Foley & Lardner LLP served as legal counsel to an ownership group led by Florida-based business executive Patrick Zalupski in the purchase of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays for an undisclosed amount from former principal owner Stuart Sternberg in a deal unanimously approved by MLB owners. This is the third ownership group of the Rays since MLB awarded Tampa Bay an expansion franchise in 1995.
Zalupski is the founder and CEO of Jacksonville-based Dream Finders Homes Inc. Zalupski will be joined at the executive level of his ownership group by Bill Cosgrove, CEO of Ohio-based Union Home Mortgage and longtime title sponsor of the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa; and Ken Babby, founder and CEO of Fast Forward Sports Group, which owns the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, the AAA-affiliate of the Miami Marlins, and the Akron RubberDucks, the AA-affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians.
Zalupski will serve as MLB Control Person and Co-Chair for the Tampa Bay Rays. Cosgrove will also serve as Co-Chair, while Babby is the Chief Executive Officer, and will oversee day-to-day business operations of the club. Erik Neander, the Rays’ top-ranking baseball official currently in his nineteenth year of service to the Rays, will continue in his role as President of Baseball Operations.
Zalupski and Cosgrove will establish an executive advisory board composed of select investors of the broader ownership group, including Dr. Rick Workman, Doug Hertz, Will Weatherford, Robert Skinner, Dan Doyle, Jr., and Matt Silverman. Foley partner Fred Ridley will also serve as an independent member of the executive advisory board.
A group of limited partners with deep connections to the Tampa Bay region will join the ownership team and be announced in the near future, further strengthening the group’s commitment to the future of the Rays.
As part of the transaction, the Tampa Bay Rowdies, a USL Championship league team, has also been acquired.
The Foley transactions team was led by partners Steve Vazquez, Libby Ridley, and Kevin Schulz with support from partner John Palmer and associates Britton Grimes and Lydia Stambaugh.
