Ted Leonsis’s bid to potentially buy the Washington Nationals is getting stronger by the day.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Leonsis was deep in the running for owning DC’s baseball team. Now he’s putting an all-star ownership group together.

The Washington Business Journal is reporting that David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, is joining forces with the Monumental Sports & Entertainment chariman to acquire the team.

Rubenstein is a billionaire. Forbes estimates his net worth was $3.3 billion in 2022. Most of Rubenstein’s worth is tied to the Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment company based in DC.

Rubenstein also has rich ties to the area with a seemingly neverending list of connections that includes deputy domestic policy advisor to President Jimmy Carter, chairman of the Kennedy Center, chairman of the National Gallery of Art, chairman of The Economic Club of Washington, DC, and former chairman of the Smithsonian Institution.

The Lerners, who bought the Nats for $450 million one year after its relocation to DC, could retain partial ownership as part of any potential deal. The Post’s Chelsea Janes reports that the Lerner family is very familiar with the Leonsis-Rubenstein duo and the bid would be solely DC-based.

The news about Ted and the Nationals comes a day after his company, Monumental Sports and Entertainment, announced its intention to buy the rest of the NBC Sports Washington regional sports network. The purchase of NBCSWSH could play a role in Ted’s Nats bid as MSE is planning to release a massive streaming network in the years to come that could feature the Capitals, Nationals, Mystics, and esports programming.

Ted sure is busy right now.

Headline photo: Ian Oland/RMNB