SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Missions minor league baseball team has been sold to a local ownership group that includes a lot of well-known business, civic and sports greats.
The new ownership group, Designated Bidders LLC, purchased the team from the Elmore Group for a reported $28 million.
Investors with the new group include former Rackspace CEO Graham Weston, Spurs Sports and Entertainment Chairman Peter J. Holt, Spurs greats David Robinson and Manu Ginobili. Other local notables include former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, former Clear Channel executive Bob Cohen and La Familia Cortez. Major League Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan is also a part of the ownership group.
A news conference to announce the purchase will be held Thursday morning at Wolff Stadium.
The purchase was made possible after the San Antonio City Council last week approved the transfer of the current stadium lease at Wolff Stadium to the new ownership group.
The new lease would be effective until September 2031. Designated Bidders LLC has agreed to comply with the current conditions of the lease, which includes the city paying 70% of costs for future stadium improvements, with the owners paying the other 30%.
According to a report in the San Antonio Express-News, Designated Bidders wants to have a new stadium built downtown.
The Missions would be operated by Ryan Sanders Baseball, which is led by Reid Ryan, who led the development of the game-day experience at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Ryan Sanders Baseball also founded the Round Rock Express and the Corpus Christi Hooks, two minor league affiliates of the Houston Astros.
WATCH BELOW: San Antonio Missions hold press conference after being sold