The Tampa Bay Rays are in advanced talks to sell the team to a group led by Jacksonville, Fla., developer Patrick Zalupski, according to multiple sources who asked not to be named because the details are private. The deal values the team at roughly $1.7 billion.
Zalupski has signed a letter of intent (LOI) to purchase the team. An LOI is not a purchase agreement, and the deal ultimately might not be completed.
Stu Sternberg, the principal owner, purchased the franchise for $200 million in 2004. Buyers have been circling the Rays in recent years, and The Athletic reported in March that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and other owners were pressuring Sternberg to sell.
The Rays declined to comment. Zalupski and Sternberg didn’t return a request for comment.
If a deal is reached, it would mark only the second MLB team sale since Steve Cohen paid $2.42 billion for the New York Mets in 2020. Last year, David Rubenstein led a group that bought the Baltimore Orioles for $1.73 billion.
The Rays’ long, futile efforts to build a stadium to replace Tropicana Field were dealt a blow last fall by Hurricane Milton, which took the roof off the St. Petersburg, Fla. ballpark and stalled local government plans to fund a new building. The Rays are playing home games this season at the New York Yankees’ Steinbrenner Field, its Minor League Baseball complex in Tampa, Fla.
Zalupski is the founder and CEO of Dream Finders Homes, which specializes in new home construction for first-time home buyers. The company has built and sold more than 38,000 homes in 10 states from its start in late 2008 in Jacksonville through the end of 2024, according to its most recent 10-K filing. The company went public in 2021 and has an enterprise value of $3.4 billion. Zalupski, whose net worth is $1.4 billion per Forbes, serves on the University of Florida Board of Trustees, having been appointed in 2023 by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Known limited partners in Zalupski’s group include Ken Babby—who owns a pair of Minor League Baseball teams: the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp and the Akron RubberDucks—as well as Bill Cosgrove, CEO of Strongsville, Ohio-based Union Home Mortgage. Since 2020, Union Home Mortgage has been the title sponsor of the Gasparilla Bowl, the annual college football bowl game played at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium.
Under Sternberg, the Rays have typically fielded a bottom-five payroll in MLB but have made nine playoff appearances since 2008 and possess a winning percentage of .545 during that time. Only the big-market, free-spending Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees have won more games.
Despite the on-field success, fans have largely avoided the Trop, with attendance among MLB’s bottom four every year since 2011 and last above 18,000 per game in 2013. Failure to secure a new stadium or improve fan support has triggered speculation of a franchise relocation from Tampa. The Rays’ finances have been propped up by annual revenue-sharing checks of roughly $60 million.
The Rays were valued at $1.35 billion, according to Sportico’s most recent MLB valuations, ranking 29th out of 30 MLB teams and just ahead of the Miami Marlins.
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