Eddie DeBartolo, Sr.

Edward John DeBartolo Sr.

• School University of Notre Dame

• Born May 17, 1909 in Youngstown, OH USA
• Died December 19, 1994 in Youngstown, OH USA

Biographical Information

Eddie DeBartolo, Sr. was a successful businessman who owned a number of sports teams and was often considered as the potential owner of a major league baseball team. In fact, he came very close to purchasing the Chicago White Sox from Bill Veeck in 1980, but his bid was rejected by other American League owners.

The son of Italian immigrants who had settled in Youngstown, OH, he was a self-made man who earned an engineering degree from the University of Notre Dame, served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II, and founded a company that took advantage of the post-war building boom to grow very rapidly. He was among the first to capitalize on the new trend of families moving to the suburbs by building large shopping malls which earned him a fortune. He also built condominiums and office parks.

He was involved in sports by buying the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL in 1977, as well as the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL. He was often rumored as a potential owner of the Cleveland Indians, given he came from nearby and the team had regular cash flow problems. However, he made his bid with an agreement to purchase the White Sox from Veeck, who realized he no longer had the financial wherewithal to run a major league team in the era of free agency. The two agreed on a reported $20 million sale price on August 22, 1980, but the sale never went through as fellow AL owners rejected the deal twice. While the reasons were not made clear, it was often stated that they objected to Debartolo's significant interests in thoroughbred racing and its ties to legalized gambling, although it was also rumored that his ethnic origins worked against him.