SAN DIEGO — Before Kwanza Jones and José E. Feliciano sat down for their public introduction as the new owners of the San Diego Padres, they entered the room to a song.“We All In,” an upbeat dance track written and performed by Jones, blared over the sound system inside an auditorium at Petco Park. The inspiration, Jones soon explained, came to her earlier this year after she and her husband first met Padres CEO Erik Greupner and president of baseball operations A.J. Preller.On Monday, some 72 hours after they closed on their record-setting purchase of the Padres, Jones and Feliciano followed a bold entrance with bold rhetoric.“We need to win the World Series,” Feliciano said. “It’s that simple. That’s what we’re going to do.”“I think of a legacy as what you live,” Jones added seconds later. “In addition to winning a World Series — and in fact, multiples, though we’ve got to get one first — the legacy that I anticipate we will be leaving and living is one where everything is elevated in San Diego, in the Baja communities, with the Padres organization.”Feliciano and Jones radiated energy and exuberance throughout their first press conference as the principal owners of the Padres. The married couple spent more than $1.7 billion buying the franchise at an MLB-record valuation of $3.9 billion. Their purchase came amid the most prosperous era in team history, though San Diego is still pursuing its first championship.Without offering many specifics, Feliciano and Jones said they intend to honor the legacy left behind by Peter Seidler, the late Padres owner who galvanized the fanbase by twice carrying a top-five payroll in the league’s smallest television market.“The impossible becomes possible when somebody does it,” said Feliciano, MLB’s second Latino controlling owner. “So let’s do it.”The new owners at least appeared to arrive with considerable resources. Feliciano, whose net worth Forbes estimates to be $3.9 billion, is a co-founder and managing partner of Clearlake Capital, a private equity firm based in Santa Monica, Calif. In 2022, the same firm acquired majority ownership of storied English Premier League club Chelsea.Jones, a former track-and-field student-athlete at Princeton University, where she and Feliciano first met, is a recording artist, investor, entrepreneur and now MLB’s first Black principal owner. She serves as the co-founder and CEO of the Kwanza Jones & José E. Feliciano Initiative, an investment and philanthropic organization that has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to non-profit organizations and for-profit businesses.The couple previously explored NFL ownership, pursuing teams such as the Washington Commanders, Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos. Then, in November, the Padres were put up for sale.Jones and Feliciano ultimately outbid three other groups. The final price tag stunned the industry and reflected a confluence of factors inside and outside San Diego.“We were saving up for a long time,” Jones said. “We had a lot of dry powder, and we were like, ‘You know what? This is the place.’”Even before Monday, Feliciano and Jones had emphasized that their investment in the Padres is personally funded, separate from Clearlake Capital’s ownership of Chelsea.“I bring the same passion that I have for Chelsea to the Padres, but it is different because it is a personal investment,” Feliciano said. “Our time horizon here as owners is probably going to be much longer.”Added Jones: “José shouldn’t be looking at the Padres in the same way he would look at Clearlake; it would be ridiculous for him to do that. If the biggest thing people take away is one thing, it’s that it is family. We said ‘family first’ because the lens through which we look at this investment is very different, the commitment is very different, and the outcomes we want go beyond just a financial outcome.”Multiple officials briefed on internal deliberations, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said Feliciano and Jones essentially approved the Padres’ decision to take on about $6 million in payroll at the Aug. 3 trade deadline. After the previous two deadlines — and previous two offseasons — it was a relative splurge for a team that had operated more frugally since Seidler’s death in November 2023.The extent of the new owners’ willingness to spend beyond this season remains to be seen. An expected lockout could lead to missed games in 2027, a potential outcome the Feliciano-Jones group and their rival bidders considered. Now, MLB’s owners are continuing to pursue a salary cap and floor in the next collective bargaining agreement, believing that such a system would cause franchise values to soar.“I think ownership understands that, yeah, there’s resources, but you want to be smart and intelligent about how you spend money and dollars,” said Preller, who will report directly to Feliciano and Jones. “But having the ability to supplement the group and the team, that’s exciting. I think those will be more conversations in the future, because spending doesn’t necessarily guarantee you’re going to win.”Feliciano said the new ownership group will “live within our means.”“And that could mean different things in different years,” he said. “But again, we want to win, and we’re going to continue supporting that goal in many different ways. That means that at some moments, we’re going to be aggressive. But we’re always going to do it keeping the long-term health of the team in mind.”In the short term, the Padres remain one of baseball’s more compelling products. The team had won 21 of 28 games entering Monday night’s series opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates. They are on pace to make the postseason for a third consecutive year, which would be a franchise first.Before the game, Feliciano and Jones addressed Padres players. They entered the home clubhouse to the same song that had played earlier in the auditorium.“First impression today, very excitable people,” said manager Craig Stammen, who said Jones had “an amazing amount of energy,” and called Feliciano a bit more “buttoned-up.”“But it’s exciting to have them as owners of the Padres,” he said. “They bring a lot of energy to this ballclub.”