Mandalay Baseball owner sells its shares

Seaport Capital LLC is selling its share of Mandalay Baseball Properties, but the sale shouldn't affect the Erie SeaWolves or the four other baseball teams owned by Mandalay.

Seaport, an equity firm based in New York City, invested in Mandalay in 2002 and has plans to move on to other investments.

"Seaport has invested in Mandalay the past 10 years and that's pretty mature as far as investments go," said Larry Freedman, the president of Mandalay baseball. "They decided it's time for them to move on. I think the other owners are pretty happy. It's just the nature of the beast."

Seaport has a majority stake in Mandalay Baseball Properties and has retained Game Plan LLC to sell its share. Other investors in Mandalay Baseball Properties include Magic Johnson, Archie Griffin and Peter Gruber, who is a part owner of the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Mandalay Baseball Properties owns the SeaWolves along with the Dayton Dragons, the Frisco Roughriders, the Oklahoma City RedHawks, and owns half of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders.

The five teams are expected to generate more than $40 million in revenue this year, according to a report that Bloomberg News acquired.

"There is no reason to worry," Freedman said. "It's very likely we replace Seaport with new owners and everything stays the same. We have an infrastructure in place and a management team in place that could be attractive to other investors.

"I think, and it's not a negative thing, that Seaport has been kind of an invisible owner and not many people in our baseball cities know about them. That's the way it should be and things are looking good."

Freedman went on to say that Mandalay is very interested in running minor league teams, whether that is more baseball teams or other sports like the NBA D-League. Mandalay also recently invested in Professional Sports Catering and 4Topps Premium Seating, which both provide services to minor league sports.

"With all of the time and effort that goes into something like this, it would be counter intuitive to pull it apart," Freedman said about Mandalay Baseball Properties. "We want to leave it together and let it grow."
