Peter Seidler (from San Diego Padres website)
Peter Seidler, the owner of Major League Baseball’s San Diego Padres, is in some hot water right now. According to a report in the New York Post, one of his companies “has been playing hardball with mom-and-pop entrepreneurs.”
The controversy surrounds the company Unleashed Brands, which Peter Seidler acquired last December. With about 1,300 franchises, from adventure to martial arts, for infants, high schoolers and every age in between, Unleashed Brands says its brands are created and designed to bring “fun and growth to your children.”
But even before Seidler bought the firm it was hit with several lawsuits charging misleading business practices such as having hidden fees.
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But in May, with Seidler at the helm, Unleashed Brands was accused of committing a “massive fraud.”
Franchise Times attained an audio recording in which Kal Savoie, director of franchise recruitment for Unleashed Brands, said, “Essentially, we had a lot of franchisees that were sold the farm.”
“I would not invest in the brand today,” he said. “There’s a lot of things we’re trying to figure out operationally for that brand to make sure we can get to what it was.”
Peter Seidler is an American businessman and the current chairman of the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball. He is the grandson of Walter O’Malley, the former owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the nephew of Peter O’Malley, who owned the Dodgers after his father’s death.
Seidler was born in 1960 and grew up in Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in finance and then earned an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. After working in the lending arm of Bank of America, he co-founded a private equity firm, Seidler Equity Partners, in 1992. The firm has invested in a variety of industries, including health/fitness, advertising, scuba diving/recreation, printing equipment, children’s clothing and automotive products.
In 2012, Seidler, his uncle Peter, and Ron Fowler formed the O’Malley Group, which purchased the Padres from John Moores. Seidler became the chairman of the team in 2020. Under his leadership, the Padres have made the playoffs twice and have become one of the most competitive teams in the National League.
Seidler is also a philanthropist and is involved in a number of charitable organizations, including the San Diego Foundation and the Padres Foundation. He is married and has three children.
