The Selig family’s 30-plus-year ownership of the Milwaukee Brewers is close to coming to an end. The Board of Directors announced Friday that they were in the beginning stages of selling the team.
Current Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig was part of a group of investors that brought baseball back to the city of Milwaukee in 1970, purchasing the financially struggling Seattle Pilots and moving them to Wisconsin. His family has run the team ever since. After he was elected commissioner in 1998, Selig turned his shares in the club over to his daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb.
The New York firm Allen & Company has been retained to handle the sale of the Brewers. Club officials say there is no chance of the Brewers moving because of a 30-year lease with Miller Park that is “ironclad.” The new retractable-roof ballpark opened in 2001, but the club has continued to struggle financially and on the field, despite drawing 2.8 million fans in Miller Park’s inaugural season. The Brewers have suffered through 11 consecutive losing seasons and have not made the playoffs since 1982.
A potential problem for prospective buyers will be the club’s $110 million debt. No timetable has been set for the sale.
— compiled from staff reports