Friedkin also produced the movie, “The Mule,” where 90-year-old Clint Eastwood becomes a cocaine trafficker. He also flew a plane for a stunt in “Dunkirk.” But are his dogs named after Ayn Rand characters?
Another interested bidder is José E. Feliciano, who is the head of a private equity firm and not the 81-year-old blind Latin pop star. He and his firm purchased the English Premier League club Chelsea in 2022.
Drew Brees, the retired quarterback who had a Hall of Fame career primarily thanks to leaving the San Diego Chargers, is another bidder, linked up with Joe Kudla, the founder of athleisure giant Vuori. Brees lives in the Del Mar neighborhood of San Diego and Kudla founded Vuori there and both presumably think burritos should have French fries jammed inside of them.
Bids on the team were due Wednesday, so the results could be announced soon. Of course, Lacob has been crafty about team buys in the past, reportedly outfoxing Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison (also a yachting enthusiast, cruel Hawaiian land baron, five-time divorcee, and a Benjamin Netanyahu superfan) by giving former owner/monster Chris Cohan a take-it-or-leave-it offer of $450M to buy the Dubs, before the ultra-rich Ellison could beat his price.
If Lacob is successful, he’d be in immediate conflict with Warriors co-owner Peter Guber, who owns a minority stake in the Padres’ NL West rivals, the Dodgers. Perhaps Lacob would lend his particular brand of sports expertise to the Padres, who last reached the World Series in 1998. By which we mean, he’s going to see if Alen Smailagic can throw a splitter.
The Warriors did have a very brief history in San Diego, playing six games there in the 1971-72 season. The most lasting effect of that was the team adopting the name “Golden State,” despite them playing exclusively in Oakland for the next 25 seasons. And then 22 more after that — let us not speak of the 1996-97 season in San Jose and the team’s first, short-lived mascot, Berserker.
Lacob could certainly buy the Padres! It would have made more sense for him to buy the Athletics and keep them in the Bay Area, but John Fisher is an idiot failson who only does terrible, terrible things, so it makes sense that he moved the team to a minor-league ballpark in Sacramento while waiting for a horribly-misguided Las Vegas stadium to be built instead.
It’s exciting to imagine the possibilities. Could Franco Finn pick up a summer job as a baseball hype man? Could Bob Fitzgerald begin announcing baseball games and breaking into laments every time a .250 hitter gets a single? Are any of Lacob’s children available to handle the Rule V draft? Does Fernando Tatis, Jr. have a jump shot? If Pat Spencer can dominate lacrosse and the NBA, could he also learn to hit a curveball?
It’s quite exciting for everyone. We’re rooting for Lacob, because while Vuori products are exceedingly comfortable and stylish (this author is available for brand deals!), they have no place on a major league baseball field. Let’s go Padres! Let’s go Joe! Why could he bid on the Giants instead???
