Sports briefs
By NewsPress Now
MLB owners unanimously approve sale of Orioles
David Rubenstein’s purchase of the Baltimore Orioles was approved Wednesday by Major League Baseball owners, clearing the way for the Angelos family to finalize the sale after over three decades running the team.
Approval of 75% of all owners was required, and MLB said the vote was unanimous. It came the day before the team is scheduled to open the season at home against the Los Angeles Angels. Rubenstein and his investor group were expected to close the purchase later Wednesday.
“To own the Orioles is a great civic duty,” Rubenstein, a Carlyle Group Inc. co-founder, said in a statement. “On behalf of my fellow owners, I want the Baltimore community and Orioles fans everywhere to know that we will work our hardest to deliver for you with professionalism, integrity, excellence, and a fierce desire to win games.”
The Orioles scheduled a news conference for Thursday morning with Rubenstein and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
Angelos and his family took control of the Orioles in 1993, when Peter Angelos purchased the team for $173 million. Angelos’ health took a turn for the worse in recent years — he died Saturday at age 94 — and his son John has been the team’s chairman, CEO and control person since 2019.
“I thank John Angelos and his family for all they have done to bring us to this point,” Rubenstein said. “John led a dramatic overhaul of the team’s management, roster, recruitment strategy, and farm system in recent years. Our job is to build on these accomplishments to advance a world-class professional sports agenda — with eyes on returning a World Series trophy to Baltimore.”
Rubenstein’s group, which includes Cal Ripken Jr. and Grant Hill, reached an agreement in January to buy the Orioles for an evaluation worth $1.725 billion.
Rubenstein, a Baltimore native, formed Carlyle in 1987. Before that, he practiced law in Washington. From 1977-81, he was a deputy assistant for domestic policy to President Jimmy Carter.
The Orioles are coming off a 101-win season and their first AL East title since 2014. Hopes are high after the team acquired ace right-hander Corbin Burnes in a trade with Milwaukee. Young stars Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson have performed like franchise cornerstones, and Baltimore has another top prospect still in the minors in Jackson Holliday.
With all of that cost-controlled talent, the team’s payroll remains meager, and the question is whether Rubenstein will be a more aggressive spender as the Orioles try to make the most of their opportunity to win a World Series for the first time since 1983.
Before the sale, the big off-season story for the Orioles was securing a long-term lease to stay at Camden Yards. That happened in December with a deal extending the lease for 30 years, with an option to end it after 15 if the team does not receive approval from state officials for development plans next to the stadium.
“Capping our organizational turnaround with a championship in perhaps the toughest division in sports, while fulfilling my pledge that the O’s would forever play ball in Charm City, dovetails perfectly with the privilege to now pass stewardship of Baltimore’s iconic team to a Baltimore native, passionate American, and celebrated philanthropist in David Rubenstein,” John Angelos said Wednesday. “The Orioles are in great hands, and the club, as well as the city and state that it calls home, are well positioned for success into the future.”
Olympic officials
move to support
2032 Brisbane Games
BRISBANE, Australia | After weeks of uncertainty about billion-dollar stadium projects for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, the IOC and local organizers moved Wednesday to present the games more positively.
Plans for a $2 billion rebuild of the storied Gabba cricket stadium as an Olympics centerpiece were dropped this month after the expected price spiraled. Australia’s most influential Olympic official, John Coates, had called the stadium issues in Brisbane’s home state Queensland damaging to the Olympics brand.
Queensland Premier Steven Miles, who faces state elections in October, had asked for a review of Olympic venue construction and prefers renovating an existing rugby stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies.
Reports that Queensland had explored getting out of its commitment to host the Olympics was dismissed as “fake news” last week by International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
It led to IOC and local organizing officials being asked Wednesday — after their annual review of preparations — how Queensland could be made to fall in love again with the games.
“I’m not seeing a change in that feeling,” insisted Kirsty Coventry, the IOC executive board member overseeing the Brisbane project, adding that 8½ years out from the games “is the time for changes to happen.”
Coventry and Andrew Liveris, president of the Brisbane 2032 organizing committee, spoke repeatedly of following “due diligence” and adapting to the needs and wishes of local people and public authorities.
“Right now, state government has given us venues and we are going to work on that,” Liveris said in an online news conference.
Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming for Zimbabwe, said an IOC priority was athletes and ensuring “fields of play are world standard.”
“It is obviously again dependent on what the people in the communities want, how the region is growing,” she said. “That is not something we as the IOC will dictate. That is where we listen.”
Stadium issues and curbing costs have become the biggest challenge for Brisbane almost three years since the Olympics were awarded in 2021 fully 11 years ahead of the opening ceremony.
Brisbane was the first Summer Games host picked in a new process to put a preferred candidate into exclusive, fast-track talks without facing a rival bidder in a vote. The IOC aimed to cut the cost of campaigning and building venues, and also avoid the kind of vote-buying scandals that tainted the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
However, the Brisbane win was seen to have lacked transparency and rewarded a key IOC ally, its vice president Coates.
“The giving and awarding of Brisbane up until now have actually been very good,” Coventry said, “and been very good learning experiences.”
Australian Open
champ Sinner advances
to Miami semi
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. | Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner won his 20th match of 2024 to reach the Miami Open semifinals for the third time in the past four years with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Tomas Machac on Wednesday.
