JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
David Rubenstein has been a Baltimore Orioles fan for as long as he can remember.
DAVID RUBENSTEIN: I had gone to many opening days as a young child. I would get permission from my parents to go to the opening day, miss school. It was very common in Baltimore to do that 'cause opening day was a big thing.
SUMMERS: He never imagined that one day, decades later, he'd walk out onto the field in a different capacity.
RUBENSTEIN: And so here I'm at opening day, and I'm the owner. It was a bit surreal.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: The Orioles officially welcomed the new ownership...
RUBENSTEIN: They called my name out.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: ...Baltimore native, philanthropist and investor David Rubenstein.
RUBENSTEIN: You know, I didn't know whether people would boo or not or people would yell out, what the hell is he doing there? How'd he get to be the owner?
SUMMERS: Rubenstein has pledged to bring a World Series title back to Baltimore, which, as an Orioles fan, I love to hear. But since he acquired the team in 2024, that success has not materialized. Even so, Rubenstein has embraced some of the fan base's proudest rituals.
RUBENSTEIN: We have lots of traditions, as you know, in Camden Yards. One of them is to yell out the word O during the middle of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: O.
RUBENSTEIN: When we sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" - this was written in Baltimore, but it's sung in every single stadium around the country in every sporting event. And it's really one of our hometown songs in effect.
SUMMERS: In his new book, "Inside The Owner's Box: Conversations On Power And Leadership In Sports," Rubenstein writes about his commitment to not just a successful sports franchise, but also investing in the city of Baltimore. When I spoke with Rubenstein last week, I asked him what he learned about owning a sports franchise.
RUBENSTEIN: People are not going to tell you how great you are, how wonderful you are. Generally, people are going to criticize you more than they're going to praise you, and you have to get used to that. I also recognize that earnings are not as important as how the team does on the field. So in baseball or other sports, any earnings are really way down the road, and you're really living with the ups and downs of the team's performance on the field. And if the team isn't doing that well on the field, even though they might like you personally, you as an owner, you're probably going to be criticized by the fans. And maybe you're one of the fans who might be criticizing me. Who knows?
SUMMERS: (Laughter). You've written in your new book about the financial strategies behind ownership, and you've said that most owners, they're not primarily motivated by money or at least by near-term gains. After speaking to so many owners, what do you think they're actually buying? Are they motivated by profit, prestige, civic influence, immortality, something else?
RUBENSTEIN: Right. Well, the world has changed. In the 1920s, '30s, '40s, '50s, the wealthiest people in the United States were not buying sports teams. Today, people who buy these teams are generally pretty wealthy, and they've made their considerable wealth elsewhere, so they don't focus as much on making money quarter to quarter or year after year. Sure, they want to make money, but they're really focused on performance on the field, and hopefully they'll get a lot of pleasure out of that. So money-making is nice, but it's not the driving force in these investments.
SUMMERS: I want to talk a little bit more about those conversations that you've been having with owners, both just personally and in your book. What did another owner tell you, or was there a thing that another owner told you that caused you to change the way that you run the Orioles?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, one owner told me very smartly, don't just sit in the owner's box. Go outside and see other people in the game. So I don't just sit in the owner's box. I typically go and sit on the field. I go sit in the bleachers, I go walk around the stadium. And for a long time, I was handing out hats and baseballs and doing other things, trying to get to know other fans and not just sitting in the owner's box, which is tempting to do 'cause it's relatively nice food there...
SUMMERS: Right.
RUBENSTEIN: ...And you have a great view and people tell you in the owner's box how wonderful you are. But if you go out into the bleachers, people aren't going to tell you how wonderful you are, and you'll learn more about what your fan base thinks. So one owner told me that, and I thought it was very useful and I've tried to do that.
SUMMERS: I wonder if there's one conversation with a fan that you had when you were making your way around Camden Yards that really stuck out to you.
RUBENSTEIN: The things that I remember the most are when little children, 6, 7, 8-year-olds, come up to me, give me a baseball, and ask me to sign it. Now, they don't really know who I am and they don't know what they're going to do with my autograph. But obviously, their parents have said, this is a person who you should have an autograph with. But nothing matches the pleasure that you can see in the eyes of a 7, 8, 9-year-old child when you sign their autograph for them and they're so happy. It's hard to capture happiness elsewhere in life.
SUMMERS: What's the biggest lesson you learned from doing these interviews?
RUBENSTEIN: There's an old saying in Washington. If you want a friend, buy a dog. And, you know, if you want people to love you, don't buy a sports team because, you know, there are - only going to be one championship each year in any sport, and the chances, therefore, are highly stacked against you. And so if you're looking for people to tell you how great you are or how wonderful you are, don't buy a sports team 'cause you're rarely going to be found in that position. You might win a championship one year, but it's very rare to win two or three in a row, and certainly, most people are never going to win a championship. And so the lesson I've learned is that you should try to do something that makes the city better and make the overall environment for the fans better. But if you're looking to be praised for what you do, find something else to do in life.
SUMMERS: How do you hope this city and the Orioles fan base remembers you? What would make Baltimore in, say, years into the future that David Rubenstein was a good steward of this team?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, I hope at some point they'll say he brought the team back to a championship level. We haven't won a World Series since 1983, which is a long time ago. So if we could win a World Series - again, they're 1 out of 30 teams are going to win each year - but if we could win a world series, it would make me feel really good, and people probably would remember that, though they should remember the players on the field more than they should probably remember the owners.
But no doubt, I would like to contribute back to the city that gave me a public school education, where my parents are buried, where I'm going to be buried and where I really spent a large part of my youth. So I'd like to give back in that way. As you probably know, I've lived in Washington for quite a while now and tried to contribute to the culture and the history of Washington, D.C., and various philanthropic things. But I probably could do a lot more in Baltimore, and that's what I'm working on now.
SUMMERS: I do have to ask you because you mentioned those cultural contributions - there's a lot of news surrounding the Kennedy Center. You used to be the chairman until you were ousted by President Trump last year. The Kennedy Center's future is uncertain amid court filings. President Trump has threatened to demolish the building. I have to ask you, David, how does it feel watching this all play out?
RUBENSTEIN: I was on the board of the Kennedy Center for 20 years, and the last 14, I served as chair. It was supposed to be a bipartisan cultural forum that really brought the best of the performing arts to Washington, D.C. And it's my hope that at time, that will occur again. Clearly, it's got some troubles right now. I'm not on the board any longer. I'm not involved. I don't have any power. I don't have any means to really affect anything right now. But I'm hopeful that at some point, we will return to a more normal situation with the Kennedy Center.
SUMMERS: Is it hard, given the years of personal investment that you made in the Kennedy Center and building it up, to watch this happen?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, I'm not happy with what's happening for sure, but, you know, I recognize that I can't control anything right now and that everything is outside of my domain at this point.
SUMMERS: Yeah.
RUBENSTEIN: But I - obviously watching it and hoping that we can restore the Kennedy Center at some point. And it was an opportunity for me to return to do so. I would be happy to do so. If anybody wants me to help, I'd be happy to do whatever I could. But at the moment, I don't think that's likely.
SUMMERS: We've been speaking with David Rubenstein. His new book is "Inside The Owner's Box: Conversations On Power And Leadership In Sports." David, thanks so much.
RUBENSTEIN: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
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