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https://www.latimes.com/sports/angels/story/2022-08-23/arte-moreno-angels-sale
BY SARAH VALENZUELA, MIKE DIGIOVANNA, BILL SHAIKIN
AUG. 23, 2022 1:37 PM PT
Arte Moreno, whose 20-year ownership of the Angels started with the most successful decade in franchise history but is now mired in a dreadful eight-year run in which the team has failed to make the playoffs, announced Tuesday that he has begun to explore the process of selling the franchise.
“It has been a great honor and privilege to own the Angels for 20 seasons,” Moreno, the first Mexican-American to own a major sports team in the U.S., said in a statement. “As an organization, we have worked to provide our fans an affordable and family-friendly ballpark experience while fielding competitive lineups which included some of the game’s all-time greatest players.
“Although this difficult decision was entirely our choice and deserved a great deal of thoughtful consideration, my family and I have ultimately come to the conclusion that now is the time. Throughout this process, we will continue to run the franchise in the best interest of our fans, employees, players, and business partners.”
Moreno does not have a potential buyer lined up, with one person familiar with his thinking but not authorized to speak publicly about it likening Tuesday’s announcement to the owner a putting a “for-sale sign on the lawn.”
Moreno began considering the possibility of selling the team in recent months, the person said. Moreno doesn’t have a succession plan. He has three adult children, but none have been involved in the running of the team or were interested in taking over.
In March, Forbes valued the team at $2.2 billion, but that number could climb because the Angels are one of four teams in Major League Baseball’s two biggest markets — the other three are the Dodgers, New York Mets, New York Yankees.
Moreno bought the team from the Walt Disney Co. for $183.5 million shortly after the Angels won their only World Series championship in 2002 and was praised for lowering beer prices in Angel Stadium and his hefty free-agent investments that brought 2004 American League most valuable player Vladimir Guerrero, 2005 Cy Young Award winner Bartolo Colon and pitcher Kelvim Escobar to Anaheim.
Those players — along with several holdovers from the 2002 team and newcomers such as pitcher Jered Weaver and shortstop Erick Aybar — helped fuel a highly successful run in which the Angels won five AL West titles and reached the American League Championship Series twice from 2004-2009.
But a 7-6 win over the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the 2009 ALCS in Anaheim would be the Angels’ last playoff victory. The Angels have made the playoffs only once since, in 2014, when they were swept in a three-game division series by the Kansas City Royals.
They are on their way to their seventh straight losing season and eighth without a playoff berth.
It hasn’t been for lack of spending. The Angels been among baseball’s top 10 spending teams in every year Moreno owned them, but they haven’t spent their money very wisely.
Moreno was the driving force behind the 10-year, $240-million deal for Albert Pujols before 2012, the five-year, $125-million deal for Josh Hamilton before 2013 and the seven-year, $245-million deal for Anthony Rendon before 2020, and not one could help deliver a playoff win.
Pujols, 32 when he signed with the Angels, was hampered by lower-body injuries and age and was a shadow of the slugger who put up Hall-of-Fame numbers in St. Louis for 11 years. He was released in May of 2021.
Hamilton, the 2010 AL MVP with the Texas Rangers, had a history of substance abuse problems and suffered a relapse in the spring of 2015. He was traded to the Rangers that April, the Angels eating $61 million of his contract.
Rendon has played just 103 games in the past two years, suffering a season-ending hip injury in July 2021 and a season-ending wrist injury this June.
The Angels have also employed two of the best players in baseball for the past five years, three-time AL MVP Mike Trout and two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, and they have not even had a winning season with the pair.
Moreno’s refusal to exceed the luxury tax threshold prevented the Angels from competing for several free agents who could have been difference-makers for them, including pitcher Gerrit Cole, third baseman Adrian Beltre and first baseman Mark Teixeira.
Moreno instructed then-general manager Billy Eppler to fire manager Brad Ausmus after the 2019 season so he could hire long-time favorite Joe Maddon, who had spent more than three decades with the organization before moving on to manage the Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago Cubs.
Moreno then fired Eppler after the 2020 season — only a few months after giving Eppler an extension through the 2021 season — and hired Perry Minasian as the team’s GM.
Moreno approved Minasian’s decision to fire Maddon in early June, with the team near the end of an eventual 14-game losing streak, and Maddon has not spoken to the owner since his dismissal.
Trout told reporters in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the Angels are in the middle of a four-game series with the Tampa Bay Rays, that he was still processing the news of the potential sale and that he appreciates that the Moreno’s have taken care of him.
A former Angels star made his thoughts clear on Twitter.
“Well, this is happy news,” Hall of Famer Rod Carew, the former first baseman who has been estranged from the team for several years, said. “I have renewed hope that my relationship with the Angels organization can be fully restored.”
Moreno, 76, is the oldest of 11 children of Maria and Arturo Moreno, who immigrated from Mexico. He grew up in Tucson, Ariz., graduating from high school in 1966, was drafted into the U.S. Army and fought in the Vietnam War.
After returning from the war, Moreno attended the University of Arizona, graduating with a degree in marketing in 1973. He took a job in the advertising industry and was hired by a Phoenix-based billboard company called Outdoor Systems in 1984.
Moreno eventually became the company’s president and chief executive office, and the company’s stock soared after he took it public in 1996. Moreno sold Outdoor Systems to Infinity Broadcasting for $8 billion in 1998.
A love of baseball prompted Moreno to join 17 other investors in a 1986 purchase of the minor league Salt Lake Trappers in 1986. The group owned the team until 1992.
Moreno was unsuccessful in his 2001 attempt to purchase controlling interest in the Arizona Diamondbacks, but two years later, his purchase of the Angels was approved by Major League Baseball.
In 2005, Moreno announced the team would be called the Los Angeles Angels, the better to emphasize to potential advertisers and sponsors that the team played in the second-largest media market in the United States.
There are close to 20 million people in the Los Angeles media market; the city of Anaheim is home to 350,000 people.
The city sued, citing a stadium lease clause that required the team name to “include the name Anaheim therein.” Moreno said the full team name would be the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
An Orange County Superior Court jury ruled in his favor, but the awkward two-city name prompted anger in Orange County and ridicule elsewhere. Ultimately, a judge said Moreno could use the name “Los Angeles Angels” for marketing purposes, and the “of Anaheim suffix” eventually disappeared.
But, aside from throwback and City Connect uniforms, the team wore “Angels” on their jerseys, not “Los Angeles.” The Angels’ charitable foundation focused on efforts in Orange County.
The Angels said in a statement that the organization has taken on Galatioto Sports Partners as financial advisors for the process. <--- Me when my head hits the pillow
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