A divorce triggered a chain of events that ultimately opened the door for Peter Seidler and fellow investors to purchase the Padres from John Moores. Seventeen years later, another bitter family fight is threatening to shake the stability of team ownership.

The widow of former Padres chairman Peter Seidler is accusing two of his brothers of “fiduciary breaches of trust.” Sheel Seidler’s complaint, filed Monday in a Texas court, includes a handwritten note — purportedly authored by her late husband — that places her atop his list of candidates for “Future Control Person.”

In response, Matt Seidler — armed with trust instructions that laid picking the Padres control person at his feet — has pointed toward a document signed by Sheel Seidler. In it, she says, Peter Seidler’s widow acknowledges she has no right to be the control person, let alone designate one or act in any way to restrain the control of the club.

Although it’s far too early to know where this ends up, it would be far from the first time that the death of an owner led to the sale of a team.

In October, the Los Angeles Chargers sold 27% of the club to billionaire Tom Gores after Dea Spanos Berberian attempted to force the Spanos family to sell the team to cover its debt. Gores’ purchase of Berberian’s shares reportedly included 9% of a Spanos family trust that owns a 36% stake in the club.

Across the country, one Angelos brother sued the other — as well as their mother — for control of the Baltimore Orioles only to drop the legal fight ahead of a sale that was completed in March on the eve of Opening Day.

Likewise, the Bowlen family fought for eight years over the trust controlling the Denver Broncos; the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed and the team was sold within a year.

“It’s nothing that the people that set up the trust wanted to happen,” said Gerry W. Beyer, a Texas Tech professor of law with expertise in estate planning, wills/trusts, probate and property. “Because if you can get all the people with beneficial interests to agree, they can enter settlements that may be contrary to what the original person wanted. If everybody who could complain or has a right agreed, then you could do something because there’s no one left to fight. A lot of times these things end up in some sort of settlement. …

“But families are destroyed and relationships are messed up for generations sometimes.”

Based on Sheel Seidler’s filing, the fight over the Padres is headed nowhere good.

Her complaint contains allegations of self-dealing between Robert and Matt Seidler, misuse of trust funds and fraud. The more inflammatory anecdotes include a passing remark about the brothers’ efforts to “perhaps relocate” a team that’s been in the top five in attendance since the end of the pandemic; rescinding invitations for her and Peter’s children to watch games from the owner’s box; and even an inference of racism in an October email from a sister-in-law.

Sheel Seidler’s complaint seeks to vacate any actions taken by the trust, including last month’s decision to name John Seidler as the Padres’ control person.

The question is whether any of this cuts through the directives left behind by Peter Seidler. Robert Seidler was the executor of Peter Seidler’s will and estate until stepping down last May; Matt Seidler replaced him per terms of the family trust. Third in line is John Seidler, the oldest Seidler brother whom Matt Seidler put forward as the club’s control person.

Matt and Robert Seidler’s response to Sheel Seidler’s complaint, due about three weeks from the initial filing, could include a copy of the “spousal consent” document that she signed in 2020 as her husband took over as the Padres’ control person.

The document could contradict the handwritten hierarchy that was sent to probate court in Travis County, Texas, where Peter and Sheel Seidler resided.

At the top of that list are Sheel Seidler and the Seidlers’ three children, the “beneficial owners” of a trust that owns 24% of the Padres. All told, members of the Seidler family hold a 45% stake in a team that was valued by Forbes in 2024 at $1.78 billion, 17th among Major League Baseball’s 30 clubs.

Members of the trust could attempt to buy out Sheel Seidler if the lawsuit isn’t settled amicably out of court. But that would prompt even more questions.

Based on Forbes’ valuation, the trust’s stake in the team, after discounting 24% for debt and the liquidity of the team, sits somewhere between $350 and $400 million.

Does the rest of the Seidler family have enough money to buy Sheel Seidler out? And how much of their worth is tied up in a team that took out a $50 million loan to cover expenses after the 2023 season, had a capital call to its minority owners for $100 million the previous year and has had MLB slap its hand for reaching its limit of allowable debt?

“The Padres are a great trophy asset,” said Marc M. Stern, a Greenberg Glusker partner who was intimately involved in the Donald Sterling trust dispute that led to the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014. “The balance sheet goes way up over time — the value — but you can’t buy a hamburger with that value. You have to be able to monetize it.”

So what now?

The three-week deadline to respond to Sheel Seidler’s complaint arrives before the February owners meeting. The brothers’ expectation is that John Seidler will be approved as control person before pitchers and catchers report for spring training.

The approval of 22 of the remaining 29 owners is not exactly a rubber stamp, as former player agent Jeff Moorad learned the hard way when his five-year plan to buy the Padres crumbled after the January 2012 quarterly meeting, leading Moores to search for a new buyer.

Seven months later, Peter Seidler spoke to the Union-Tribune as a spokesperson of the ownership group that emerged with the best ensuing bid.

“We will field exciting and winning teams,” Peter Seidler said in August 2012.

What impact the Sheel Seidler filing has on this go-round is unknown, as is much of what’s to come.

“I would think,” Stern said, “this is going to drag out.”

Originally Published: January 11, 2025 at 1:20 PM PST