Major sports investor wants to bring MLB to Raleigh. Is it competition or collaboration with Dundon?

A billionaire investor in multiple major U.S. sports teams wants to bring a Major League Baseball team to Raleigh. 

The news? It’s not Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon, who has long professed his desire to bring a team to the area.

Marc Lasry, the co-founder and chief executive of Avenue Sports Fund, told WRAL in an exclusive interview that he wants to make a bet — a big one — on Raleigh. And it could boost the region’s odds in its bid for a big-league ballclub. 

“I want to be an investor in Raleigh, and I think what we’re doing with the Courage and, hopefully, what we can do with Major League Baseball, those opportunities are pretty big,” said Lasry, whose group made a large investment in the NC Courage this year. “It’s a market that’s going to continue to grow.”

The Avenue Sports Fund, which launched in 2023, has raised over $1 billion and is invested in the Baltimore Orioles, a NASCAR team, PGA Tour Enterprises, a team in Tiger Woods’ TGL and other sporting ventures. Lasry’s fund reportedly invested $40 million into the Courage at a $155-million valuation, according to Sportico.

Lasry, 66, founded Avenue Capital Management in 1995 and it now manages about $13 billion in assets. He sold a 25% stake in the Milwaukee Bucks in 2023, when the franchise was valued at $3.5 billion. He is worth $2.2 billion, according to Forbes. 

His interest in baseball could lead to competition or collaboration with Dundon. Dundon has pumped up the value of the Hurricanes since buying a majority stake in the NHL franchise in 2018, and he hopes to do the same with his latest acquisition: the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers. Dundon has also spearheaded an effort to bring MLB to the Triangle. 

Increased interest from deep-pocketed people could help persuade even more investors and MLB brass to take the proposition seriously as the league looks to expand. Other cities across the country — including Sacramento, Nashville, Vancouver, Salt Lake City and many others — have launched expansion efforts.

It won’t be cheap. A baseline for acquiring a franchise and building a baseball stadium: $4 billion.

Along with now multiple potential well-heeled owners, the Triangle region already has the most important fundamental in just about any investment: growth. The region has exploded, growing about 18% to 2.2 million residents in the past 10 years, according to Census estimates. The Raleigh area alone has grown 25% during that time. 

“You’re making a bet that in the next five, 10, 20 years, the city is going to keep on growing,” Lasry said, adding: “That’s a bet I’m willing to make.”

Brian Fork, the top business executive with the Hurricanes and the lead on Dundon’s efforts to secure a baseball franchise, told WRAL that his group wasn’t aware of Lasry’s interest.

“We’re still enthusiastic about the possibility of bringing Major League Baseball to North Carolina. We’re excited to have any other investors involved in making that happen,” Fork said. “We just want to work together with our partners in North Carolina and other investors to put our best foot forward.”

Expansion efforts

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has said he wants to select two new cities for expansion before the end of his planned January 2029 retirement. It would be the league’s first expansion since 1998.

“MLB is going to pick the city they think has got the best finances where people will be able to build a new stadium, where they’re comfortable with ownership,” Lasry said. “It’s hard. Getting a city to get a team is just hard. I’m not going to tell you it’s easy. Raleigh has as good a shot as anybody.”

Expansion fees could be a boon to owners and the players’ association would welcome more major league job opportunities. However, the two sides must negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement to replace the one that expires at the end of the season. 

The sides are prepared for a bitter negotiation, one that could cost part of — or perhaps all of — the 2027 season if not resolved quickly. The owners have proposed a cap on player salaries, long a non-starter for the players association. 

Some owners told USA Today earlier last week that they don’t expect expansion to happen in the near future, citing the economics of adding two smaller markets.

Lasry said he would prefer to be the majority owner or controlling owner if Raleigh lands a Major League Baseball team, but he said he’d be willing to work with Dundon, whom he says he knows well and described him as “a good guy.” 

“If, ultimately, at the end of the day, Tom and I need to team up, that’s what will happen,” Lasry said. “All MLB or the NBA or NFL or anybody wants is a strong ownership group, the city’s behind it and they want to know you’re not going to have any issues with the stadium. It’s going to be hard.”

Fork said the two know each other and that Dundon would be glad to talk.

Dundon has repeatedly said that bringing a Major League Baseball team to the state is his goal. In addition to his stakes in the Hurricanes and the Trail Blazers, he also holds large stakes in major pickleball leagues. Dundon sold a reported 12.5% stake in the Hurricanes earlier this year at a reported valuation of $2.66 billion, in part, to help finance the purchase of the Trail Blazers.

North Carolina, the ninth-largest state in the nation, has teams in the NHL (Hurricanes), NBA (Hornets), NFL (Panthers), MLS (Charlotte FC) and NWSL (Courage). That’s in addition to well-supported college programs across the state and annual NASCAR and PGA Tour events. 

Baseball is “the only thing we’re kind of missing if you look at the size of the state and the support of the teams,” Dundon told WRAL in 2023. “It sort of feels obvious.”

North Carolina, through its state pension plan, considered purchasing part of the Hurricanes, but ultimately passed. State treasurer Brad Briner, whose office oversees the North Carolina Retirement System which holds $148 billion in assets, said that his office is involved in many large-scale investments across the state that need financing.

