In 1937, the Snow Hill Billies professional baseball team in North Carolina’s Coastal Plains League, traded hard-hitting catcher Jim Tatum to the Tarboro Serpents for $50, a sack of peanuts and a much-beloved hunting dog. The 50 bucks may have been in Confederate dollars. Versions of this highly legendary story vary.
Nearly a century later, the business of minor league baseball in North Carolina is considerably more lucrative, if not quite as endearing.
A dozen teams, most in shiny new stadiums built with taxpayer dollars, drew more than 2.5 million fans to games last summer. The enterprises serve as economic development engines for the cities in which they reside.
North Carolina has 12 minor league baseball teams, more than any other state except Florida. Minor-league ball’s growth is a national trend, with billions spent on stadiums and associated development projects near the parks. Individual franchises have soared in value. The best properties, such as Charlotte and Durham, are worth $100 million or more, industry experts say. How much longtime Charlotte Knights owner Don Beaver received when selling his team last year hasn’t been disclosed.
The game and the business have changed. Gone are mom-and-pop operations, where the grandkids chased down foul balls and catchers were traded for hound dogs. Now, well-financed corporations are applying modern systems to the Great American Pastime.
“The sophistication around minor league baseball has changed because a lot of very successful business people have started to pay attention,” says Scotty Brown, operating partner of Temerity Baseball, the owner of the Greensboro Grasshoppers and the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers, and the Lexington (Kentucky) Legends, an independent league team. “That, in turn, has raised franchise values, which kind of demands that even more people pay attention. And that’s what’s happened.”
Big corps, nonprofits
Temerity is part of Washington, D.C.-based Temerity Capital Partners, whose founder, Andy Sandler, started two large D.C. law firms. He’s also a huge baseball fan, says Brown.
The biggest player in the state, by a long shot, is Diamond Baseball Holdings, which owns 41 of the 120 minor league teams affiliated with Major League Baseball. Its Tar Heel state
holdings are the Triple-A Charlotte Knights, where players regularly shuttle back and forth to the majors, along with the Winston-Salem Dash, and Hickory Crawdads, both Single-A franchises. They also own the former Kinston franchise that Diamond Baseball moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina, shortly after acquiring it in 2023.
Diamond has invested more than $2 billion in minor league baseball since its formation four years ago, and it isn’t stopping. Their plan is to reach the 50-team cap on franchise ownership by a single entity, while boosting profit through efficiencies and associated development.
The business is a subsidiary of private-equity giant Silver Lake Technology Partners, which has $103 billion of assets under management. Dan Rajkowski, the Knights’ executive vice president, says his new bosses are pouring resources into the franchise, improving ticketing, accounting systems and analytics.
“I’m the old school baseball guy and I thought we were doing things OK,” says Rajkowski, a holdover from the former owner with 41 years of baseball experience. “But, we weren’t current. We were trying to catch up, but it was going slowly. As this settles, it’s really going to be great for baseball here.”
While corporate money has moved in, ownership of North Carolina’s teams is still a mixed bag.
The Class A Asheville Tourists are owned by the Dewine family, which includes Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine. His son Brian, a Clemson University grad and an Asheville resident for 15 years, is the team president.
“[Diamond] is there, but you have lots of other smart companies and individuals doing this, too. It’s thriving and it’s fun,” he says.
The Durham Bulls, the icon of minor league baseball’s resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s, are owned by Capitol Broadcasting of Raleigh. Two other North Carolina teams, the Fayetteville Woodpeckers and the Carolina (Zebulon) Mudcats, are owned by the Major League teams with which they are affiliated. The Mudcats are moving 25 miles east to the new $67 million Wilson Sports and Entertainment complex in 2026.
The High Point Rockers, an independent league team created in 2019, is a unique case, with no affiliation with the majors. It assembles its own roster and salaries max out at $3,000 per month under league rules. Most players are looking for a final shot at Big League glory or just playing out the string in the game they love.
