Former sports agent Jeff Moorad is working on the deal of his career: buying the San Diego Padres baseball team.
Word broke over the weekend that Moorad has reached an agreement in principle to buy the Padres as part of a group of investors.
A deal could close within the first quarter.
As Moorad pursues the Padres, he resigned as chief executive of the Arizona Diamondbacks, where he’s part owner of the Phoenix baseball team.
Buying the Padres would bring Moorad closer to his adopted home in Newport Beach, where he kept his house after joining the Diamondbacks in 2004.
He grew up in Modesto and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1978 before getting his law degree at Villanova University in Pennslyvania.
Moorad, who as an agent signed Manny Ramirez to the Boston Red Sox in 2000, became the first to make the leap from player advocate to team chief when he joined the D-backs.
Before that, he headed Newport Beach-based Moorad Sports Management Inc. as part of Canada’s Loring Ward International Ltd.
He spent 20 years as an agent and left a stable of about 40 Major League Baseball players and a handful of National Football League players behind when he joined the D-backs.
The deal for the Padres came about amid a long friendship between Moorad and current Padres owner John Moores.
Moores’ divorce to wife Becky led to the Padres’ potential sale.
Moores hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to shop the team in November.
In early 2008, Forbes valued the Padres at $385 million, no. 19 among baseball’s 30 teams and just ahead of the D-backs at $379 million.
