Billionaire David Rubenstein: Owning a Sports Team Is Harder Than Anything I've Done Before
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Why did David Rubenstein decide to buy the Baltimore Orioles?
When you let people that have expertise do something, you're probably better off. In my case, I wouldn't have the ability to tell our players that they should be traded at this point or tell our uh back office we should trade for this player or we should draft this player. I don't have that expertise. Fortunately we have people that do. All teams in major league baseball and football and basketball have large teams that do that. If you actually have people that are good, you should probably let them make the decision. Now, some people have been very successful. Doing things themselves. George Steinbrenner, when he owned the Yankees, there he made decisions without telling a general manager sometimes.
He would sign up a player at a certain price and he would tell them, General Manager, this is what we're gonna do. Those kind of personalities don't generally exist as much as they used to. And the kind of people that now run baseball teams or own teams are generally people that have made money elsewhere by delegating things to people who actually know what they're doing.
Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining us today is New York Times best-selling author. He's also the owner of the Baltimore Orioles, David Rubinstein. He's the author of a new book, Inside the Owner's Box: Conversations on Power. and leadership in sports. David Great to have you. Uh with friends a long time. Uh you've interviewed presidents, investors, historians, business leaders throughout your career. What made you decide to switch your attention to sports other than the fact that you're an MLB baseball owner?
Well, I grew up in Baltimore, and the Baltimore Orioles were always an important part of my fabric growing up. And then I moved away to college and law school and then a professional career. But I felt Baltimore um could use some revitalization. And I thought if I could buy a team, revitalize it, it would help Baltimore. Baltimore's had some real challenges over the last 50 years or so, but I um haven't yet been able to revitalize. A team. It was in first place in the American League East when I bought it. Now it's uh your last place. So I've got a work to do. But I've uh I did it as a philanthropic kind of gesture. I thought I would be able to help Baltimore because Baltimore was a city my parents grew up in, my parents were married in, they raised me in, their parents are buried there, I'm gonna be buried there, and I just felt I owed more to Baltimore than I had already given.
Well, this is listen, it's an amazing story. And obviously your your philanthropy is is wide ranging uh from a lot of different things that you do. But uh this seems like a labor of love, though. Is this something like you were manifesting as a child? I mean, we all have these childhood fantasies. Someday we can own the team that we love. Well, as a child, my fantasy
was to uh play a baseball. When I was seven or eight, I thought I would be uh uh you know a great shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles. And then when I got to be nine or ten, I realized my athletic career had peaked. Um I did well in little league, but it was a Jewish little league and probably, you know, there weren't going to be that many Sandy Koufaxes in that little league. So probably, you know, everybody has all of life is about realizing when you can't do certain things. You know, you realize you've met the the limit of your your abilities and I kind of re realize I met the limit of my uh baseball abilities at about eight or nine.
But what about the dream though? What about the ownership dream? When did what is the ownership dream well
Well well when I was growing up, both you and I had blue collar backgrounds. And growing up in a blue collar setting, you don't really think you're gonna own a baseball team because in the days when I was growing up, baseball teams were owned by what I thought to be really, really wealthy people. They were called millionaires. Of course, a millionaire isn't what it used to be, but the millionaires that bought brought the Baltimore Orioles to Baltimore in nineteen fifty four paid two point
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did David Rubenstein decide to buy the Baltimore Orioles?
0:00–3:54
2
How did Rubenstein’s childhood baseball dream shape his decision to own the team?
3:54–7:38
3
What lessons does Rubenstein share about delegating decisions to experts in sports ownership?
7:38–11:51
4
What are the biggest operational challenges of running an MLB franchise?
11:51–16:11
5
How do unexpected trades affect a team’s short‑term and long‑term success?
16:11–21:09
6
How does daily performance scrutiny in baseball compare to the quarterly pressure of private equity?
21:09–25:24
7
What is the future of sports‑team ownership with private‑equity firms and sovereign‑wealth funds entering the market?
25:24–28:57
8
Why would winning a World Series be a transformative catalyst for Baltimore’s future?
28:57–32:35
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci
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