Private Equity’s Lucrative Takeover of Minor League Baseball

Private equity firm Silver Lake is eating up more and more Minor League Baseball teams — and reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies as a result.

Andrew Politi pitching for the Sea Dogs, Portland, Maine’s Minor League Baseball Team. (Ben McCanna / Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)


It’s a late August afternoon in Portland, Maine, and the crispness in the air makes it clear that, up here, summer is fading fast. But the sobriety of autumn hasn’t hit yet: it’s Elvis Night tonight and out front of Hadlock Field — the home stadium of the Sea Dogs, the city’s treasured Minor League Baseball team — the people, simply, are going nuts.

An Elvis Presley impersonator backed by a ramshackle live band smashes through “Hound Dog” while the Sea Dogs’ mascot Slugger, in a bedazzled white pantsuit and big black sunglasses, busts out karate kicks. The band’s guitarist — a sixty-something man bald except for the very back of his head, where the hair flows bountifully — flings his instrument over his back to shred a solo.

The banners behind the band advertise Horch Roofing’s “seamless gutter leak repair” services. Mustached security guards mimic the Elvis impersonator’s moves. Grinning, Elvis swings into a lovely rendering of the trademark hip shake, then shouts, “Man, they still work!” Squealing in delight, the fans mob Slugger and Elvis for selfies.

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