WASHINGTON — David Rubenstein has an extensive list of business accomplishments, including co-founding The Carlyle Group and turning it into a dominant global private equity force. But the 76-year-old — who boasts a net worth of approximately $4 billion — has faced a new challenge in recent years: owning a sports team.

After turning down opportunities to own a sports franchise, Rubenstein made the decision to purchase the Orioles in 2024 in a deal valued at $1.725 billion. It’s been a “humbling experience” for him.

“Every day you win or lose. Most parts of life, you don’t win or lose every day, and you go through life, and something bad happens, you can blame somebody else,” Rubenstein said. “Baseball, it’s harder to blame other people. You got to blame yourself to some extent.”

Navigating ownership was one of several topics Rubenstein discussed at the National Book Festival in D.C. on Saturday. His panel, moderated by Orioles play-by-play announcer Kevin Brown, focused on Rubenstein’s upcoming book, titled “Inside the Owner’s Box: Conversations on Power and Leadership in Sports,” that will be published Sept. 22.

Rubenstein, a co-chair of the event, delved into his rationale for writing the book, the detailed process behind it and the challenges in owning the Orioles.

From a young age, Rubenstein read constantly. He got his first library card when he was 6, which led him to read about 12 books every week, he said.

“I just loved reading,” Rubenstein said. “One of the pleasures of life was reading.”

Years later, that love led Rubenstein to write his own books. He’s authored several, including most recently “The Highest Calling” about the American presidency in 2024. For his upcoming one, Rubenstein spoke with 14 other sports owners.

The book offers a holistic look at sports ownership, a topic Rubenstein said he felt hasn’t been extensively covered in books before. He writes about why he bought the Orioles, and why other owners — including the NFL’s Robert Kraft (New England Patriots) and MLB’s Jim Crane (Houston Astros) — purchased their respective sports franchises.

“I was reaffirmed in my view: The people that buy sports teams, they really don’t care about making money so much as they do about winning for the local neighborhood or local city,” Rubenstein said. “It’s much more important to the owners that they actually have a championship team or do well.”

Rubenstein said that he didn’t expect to make a lot of money, if any, on the purchase of the Orioles. And the deal to buy the team from the Angelos family nearly fell through — with Rubenstein at one point walking away from the deal for about three weeks — before ultimately materializing.

The Baltimore native and City College alumnus was motivated by a desire to give back to the city he grew up in. Rubenstein called his purchase of the Orioles a “philanthropic kind of endeavor.”

Baltimore baseball is special in Rubenstein’s mind, he said, partly because the city doesn’t have a professional basketball or hockey team.

“The Orioles are more important to Baltimore than the baseball team is to many other cities,” Rubenstein said. “The Orioles have a hold on the city that many baseball teams probably don’t have in their own city.”

Rubenstein acknowledged that he doesn’t attend every one of his team’s games like some other owners. He’s still active in multiple companies, shows and other business endeavors that take up time.

But Rubenstein shows up to enough Baltimore games to “know what’s going on,” he said, though he acknowledged that the fan reaction to him isn’t as warm nowadays. The Orioles entered Saturday with a 62-67 record and are in danger of missing the playoffs for the second straight season after making back-to-back postseason appearances and winning 101 games in 2023.

Rubenstein was a more visible presence at the ballpark early in his tenure as owner, handing out Orioles caps to fans and serving as the “guest splasher” in the Bird Bath at Camden Yards. The team also gave away a Rubenstein bobblehead before a game early last season. But his presence has waned since then as the club has tumbled down the standings and sold off players at the trade deadline under the direction of president of baseball operations Mike Elias, including a controversial and emotional deal sending Adley Rutschman to the Boston Red Sox.

“I used to show up; the fans were happy. Now I don’t know if they’re as happy,” Rubenstein said. “People used to applaud when I was walking down. Now I’m not sure they’re going to be so happy because I haven’t yet won a championship.”

The Orioles’ majority owner also spoke about what he perceives as the biggest misconception among fans about sports ownership: that spending more money guarantees greater team success.

He used his own club as an example.

“We’ve tripled the payroll of the Orioles, but we haven’t done as well as the team I inherited. I bought a team that had been in first place. I managed to take them to last place,” Rubenstein joked. “It’s not easy to do. Hopefully, we’ll be out of that sometime soon.”

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