Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones Approved as New Padres Owners

Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones are officially the new owners of the San Diego Padres.

In the final step toward taking over the Padres, the other 29 MLB owners voted 29-0 to put Feliciano and Jones in charge of San Diego's biggest sports franchise. They needed a 75% vote (22 owners) for approval. Feliciano and Jones agreed in May to purchase the Padres for a record $3.9 billion from the Seidler family. The couple is expected to own between 40% and 45% of the franchise, with some of the minority owners remaining with the new ownership group and new investors joining.

The sale price eclipsed the $2.42 billion Steve Cohen paid for the New York Mets in 2020. Sportico's latest valuation of the Padres was $2.31 billion, a 21.5% increase from the $1.9 billion figure in 2025. The last MLB team before the Padres to be sold was the Baltimore Orioles, who went for $1.725 billion to David Rubenstein in March 2024. Feliciano will serve as the franchise's control person, although the couple plans to make decisions about the team together.

The $3.9 billion sale price also accounts for $300 million in debt the Padres are carrying.

The Seidler family announced in November that it was putting the team up for sale, two years following the death of 63-year-old Peter Seidler, who was a two-time non-Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor who had undergone another medical procedure two months prior. John Seidler, the eldest of three brothers, had been the team chairman since February 2025.

Seidler and Ron Fowler purchased the Padres for $800 million in 2012.

The 53-year-old Feliciano, born in Bayaman, Puerto Rico, is a co-founder of Clearlake Capital, a Santa Monica-based investment firm. Clearlake has been the majority owner of the English Premier League soccer club Chelsea since 2022. Clearlake is the 12th-largest private-equity firm in the world. According to Forbes, Feliciano's net worth is $3.9 billion. He graduated from Princeton in 1994 with degrees in mechanical and biospace engineering, then got a master's in business administration from Stanford.

Jones becomes the first black woman to be a majority owner of an MLB team. She was born in Los Angeles and is best-known for her musical career, first hitting. the Billboard charts in 2011 with "Think Again," which reached No. 21. She also attended Princeton, graduating in 1993. She studied public and international affairs at the Ivy League university. She also received a doctor of law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a master of dispute resolution from Pepperdine law.

The couple, who met at Princeton, founded the Kwanza Jones and Jose E. Feliciano Initiative in 2014. The foundation, which focuses on education, entrepreneurship, equity, and empowerment, committing more than $250 million to these issues.

Feliciano and Jones take over at an awkward time, as MLB owners have promised to lock out the players on Dec. 1 as the two sides negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. The sale price of the Padres could be a negotiating point as to the growing value of MLB franchises, while the owners want to further increase that value by imposing a salary cap similar to those in the NFL, NBA and NHL.

Aside from the $300 million in debt, the Padres are otherwise a fairly healthy franchise. The team is currently 67-58 and tied for the final two NL wild-card positions with six weeks left in the regular season. A trip to the postseason this year would mark the third year in a row they have been in the playoffs, a first for the franchise in its 58-year history. The Friars have made the postseason in four of the previous six seasons.

Fans have also flocked to Petco Park. The Padres currently rank second in MLB in average attendance at 41,293 and will hit 3 million fans for the fourth consecutive year, including a club-record 3,437,201 in 2025.