Freakonomics Radio · Oct 16, 2026 · 43m · 35m saved
With David Rubenstein, Co-Founder of The Carlyle Group
David Rubenstein, co-founder of The Carlyle Group, told Stephen Dubner on Freakonomics Radio that he bought his hometown Baltimore Orioles for roughly $1.75 billion, in a sport where almost no team reports a profit.
At Carlyle, a deal lives or dies on earnings. In baseball, David said, the earnings barely exist and the return comes at the exit.
"Usually what happens is you make your money when you sell a team, not when you worry about the quarterly earnings."
David grew up in an 800-square-foot house with parents who never finished high school. He went on to co-found Carlyle, signed the Giving Pledge as one of its roughly 40 founding members, and chaired the Kennedy Center until Donald Trump replaced him.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 43 minutes of audio, 8 minutes of reading.
Here are the 6 moments that matter.
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Key Takeaways
Baseball franchises are valued on revenue because almost no team has earnings
The money is made "when you sell a team, not when you worry about the quarterly earnings"
David walked away from the Orioles deal over a debt dispute, then came back two weeks later to close it
Keeping private-equity buyers out of a league holds down what its teams can sell for
David plans to give away virtually all of his money, mostly as scholarships
A good education, in his view, makes an inheritance unnecessary
David blames the collapse of bipartisanship on the removal of limits on political donations
Trump removed David as Kennedy Center chairman and took the job himself
1. The Orioles Deal Nearly Died
Stephen opened by asking David to compare his day job at Carlyle, buying aerospace, healthcare and financial-services companies, with buying a ballclub. The Orioles purchase came close to collapsing. John Angelos, son of longtime owner Peter Angelos, first offered David a 10 percent minority stake. David pushed for a path to control. Then a banker on the other side told his group, which included Ares co-founder Michael Arougheti, that it misunderstood the team's debt.
David hung up on the Orioles deal over a balance-sheet dispute, then reconciled two weeks later and closed it
"The investment banker on the other side was saying to us that we didn't understand an issue that related to the debt on the balance sheet of the Orioles... So I just simply said, thank you very much, I'm out of here, I don't want to do this deal anymore." — David Rubenstein
David sees the deal as part of a broader change in who owns sports teams. Owners used to be local businesspeople. Now the buyers are among the richest people in the country.
"It used to be that businesspeople you never heard of were the owners of sports teams, and they were not the equivalent of the Forbes 400. They just weren't. And today the multibillionaires want to own sports teams. It's a big change." — David Rubenstein
