The Dayton Dragons minor league baseball team, the Single-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, has been sold to three investors, who have backgrounds in banking and pro sports. The sale of the team came at a pricetag of nearly $40 million.
Palisades Arcadia Baseball, owned by three Harvard Graduates - Michael Savit, Nick Sakellariadis and Greg Rosenbaum - bought the team from Mandalay Baseball Properties. Dragons Executive Vice-President Eric Deutsch confirmed the deal.
"They have retained everyone here on staff, there's no changes in terms of management," Deutsch said. "Bob Murphy is still going to be our team president and they are hopefully going to provide us resources and their energy and efforts to hopefully make things better under their ownership."
Deutsch said the Harvard trio is very excited to be the new owners of the Dragons. A franchise that holds the all-time North American record for consecutive sold-out dates.
"They did their homework and reviewed about 20 different teams and fell in love with Dayton when they visited here and has some really great meeting with us and our former ownership group, and went full board to purchase the team," he said.
Mandalay owned the Dragons for 15 baseball seasons. A group of investment bankers bought into the operation and decided it was time to sell the team in order to provide a return to investors.
The sale of the team now must now go through the formality of being approved by minor league and major league baseball officials.