Arkansas Travelers Eye New Opportunities as Team Shifts From Local to Corporate Ownership

Rusty Meeks, Arkansas Travelers president, says selling the Travs was “a great thing for us and for baseball.” (Jason Burt)

On May 9, after 64 years, local ownership of the Arkansas Travelers’ Class AA minor league baseball team ended when the club was acquired by Diamond Baseball Holdings.

DBH, a subsidiary of the equity firm Silver Lake of Menlo Park, California, has been active in acquiring minor league baseball teams since its founding in 2021. That was shortly after major league baseball took charge of its farm system’s operations in 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the minor league baseball season.

The new command structure resulted in new mandates regarding quality of facilities and housing for players; it also removed restrictions that prevented ownership of multiple teams in the same classification. Other changes included minor league players becoming members of the major league players’ union and national sponsorships being coordinated through the commissioner’s office in New York City.

For Travelers President Rusty Meeks, whose family have been involved in the running of the team in Little Rock and now North Little Rock since 1960, the decision to sell wasn’t lightly made.

The new economics of minor league baseball made the decision a clear one, though.

“It was certainly a well thought-out decision,” Meeks said. “This is a great thing for us and for baseball in central Arkansas and the community. It is going to give us additional resources, upgrades to our facilities, big-time national sponsorship opportunities on a bigger level. It is really all positives for us. We are pretty excited about it.”

The operations of the team have remained the same. DBH left Meeks and his staff in place to run the team, which made the Texas League playoffs this season.

“We look forward to enhancing the experience at Dickey-Stephens Park that fans already know and love, with Rusty and the entire front office staff at the helm, and deepening our connection with the greater Central Arkansas community,” DBH Executive Chairman Pat Battle and CEO Peter Freund said when the sale was announced.

New Standards

Major league baseball owners have time and money invested in the development of the future stars of the game. To that end, the new rules placed high standards on the quality of practice and playing facilities.

Dickey-Stephens Park, the Travelers’ $32 million home in North Little Rock that opened in 2007, is a modern ballpark but has been beset by sinkhole issues linked with flooding of the nearby Arkansas River. In recent years, there was concern that the Travelers would be forced to move when their lease with the city expired because of the new standards set by major league baseball.

“In the new era with minor league baseball having a union and the requirements, it definitely added more financial responsibilities to these teams,” Meeks said. “Our new ownership group has been great so far. They care about these communities, and they want to invest in these communities. That is really what it is about and that is why it was so appealing to sell to them.”

Diamond Baseball now owns 35 of the 120 affiliated minor league teams. Five of the 10 teams in the Texas League are owned by DBH.

Arkansas’ other Class AA Texas League team, the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, are owned by Bob and Mindy Rich of Buffalo, who also own the Class AAA Buffalo Bison. Bob Rich, chairman of Rich Products, has an estimated worth of more than $7 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

The Naturals play in the $33 million Arvest Ballpark, which opened in 2008 and is still holding up well even with the new mandates.

All Baseball Is Local

The secret to minor league baseball success is a team’s connection to its community because it is where fans can come watch players, most of whom will not become major leaguers or even advance to the next classification, while also enjoying in-game festivities such as firework shows, bat-retrieving dogs or between-innings dance contests or sack races.

“You can come to a Naturals game and the Naturals can lose 10-0, but your kids got to meet the mascot or got on the video board or got a giveaway and saw a fireworks show,” said Mike Buczkowski, the president of the Rich baseball organization. “You’ll hear families leave the ballpark and say, ‘Boy, this was a lot of fun. We should come back and do this again.’ If you go to a Razorbacks game and they lose 48-0, there is not a fireworks show in the world that can make people say, ‘This was fun. We should do it again.’”

Meeks said his new bosses understand that. Freund is a former minor league owner, having owned the Class AAA Memphis Redbirds for many years. “They absolutely understand, and they don’t want to come in and mess that up,” Meeks said.

“Every minor league baseball team is different, and every one is a unique part of its community. Minor league baseball is so intimate. It is a special sport with a special place in the community.

“Of course things are going to change, but mostly all for the better. They’re coming in to enhance what we do. They’re doing all positive things that we, as small owners, simply cannot do.”

Meeks said corporate ownership will allow the Travelers to generate more revenue through events such as concerts for the nearly 300 days baseball games aren’t scheduled. The new owners combined with major league connections should help with the team’s branding opportunities, as well.

“The non-baseball [events] might be our biggest opportunity to activate these ballparks,” Freund told the Athletic in April.

Bob and Mindy Rich may be among the richest people in America but they still run their baseball teams like a family business.

Buczkowski said Bob Rich regularly watches his teams play — he owns a third non-affiliated team in West Virginia — and visits Springdale to watch the Naturals.

“They want something that is an integral part of the quality of life for the hometown community,” Buczkowski said. “Their mission for all of us who work for any of the teams is to be good stewards of the game of baseball and to create an atmosphere, an experience for people that is fun, is safe and is affordable for families. We are as much family entertainment as we are a sport.”