After exploring a potential sale since January the Charlotte Knights are being sold to Diamond Baseball Holdings. Diamond Baseball Holdings owns and operates 35 minor league teams including the Hickory Crawdads and other White Sox affiliates the Winston Salem Dash and Birmingham Barons.
Diamond Baseball Holdings was founded in 2021 a year after no minor league baseball was played due to the covid-19 pandemic. DBH was established by media conglomerate Endeavor and is a subsidiary of the investment firm Silver Lake. Endeavor is a majority owner in WWE and UFC through TKO group.
DBH CEO Peter Freund
Charlotte Knights COO Dan Rajkowski and Diamond Baseball Holdings CEO Peter Freund spoke at Truist Field Thursday. Rajkowski will remain in his role with the Knights. Freund reassured everyone that the Knights will still run themselves and they will not be run out of the Diamond Baseball Holdings offices in New York and considered the team a local asset to the city. Freund says baseball is his DNA. Before starting Diamond Baseball Holdings he owned the Wilmington Sharks of the Coastal Plain League and the Memphis Red Birds.
Freund is ready to activate the facility 365 days a year. He calls Truist Field an “amazing venue” and calls Charlotte a “major league city”. Diamond Baseball Holdings have put themselves in the concert business and state that that is “of course on the top of our list to put a concert here” when asked about the possibility of concerts in Truist Park despite competition from other venues. Another DBH team, the Altoona Curve recently hosted country music star Miranda Lambert earlier this month at their ballpark PNG Field. Freund calls other teams in the area an asset and not competition. “We are competing at a different price point and we will continue to compete at that price point. This needs to be an affordable experience that everybody can enjoy” Freund said when asked about other teams in the city.
The investment continues for Diamond Baseball Holdings even after the purchase is complete. “We know that some assets here need replacing whether it’s the video board out there or some of the seats but we are in this to invest and do the right thing.” Freund calls the area “a perfect place to invest” DBH is also building a stadium in Spartanburg South Carolina. Freund says he has no knowledge of what Major League Baseball’s plans are for expansion or for Charlotte and it seems like it wasn’t a major factor when buying the team.
Knights COO Dan Rajkowski calls this “a change in guard but a really good day”. Rajkowski has been with the Knights for 18 years. “They come in, they let you do your job, they bring in innovative ideas, the organization itself adds value to what you do” Rajkowski says after being asked about the sale and his research on Diamond Baseball Holdings.
The Knights will continue business as usual with the current staff in place. You can catch full game coverage of the Knights all season long right here on espnclt.com.
