Sacramento Officially Unveils MLB Expansion Ballpark And Funding Details

A rendering by Hart Howerton shows what a proposed MLB ballpark and mixed use development would look in Sacramento.

The Sacramento Pitch

While there are open questions and gaps to be filled, early details of Sacramento’s bid for an MLB expansion franchise now revealed make it a contender.

Late last week, West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero announced during a State of the City address that the city would be exploring MLB expansion. With a press conference scheduled for today, early details reveal how serious the efforts are and, with them, how Sacramento is positioning itself for an MLB expansion market in the west.

“When MLB moves forward on expansion, Sacramento will be impossible to ignore,” said Mark Friedman, founder and chairman of Fulcrum Property and Board Chair of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council. “We have the market, the site, the capital, and the community. Sacramento is ready to compete—and Sacramento is ready to win.”

Importantly, the ballpark site would be located in the River District, just south of Sutter Health Park, as part of a fully controlled and entitled 50-acre mixed-use development. The significant public-private investment would approach $2 billion, including $800 million in land and private investment and $1 billion in expected investment from the City of West Sacramento through a combination of tax increment financing (TIF), hotel fees, and additional sources. In an interview with me for Forbes, Friedman said the additional sources might take many forms, such as ticket and/or parking taxes, to be determined later.

The breakdown of the $800 million is a $500 million cash investment through United Auburn Indian Community and Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, with a land donation for the current Sutter Health Park accounting for $300 million in land equity.

West Sacramento does not require voter approval to enact tax-increment financing. The effort has said the model for paying the bonds would come only from the ballpark district and would not affect the city’s general fund.

“This is a defining moment for West Sacramento, and we’re ready,” said West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero. “Major League Baseball is already seeing firsthand the passion, energy, and civic pride that exists here. This region offers a practical and achievable path for long-term MLB success, and we have the financial capacity, community support, and clear vision needed to bring Major League Baseball permanently to West Sacramento. We’re built for this. We’re ready. Bring it on.”

A new organization called The Sacramento Pitch has been formed, with Friedman as chair and Mayor Guerrero as one of the honorary co-chairs. Showing that the effort to bring MLB to the market is larger than just West Sacramento, Kevin McCarty, the Mayor of Sacramento, joins as co-chair. Others include MLB player and manager Dusty Baker, and former MLB player Derrek Lee, but of whom are Sacramento natives; Barry Broome, President & CEO of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council; Regina Cuellar, Chairwoman, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians; John Williams, Chairman, United Auburn Indian Community; Regina Cuellar, Chairwoman, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians; Matina Kolokotronis, COO of the Sacramento Kings; Kevin McClatchy, Chairman of McClatchy and former owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and; Mike Testa, President & CEO of Visit Sacramento

Unlike other sports facility funding mechanisms in which a city will bond out for construction and use the tax increment financing to pay the debt obligation, for Sacramento, Friedman and the partners developing the ballpark will pay its property taxes, but the city will allow them to retain their portion of the TIF as a rebated property tax.

“We think that that is actually more efficient as a financing mechanism than bonding, because the property tax payment comes before everything else,” said Friedman, who was a former minority owner of the Sacramento Kings and played an instrumental role in the effort to build the Golden 1 Center sports and entertainment complex. “Our lender would be able to get security in that payment, and it would occur right at the start.” He went on to add that, due to this mechanism, no guarantor is required; therefore, they never need to look to the general fund for security, and taxpayers outside the new ballpark district would not be affected.

As the first rendering of a possible ballpark and mixed-use development shows, Sutter Health Park, where the Triple-A River Cats call home, would be razed. The River Cats are owned by the Sacramento Kings. Friedman said that the Kings are an active part of the MLB to Sacramento effort. Sutter Health Park is owned by the River City Regional Financing Authority as part of the City of West Sacramento and operated by the River Cats. Construction costs for Sutter Health Park were $46.5 million, or $86.9 million in 2025 dollars.

The one piece that is missing is a controlling ownership group. While the Sacramento effort believes it has a turnkey solution on the ballpark development side as well as most of – if not all – of the expansion fee, the controlling owner would also need additional revenue “powder” to cover any potential losses over a three-year period, which have yet to be put in place. The Sacramento Pitch believes that today’s announcement, along with market metrics, will lead to increased interest.

Friedman said that The Sacramento Pitch is targeting approximately $4 billion and used the recent sale of the San Diego Padres as a measuring stick. The target for ballpark development would be in the $2 billion range. And while the exact figure has not been established by MLB, they are assembling a financial package of around $2 billion to address the expansion fee.

Friedman said that the Sacramento effort has raised almost a billion dollars locally, and with the addition of $600 million to $750 million in private equity, as well as some additional borrowing, they would be around $3.25 billion towards achieving the $4 billion goal. That’s where the final key ownership investor comes in.

“We’re looking for somebody who’s got a billion dollars in liquidity to join us at the table, but we’re not just looking for somebody with money,” said Friedman. “We’re looking for somebody with credibility – somebody who the league wants as a partner, and somebody who is going to be a real good steward of this asset for the community – the local people who will be their partner. We basically built the partnership group, we’ve invited everybody to the dinner, and we’re looking for the guest of honor.”

“We’ve got a great market,” added Friedman. “We’re the largest market without a team, with the largest TV market without a team… we’ve got a great site that we own, it’s zoned and entitled and ready to go. That’s critical. We have site control.”

Friedman noted that should Sacramento not be awarded an expansion franchise, the targeted location would be fully developed as mixed use, without the TIF in or razing of Sutter Health Park.

Broome highlighted what he and The Sacramento Pitch see as advantages over Salt Lake City and Portland, both of which have been in the conversation of expansion out west. For one, Sacramento has just one Big Four franchise in the Sacramento Kings of the NBA. That makes the population and corporate base per franchise attractive, especially when you radiate out 50-75 miles.

“If you looked at us regionally – San Jose to San Francisco to Sacramento – that is the wealthiest private sector investment corridor in the world by multiples,” Broome said. “There’s one Major League Baseball team in the Giants, and that’s it.”

Broome went on to say that over the last three years, the Greater Sacramento regional area has been one of the top-performing markets in the country, according to the Brookings Institution. And that the area is in the Top 5 in entrepreneurship.

The region is also the 20th-largest TV market in the country, with about 1.5 million TV households, which is larger than Portland and Salt Lake City by DMA.

For now, Sacramento has some time before MLB truly opens for business on expansion. The league and players will have expansion discussions as part of the upcoming labor deal, likely in place by 2027. The league plans to assemble an Expansion Committee very soon after, with hopes of announcing the expansion markets before Commissioner Rob Manfred retires in January of 2029, with the new ballparks opening sometime around 2033.