When John Moores sells his 90 percent interest in the San Diego Padres to Jeff Moorad for $400 million, his return on his original investment of $80 million will be substantial — and some want to see the city, which funded most of Petco Park’s construction costs, to share in that windfall. But the reality is more complex.
When John Moores sells his 90 percent interest in the San Diego Padres to Jeff Moorad for $400 million, his return on his original investment of $80 million will be substantial — and some want to see the city, which funded most of Petco Park’s construction costs, to share in that windfall. But the reality is more complex.
While some municipalities funding new ballparks included clauses ensuring a share of the action should a team be sold after construction of a new facility that increases the value of a franchise (as Hennepin County did with the Minnesota Twins before agreeing to fund Target Field) San Diego did not. Indeed, San Diego managed to slog its way through a very poor financial agreement — not with the Padres, but within the different parts of city government, using general funds to pay on the construction bonds but setting up the city’s redevelopment corporation, Centre City Development Corp., to actually receive revenues from the Padres.
With the city facing severe financial issues, many in the city saw this as a bad arrangement — and to their credit, Centre City Development Corp. officials stepped in and agreed to pay down on construction bonds for the next five years, relieving some financial pressure on the city.
Which gets us back to the city getting its share of Padres profits. Certainly there’s no obligation for Moores to hand over anything, and we don’t expect him to. Plus, the actual profit probably won’t be as high as some in the city think. For starters, those profits must also pay back Moores’ original investment of more than $153 million in the ballpark. And Moores has invested more than $300 million into development around the ballpark — investments that surely have helped clean up what had been a blighted area of the city.