Sources: FBI probes MLBPA business partnership

FBI agents person reached retired to Major League Baseball players astir their cognition of fiscal dealings related to a multibillion-dollar group-licensing steadfast started and owned, successful part, by their national and the NFL Players Association, aggregate sources with cognition of the probe told ESPN.

The sources, who spoke connected information of anonymity, said they had nonstop cognition of law-enforcement calls to astatine slightest 3 players progressive successful national enactment successful caller days. The sources said the players are not targets of the investigation.

According to the sources, law-enforcement agents inquired astir wealth related to OneTeam Partners, established successful 2019 by the NFLPA, MLBPA and a private-equity partner, RedBird Capital, and utilized to onslaught media deals and monetize athletes' name, representation and likeness.

In a statement, OneTeam said it is "aware of an ongoing probe of allegations concerning our partners. We privation to stress that OneTeam is not the taxable of the probe and has not been accused of immoderate wrongdoing successful immoderate way. OneTeam is afloat committed to cooperating with the investigation."

Union executives said they person not been contacted by national agents. "If the MLBPA is contacted by the government, we mean to cooperate afloat with immoderate investigation," the MLBPA said Friday successful a connection to ESPN. Player enactment has retained abstracted ineligible counsel extracurricular of the union, sources said.

Multiple sources said the probe is being tally retired of the Eastern District of New York, whose bureau is based successful Brooklyn. A elder FBI authoritative declined to remark connected Friday, and a spokesperson with the Eastern District declined to corroborate the investigation.

The OneTeam concern has go a large fiscal boon for some associations and grown successful valuation arsenic it added the subordinate unions of women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, and different sports and assemblage athletes to its portfolio. OneTeam was valued astatine $1.9 cardinal successful 2022, erstwhile RedBird Capital sold its 40% involvement to 3 different concern firms.

The MLBPA and NFLPA's relationships with OneTeam person travel nether anterior scrutiny. In precocious 2024, an anonymous unfair-labor-practices ailment was filed with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging "nepotism, corruption, mismanagement" astatine the MLBPA.

In December, the NFLPA's extracurricular counsel, Richard Smith, launched an audit into whether OneTeam had granted equity options to the enforcement directors of unions that the institution represents, including the MLBPA. In its statement, OneTeam said it "remains steadfast successful our committedness to pursuing the champion concern practices, arsenic has already been determined by the autarkic audit conducted earlier this year. ... We stay dedicated to upholding the highest standards of integrity and transparency successful each that we do."

The NLRB ailment against the MLBPA alleges that the union's enforcement director, Tony Clark, "improperly gave himself & different executives equity" successful OneTeam and made "inadequate disclosures" astir the concern successful yearly national filings.

The national has antecedently denied the allegations against Clark, 52. He was hired arsenic the MLBPA's manager of subordinate relations aft 15 seasons arsenic a subordinate and ascended to enforcement manager pursuing the decease of his predecessor, Michael Weiner, successful 2013. According to a LM-30 national labour national disclosure helium filed past year, Clark holds a spot connected the OneTeam board.

Union finances person improved importantly nether Clark's leadership, owed successful portion to proceeds from OneTeam. In 2020-24, the concern has paid the MLBPA astir $160 million, according to the union's yearly LM-2 reports. In 2024, the national received $44.5 cardinal from OneTeam.

The reports don't item however overmuch of the OneTeam windfall was distributed to players. The MLBPA has much than $353 cardinal successful full assets, the highest fiscal-year-end fig successful its history, according to the documents.

According to the MLBPA's astir caller filing, the national paid Clark $3.5 cardinal successful 2024.

The NFLPA's audit of OneTeam was completed successful March and recovered that the NFLPA's relation arsenic portion of OneTeam was "in compliance with champion governance practices," a root with firsthand cognition said.

An NFLPA spokesperson declined remark Friday.

According to its LM-2s, OneTeam paid the NFLPA $422.8 cardinal successful the past 5 years.The NFLPA's full assets are astir $1.4 billion, with astir $240 cardinal successful cash, according to the union's filings.

DeMaurice Smith, the erstwhile NFLPA person who co-founded OneTeam with Clark, near the national successful 2023 and was replaced connected the partnership's committee by the union's caller enforcement director, Lloyd Howell Jr.