By admin 
A group tied to former Dallas Mavericks majority owner and “Shark Tank” personality Mark Cuban has purchased a minority stake in the Athletics.
Read more Bonta slams Trump for ‘coercing’ states into assisting ICE, overhauling elections
Harbinger Sports Partners announced Thursday, according to news reports, that it had bought a stake in the A’s. ESPN noted that Cuban is president and general partner of Harbinger, an Atlanta-based investment group.
“We are minority investors looking to make our investors a lot of money,” Cuban said, according to ESPN.
John Fisher, who has owned the A’s since 2005, had reportedly been seeking investment in his team for some time. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the team has sought $550 million in investment to defray the cost of building a $2 billion stadium in Sin City.
The team, currently 43-59, is temporarily playing at Sutter Health in West Sacramento ahead of the completion of the 33,000-capacity ballpark on the Las Vegas strip. The A’s left Oakland following the 2024 season after 57 seasons there, with previous stops for the franchise in Kansas City and Philadelphia, and are taking up residency at the home of Triple-A Sacramento River Cats from 2025 through 2027.
Different sources online list Harbinger Sports Partners as a private equity firm, with this sector having invested heavily in sports in recent years. This has included Arctos Sports Partners purchasing a minority stake in the Sacramento Kings in 2021 for about $306 million, according to Sportico.
“We are very pleased to welcome Harbinger Sports Partners as an investor in the Athletics,” the A’s said in a statement, per ESPN. “The experience of their principals across sports, media, and entertainment, combined with their long-term perspective, makes them a valuable addition to our ownership group as we work to build the future of the franchise in Las Vegas.”
Read more UC doctors to unionize, voter ID dispute. Sacramento’s top stories for July 23
It wasn’t immediately clear what percentage of the A’s Harbinger had purchased or how much the firm paid for its stake. Forbes values the team at $2 billion, 18th-highest in Major League Baseball, putting the team’s annual revenue at $320 million.
In the A’s, Harbinger Sports Partners might have seen an opportunity to capitalize on an undervalued franchise. The organization notes on its website that it uses “advanced analytics to identify franchises approaching value inflection points before they become apparent to the broader market.”
From there, the website also notes, Harbinger implements “operational enhancements and strategic initiatives across key value drivers to accelerate growth and create sustainable competitive advantages.”
How that will play out in West Sacramento, or whether Cuban might make a local appearance before the team moves to Vegas, is unclear. Cuban left “Shark Tank” last year and remains a minority owner in the Mavericks after selling his majority stake in the team in 2023 for a reported $3.5 billion. Bloomberg estimates his net worth at $10.2 billion, while Forbes estimates it at $6 billion.
The investment also might have minimal local effect for the Sacramento area, based off a statement provided from Harbinger Sports Partners co-founder and chief investment officer Rashaun Williams to the Review-Journal.
“Las Vegas represents one of the greatest sports investment opportunities of our generation,” Williams said in the statement. “We’re not simply investing in a baseball franchise. We’re investing in a city that has fundamentally changed the economics of professional sports.”
Read more UC doctors to unionize, voter ID dispute. Sacramento’s top stories for July 23