Sinner, seeded second, will take on either No. 3 seed Daniil Medvedev or No. 22 seed Nicolas Jarry, who play later.
Sinner reached his fourth final four of the season and moved to 20-1 overall. He reached the finals of this event in 2021 and 2023, losing both times.
“It was a really tough match, but I was happy about the performance,” Sinner said.
Sinner, 22, said Machac served well early on and his aggressiveness kept things close for a while. But Sinner continued his fabulous run, breaking his opponent’s serve four times, to move on to the next round.
“I always say when it all feels good on the court, it’s easy to play tennis,” he said. “But it has to start off in a practice session when you don’t feel well, but you still have to practice and this can make the difference.
“At the moment, I feel really good on the court,” he continued.
On the women’s side, Danielle Collins defeated No. 23 seed Caroline Garcia 6-3, 6-2 to reach the Miami semifinals for the first time since she did it as a qualifier six years ago.
Garcia had come off consecutive wins over Grand Slam champions Naomi Osaki and Coco Gauff. But the run fizzled out against Collins, who has won 10 of 11 sets in this tournament and needed just 80 minutes to advance.
Collins moved to 4-0 in her career against Garcia, who never had a break point in the match. Collins downplayed the dominant showing.
“Against someone like Caro, it forces me to be more concentrated, because I know I don’t want to give her an inch,” Collins said.
Collins will face either No. 5 seed Jessica Pegula or Ekaterina Alexandrova, who play Wednesday night, for a spot in the championship final.
Nearly $200M bet in North Carolina’s first week of legalized sports wagering
RALEIGH, N.C. | Legalized statewide sports wagering in North Carolina from smartphones and desktops that began two weeks ago is off to a “strong start,” a state lottery official said on Wednesday, likely buoyed by betting on college basketball at its season’s apex.
Preliminary monetary numbers for the first day and first week of sports wagering were presented at a meeting of the North Carolina State Lottery Commission, which was directed in last June’s sports wagering law to license operators and suppliers and set rules.
Eight interactive sports wagering operators could begin taking bets at noon March 11, the day before the men’s Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament began. The first week ended just after brackets for the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments were released.
By midnight March 11, over $23.9 million had been wagered, of which almost $12.4 million were “promotional wagers” — incentives for new customers offered by the companies once an initial bet is made. And bettors were paid $12.2 million in winnings during the first 12 hours, according to the commission presentation.
Through the first week, over $198.1 million had been wagered, with $141.6 million in bet winnings paid. “Gross wagering revenue” — the base upon which the state will receive its 18% cut in taxes — was close to $42.7 million.
Sterl Carpenter, a commission executive overseeing sports gambling, said it was too early to make informed comparisons of the launch to those in other states. But he did say that North Carolina’s launch appeared “on par” to last year’s rollout in Massachusetts.
Still, “by all accounts, mobile sports wagering in North Carolina is off to a strong start,” Carpenter said, citing public comments by some operators. And he said the early level of winnings “has to do with N.C. State and North Carolina doing pretty well” in the basketball postseason.
The North Carolina State University men’s team won its first ACC title since 1987 on March 16 by winning five games in a row, capped by a tournament championship victory over UNC-Chapel Hill.
The 2023 sports gambling legislation, signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper, also authorizes for the future in-person wagering, statewide betting on horse races and rules to permit live horse racing. Before the law was carried out, sports gambling was legal in North Carolina only at three casinos operated by two American Indian tribes.
Among North Carolina Education Lottery games, the full commission also heard Wednesday about the early popularity of “digital instants” that the lottery launched on Nov. 15. Accessed through a log in-protected computer or smartphone screen, the instants play in part like slot machines, with various number and symbol matchings resulting in cash prizes.
Through January, digital instant game sales — reduced by distributed prize proceeds — are more than five times the amount that was projected in the lottery’s annual budget, according to a presentation. Over 147,000 people have played digital instants since the launch, helping overall lottery gaming revenue, with multistate draw games not included, increase so far this fiscal year compared to last year rather than decrease.
Commission Deputy Executive Director Randy Spielman attributed the high sales numbers in part to the lottery already selling draw-game tickets to customers online and a longtime lottery player rewards program on its website.
“Our success can be attributed to how long we’ve been kind of engaging our players from a digital standpoint,” Spielman said.
The education lottery took in record sales of more than $4.3 billion during the fiscal year ending last June 30, resulting in net earnings of $1.015 billion, also a record.
Will Smith, Dodgers reach $140 million, 10-year deal
LOS ANGELES | Catcher Will Smith and the Los Angeles Dodgers agreed to a $140 million, 10-year contract Wednesday, raising the team’s spending to nearly $1.4 billion for five key players since December.
Smith’s deal supersedes an $8.85 million, one-year agreement reached in January.
He opened the last week by going 5 for 10 with two RBIs as the Dodgers split a two-game series against San Diego at Seoul, South Korea. The 28-year-old was a first-time All-Star last year, when he hit .261 with 19 homers and 76 RBIs.
Smith has a .263 average with 91 homers and 308 RBIs in six seasons with the Dodgers. He would have been eligible for free agency after the 2025 season.
Los Angeles has committed $1,365,687,500 to two-way star Shohei Ohtani ($700 million for 10 years), right-handers Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($325 million for 12 years) and Tyler Glasnow ($136,562,500 for five years), outfielder Teoscar Hernández ($23.5 million for one year) and Smith.
—From AP reports