“You should assume we’re looking at the Hurricanes or a major league franchise or in building large office buildings around here,” said Briner, whose office had conversations about the recently sold Tampa Bay Rays in MLB. “... The next expansion is not for several years, but we’ll get in those conversations whenever it is appropriate to do so.”

Since taking over the Portland Trail Blazers, Dundon has focused on cutting costs, earning him considerable criticism. But his ownership of the Hurricanes is largely seen as an overwhelming success — despite the loss of some high-profile broadcasters and executives. The Hurricanes, which missed the playoffs for nine consecutive years prior to Dundon’s purchase, have reached the postseason in eight consecutive years and are currently playing in the Stanley Cup Final against the Vegas Golden Knights.

“Tom Dundon has been an extraordinary owner in terms of what he’s brought to the operation of this franchise on and off the ice,” Bettman said during a press conference in Raleigh before the Stanley Cup Final. “Obviously, his work in terms of creating a competitive and successful team is the reason we’re here. This team is more part of the community than it’s ever been.”

The Hurricanes have sold out more than 160 consecutive games and sold out a watch party at Lenovo Center for Saturday’s Game 3 in Las Vegas. In 2024, Dundon signed a 20-year lease extension at Lenovo Center as part of a deal that gave him rights to develop an entertainment district on up to 80 acres around the arena and committed to a $300-million renovation of the building, backed by tax revenue from hotel stays and purchases from restaurants and bars.

“Tom may not always be — because we’re hearing this out of a different market — the most conventional owner, but nobody can argue with his commitment to the sport, to the community and to making the team successful for the benefit of the community and that fans,” Bettman said. “He’s been great for us all the way.” 

The Hurricanes plan to start development around Lenovo Center at some point after  NC State’s 2026 football season ends. The project was originally projected to begin in December 2025.

Baseball or soccer or both?

The Hurricanes aren’t the only ones looking to build an entertainment district anchored by a sports venue. That’s been the vision of Courage owner Steve Malik and Raleigh real estate developer John Kane since at least 2019 — a $2.5-billion, 140-acre mixed-use development project called Downtown South, offering a new gateway to Raleigh with a 20,000-seat soccer-first facility as the centerpiece.

Downtown South is located near the intersection of Interstate 40 and 401, near Dix Park.

Lasry knows about the impact of a sports-anchored district. The Deer District, a 30-acre development around Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum on a former freeway, is now home to restaurants, bars, shops and music venues. Apartments are now under construction.

“People want to be together,” Lasry said.

And sports is one of the things that bring them together.

“If you’re a city, you better have sporting things,” Lasry said. “That’s what’s going to get people to come to your district.”

Malik bought the franchise for $3.5 million and moved the Courage from Western New York to Cary in 2017. The team dominated during its first three seasons at WakeMed Soccer Park, winning three consecutive regular-season titles and two playoff championships behind star Lynn Williams.

But as the league has grown in popularity, visibility and value, the Courage have struggled to keep up financially, in part due to its stadium situation. Malik has added investors, including Lasry, to keep up with spiraling costs associated with a top-tier sports league. Capitol Broadcasting Company, which owns WRAL, owns part of the Courage and increased its investment in 2023.

A larger stadium, as part of a development district, could give the franchise more resources to compete. Capacity at First Horizon Stadium at the WakeMed Soccer Park complex is 10,000, lower than the league’s average attendance.

“We’re not sustainable with the current stadium that we have,” Courage president Francie Gottsegen said in May. Gottsegen has said the franchise is making a big push to secure public funding to secure a new stadium. “We’ve made good progress,” Gottsegen said. “We’re optimistic.”

One potential source of funding for additional sports infrastructure is raising the hotel occupancy tax in Wake County. Some of those tax dollars are used to support the Lenovo Center and other venues that attract tourism to the area.

The price for the new baseball stadium in Las Vegas for the A’s, set to open in 2028, has climbed from $1.5 billion to $2 billion. The state and country approved up to $380 million in public funds for the park with the A’s covering the rest, ESPN previously reported.

The Lenovo Center, originally called the Entertainment and Sports Arena and conceived of as an off-campus venue for NC State men’s basketball, cost $158 million with about half coming from public money through the occupancy and prepared and beverage taxes. Construction began in 1997 and it opened in 1999. 

Lasry has long had an interest in women’s sports and Raleigh. He was poised to buy a controlling stake in the Courage in 2024, but didn’t close the deal with his fund citing league rules around private equity, according to Sportico.

The growth of women’s sports, he said, is indicative of larger cultural shifts that have to do with use of free time, communal events and, most importantly, how parents have included their daughters in sports fandom, viewership and attendance. The growth in women’s leagues in basketball, soccer and other sports is proof.

“That shift is people like you want to take their kids to sporting events,” he said. “It’s their kids. Not their son. That’s the difference.” 

The other part, he said, is more preference — one that has fueled a migration to Southern cities such as Raleigh for going on decades.

“I’d rather live in Raleigh than New York,” said Lasry, who lives in New York. “I think most people would end up saying that to you.”