The Rockers are a nonprofit controlled by the High Point Downtown Stadium Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charged with “operating for the public benefit, the public-owned sports, entertainment and community events facility in downtown High Point.” It operates the team and the city-owned TruistPoint Stadium.
Chicken coops + drone shows
North Carolina is a hot baseball market because of its temperate climate, large number of right-sized cities and a long tradition. The Tar Heel state has hosted minor league teams since the late 19th century, and was home to 49 minor league teams at its peak in the 1940s. Snow Hill, a crossroads burg of 1,600 in rural Greene County, once had a team.
“Every city in North Carolina with a stoplight, they had a minor league team,” says Pete Fisch, president of the High Point Rockers and a 30-year industry veteran. “It’s a sports-based state in general, so lots of tradition.”
The business of baseball is still mostly about getting people out to the old ballpark. Minor league baseball is the second-most attended sporting event in America (behind only Major League Baseball), thanks to the sheer volume of the games and long standing as a summer tradition.
Why people come to a game has changed over time. What’s happening on the field is hardly the only driver.
The Winston-Salem Dash crew more than 255,000 fans last season, and President Brian DeAngelis divides his ticket buyers into three roughly equal groups: real baseball people who often buy season tickets; groups who come to games for an outing; and casual fans who attend every now and then, mostly as a social event.
That breakdown is consistent throughout minor league baseball, he says, although some of the most successful franchises in the largest minor league markets tend to lean more on “social fans” and game-day sales.
Now you know why minor league baseball turns into a three-ring circus at times. Between innings, fans see an assortment of silly contests such as putting on frozen T-shirts or bouncing off each other in inflatable “sumo wrestler” suits.
“Special nights” are important lures, and increasingly odd. Teams have given away toilets, liposuction treatment, and even the recently removed gall bladder of a team’s GM.
Asheville has a “Hippie” night, in which both players and fans dress in their tie-dyed best.
In Winston-Salem, the Dash rebranded themselves as the “Hype Hens” for a night last year, complete with new uniforms and logos, chicken dancing in the aisles and a chicken coop in the outfield. The special night was a dig at the “controversy” over the correctness of the team’s name: Is the punctuation in Winston-Salem a dash or a hyp(e)-hen?
“Most of the promotions don’t have much to do with baseball,” says DeAngelis. “I’m sure that drives some people crazy, but for most people it makes the night more interesting.”
Diamonds on Ice
Corporate ownership is increasing pressure to produce profits. Driving baseball ticket sales is one answer to that squeeze, but keeping prices affordable is critical, given the Everyman target that most teams seek.
Most franchises have turned to non-baseball events to supplement the summer action. Some are rentals; who wouldn’t want to be married or buried at the ballpark?
But other events offer different entertainment at venues equipped with seating, public restrooms and concession stands. The Charlotte Knights now gather more than 20% of its revenue from non-baseball events. It hosted a 30-night Winter/Christmas festival with an ice skating rink, snow-tubing hill, food, music, Santa and thousands of Christmas lights. About 150,000 showed up, including a facility-record crowd of 11,000 attending a minor-league hockey game.
When a $40 million renovation is complete at 101-year-old McCormick Field in Asheville next year, the team will host a series of fall concerts. That’s part of its agreement with the city, county and tourism authority. The later three are funding most of the renovations.
Greensboro hosts a beach music night on Thursdays when the Grasshoppers are not in town. Following a $9.8 million renovation, High Point shares the field with the Core FC, a minor league soccer team.
In Winston-Salem, the Dash packed the stadium for a Drone light show, which took some fortitude by its new owner — Diamond Baseball. “The show is expensive,” says DeAngelis, a holdover from the previous owner’s management team. “We (the Dash) couldn’t afford the risk (i.e., the insurance cost) on our own.”
The Dash’s Truist Stadium, overlooking old I-40 not far from downtown, is also host to smaller fare, like a prom for special needs kids and quilting club that meets monthly to patch things up. That group doesn’t pay much, but DeAngelis calls it a way to support the community.
