Topline
The start of the Major League Baseball postseason Tuesday sends 12 hopeful teams to the playoffs to start vying for the ultimate goal of a World Series win later this month, and five of them—including the odds-on favorite Los Angeles Dodgers—will bring Forbes 400 billionaires to the owners box.
New York Mets owner Steve Cohen at Citi Field on June 28, 2023 in New York City.
Key Facts
The owners of the Dodgers, Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies all made the latest annual Forbes 400 list released Tuesday, ranking them among the richest people in America.
New York Mets owner and hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen, who has a net worth of $21.3 billion, is the richest playoff owner on the Forbes 400 at No. 39 and will see his team make a playoff run for only the second time since he bought the Mets in 2020 for $2.4 billion, the highest price ever paid for an MLB team.
John Malone, No. 89 on the Forbes list, has a net worth of $10.8 billion and is nicknamed the Cable Cowboy for his career’s worth of media deals—Malone, whose company Liberty Media owns the 2021 World Series Champions Atlanta Braves, has been involved with the team since 1987.
Mark Walter, No. 216 on the Forbes 400 with a net worth of $6 billion, has been the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2012 and his team has been favored to win the World Series since the start of the 2024 season, according to ESPN.
Tobacco billionaire John Middleton is worth an estimated $4.1 billion and ranked at No. 329 on the Forbes 400—his Philadelphia Phillies have made the playoffs eight times (and played in three World Series) since he first bought a minority stake in the team in 1994.
Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein—one of the co-founders of the private equity firm Carlyle Group—has an net worth of $3.8 billion and is ranked at No. 359 on the Forbes 400.
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Surprising Fact
The Detroit Tigers are controlled by Chris Ilitch, who is not a billionaire in his own right but his mother Marian Ilitch is ranked at No. 338 on the Forbes 400 (her late husband founded the Little Caesars Pizza pizza chain in 1959).
Tangent
The Kansas City Royals, San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers are the only three of the 12 MLB playoff teams that are not owned by billionaires or their immediate relatives. Billionaire Jim Crane, who made his fortune through logistics businesses, owns the Houston Astros and billionaire Hal Steinbrenner is the managing general partner of the New York Yankees, the most valuable team in baseball. Two of the teams are owned by close relations of billionaires—the Tigers (Ilitch) and the Cleveland Guardians, whose owner Larry Dolan is the brother of cable television billionaire Charles Dolan. The Royals are owned by former Cleveland Indians minority owner John Sherman; the estate of late investor Peter Seidler owns the San Diego Padres and financier Mark Attanasio is the principal owner of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Key Background
The Forbes 400 is an annual ranking of the wealthiest people in America. This year, the richest are worth a combined $5.4 trillion, up nearly $1 trillion from last year and the highest cumulative total ever. Twelve billionaires have fortunes worth more than $100 billion, and the last-ranked person on the list, Frank VanderSloot, is worth $3.3 billion. Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg are the country’s richest.
What To Watch For
The MLB playoffs start Tuesday with four games. The Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros game started at 2:32 p.m. EDT and the Kansas City Royals and Baltimore Orioles game will follow at 4:08 p.m. The New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers will play at 5:32 p.m. and the Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres will play at 8:38 p.m. The first will be aired on ABC and the later three will be broadcast on ESPN.
