The Ken Babby era of owning the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp is coming to an end.
Jacksonville City Council will vote on an emergency resolution during its Dec. 9 meeting that would consent to the sale this month of the baseball team.
Babby has owned the Jumbo Shrimp since 2015. He renamed the team, formerly called the Jacksonville Suns, and engineered its move up the minor league ladder to became a Triple-A franchise in 2021, the highest level short of the Major League.
On the field, the Jumbo Shrimp capped last season by winning the Triple-A overall class championship on Sept. 28 on a walk-off homerun.
“I think his ownership has been transformational for the organization and for Jacksonville as a baseball town,” City Council President Kevin Carrico said Dec. 8.
Babby recently joined an ownership group that bought the the Tampa Bay Rays, a Major League Baseball franchise. League rules do not allow him to continue as owner of the Jumbo Shrimp, which is a minor league affiliate of the Miami Marlins.
The resolution pending before City Council does not identify who the new owner of the Jumbo Shrimp will be, but that information is expected to be available when City Council discusses the resolution. This is the last City Council meeting of 2025 and the sale of the Jumbo Shrimp is on track to close this month so council would vote on it as an emergency matter.
The team’s lease to use the city-owned VyStar Ballpark requires city approval of any change in team ownership.
“The team has entered into an agreement with a purchaser for purchaser to acquire all of the outstanding equity of the team and pursuant to the lease, City Council approval of the sale of the equity interest of the team is required,” the resolution says.
The sale will not alter the team’s existing lease with the city for use of the stadium.
A Jacksonville-based ownership group led by Patrick Zalpuski of Dream Finders Homes recently bought the Tampa Bay Rays. Babby is part of the Rays’ new ownership group and is its chief executive officer.
Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp executive vice president and general manager Harold Craw is leaving the Jumbo Shrimp to be senior vice president of community engagement and social responsibility for the Rays.
The Jumbo Shrimp promoted assistant general manager Matt Goudreau to president and general manager, with vice president of marketing and media Noel Blaha now promoted to senior vice president.
Babby also owns the Akron RubberDucks, a Double-A affiliate in Ohio of the Cleveland Guardians. He bought the Akron Aeros in 2012 and then renamed the team the RubberDucks.
He bought the Jacksonville Suns in September 2015 and rebranded it as the Jumbo Shrimp in 2016, a name change that met with some initial backlash but later caught on as a popular logo hooked into Jacksonville’s shrimping heritage.
“There’s something fun and quirky about minor-league team names,” Babby said in November 2016. “In our league alone, you have the [Pensacola] Wahoos and [Montgomery] Biscuits. When people see this logo and hear the name for the first time, they’ll see this experience is all about fun.”
Babby founded Fast Forward Sports Group that is the company owning both the Jumbo Shrimp and the Akron RubberDucks.
Carrico said he expects City Council members will have questions about the prospective new ownership but he doesn’t anticipate opposition to the resolution.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jumbo Shrimp to get new owner as Ken Babby moves on to Tampa Bay Rays
Reporting by David Bauerlein, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
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