Development engines
The biggest dollar signs in minor league baseball are attached to real estate development. Almost every N.C. franchise has wrangled a new or renovated stadium because local leaders believed a baseball park would be an attractive amenity. Most are located in or near downtown areas undergoing renovation. High Point’s Truist Point is a cornerstone, with the Congdon Yards office and event space, of a new downtown area that is known as “The Catalyst.”
The actual catalytic effect is unclear.
During negotiations on stadium renovations with municipal officials, the Asheville Tourists commissioned a study that showed a $9.8 million primary economic impact for the city. Charlotte Center City Partners says the Knights contribute about $46.7 million annually in economic activity, while about $1 billion of development has occurred around the ballpark over thepast decade.
Other cities have made similar claims. Still, repeated academic studies show the benefit to the municipality is marginal, at best.
A paper published in 2022 in the Journal of Economic Studies notes that “recent analyses continue to confirm the decades‐old consensus of very limited economic impacts of professional sports teams and stadiums. … the large subsidies commonly devoted to constructing professional sports venues are not justified as worthwhile public investments.”
High Point’s Fisch says, “Look, this (the High Point ballpark and team) was built as an economic development tool. We try to make a little profit, and we do, but without (the team and the ballpark) we would not have the hotel opening (coming next year) and the bars and restaurants, Congdon Yards. All that revolves around the ballpark, and it has improved the quality of life.”
Teams in Charlotte and Greensboro own their stadiums and can be part of their own development bonanza. DBH is pondering a hotel and restaurant combo beyond its outfield fence in Charlotte, where the park sits on prime center-city real estate.
When Temerity purchased the ailing Kannapolis franchise in 2018, it hoped to own the new ballpark downtown. That didn’t happen, but Temerity did acquire development rights on several adjacent parcels. It’s partnered on a seven-story apartment tower down the right field line. The project includes the aptly named Towel City Tavern, plus the team’s apparel shop and offices. A hotel project might fill in the left field line some day.
“Margins for baseball remain thin,” says Temerity’s Brown. “The real money is the development and the long-term addition of value.”
Headwinds, nostalgia
Minor league baseball is a hot commodity right now, after being a much smaller business economically in the 1970s and ‘80s. As well as most teams are doing, it’s still not impossible to screw it up.
Several years ago, the owners of the Gastonia independent league franchise went off the rails and wound up more than $4 million in debt. In early 2024, Jacksonville, Florida-based Zawyer Sports and Entertainment bought the franchise and paid its creditors. The business later bought a controlling interest in the Charlotte Checkers hockey franchise, and also owns the new Greensboro Gargoyles hockey team.
Industry leaders say their biggest worries are keeping fans interested, given the many options for spending time and cash.
“This is a great market — a lot of places in North Carolina are,” says High Point’s Fisch. “But the competition is fierce for the entertainment dollar. Folks in the Triad and North
Carolina are spoiled. There’s lots to do around here. For us, within 15 miles, there are two Class A ball clubs, two professional hockey teams, professional soccer, and then (NC) State, (North) Carolina-Wake (Forest), Duke, High Point University … And an hour or so away you can go see the Hornets, Panthers, or Hurricanes, if you want to spend a little more. Within a landscape like that, it can be hard to find a place.”
Asheville’s DeWine is looking forward to a renovated park on the side of a mountain in the trendy South Slope Brewing District. He thinks McCormick Field’s newly
digitized digs can help drive attendance north of 200,000 per season in future years. He also knows he can’t lose touch with the past.
Ty Cobb played in the opener at McCormick a century ago. Babe Ruth, passing through, called the park, “an absolute delight.”
“People still come here, from everywhere, just because it is old, it is a part of baseball tradition. It’s not some cookie-cutter place. My family and I love it,” says DeWine. “Baseball is like that. It’s something that has pulled people together in this country, this state, and this town for a long time.
“This team, it is a labor of love. Trust me, if you don’t love baseball you would not be doing this.” ■
