BASEBALL; Disney Reaches a Deal For the Sale of the Angels

After several years of seeking a buyer for the Anaheim Angels, the Walt Disney Company has agreed in principle to sell the team for more than $180 million to an Arizona businessman, a person apprised of the negotiations said today.

The businessman, Arturo Moreno, who earned his fortune in outdoor advertising, would be the first Mexican-American to own a major league baseball team if the sale is approved at a meeting of major league owners on May 15.

Disney executives declined to comment tonight.

Two people with knowledge of the discussions said Disney had been holding serious talks with several potential bidders since the Angels won the World Series last year for the first time in the 42-year history of the franchise. These bidders included the Nederlander family, which owns theaters in New York, and Frank McCourt, a real estate developer from Boston.

Disney first acquired a stake in the Angels in 1996 and two years later bought the rest of the team for nearly $150 million from the family of Gene Autry, the cowboy and actor who was the first owner of the expansion team when it joined the American League for the 1961 season.

Disney also spent more than $100 million to refurbish the city-owned stadium in Anaheim, where the team plays.

At the time, Disney executives thought they could own a suite of sports entertainment assets, which included the N.H.L.'s Anaheim Mighty Ducks, that it could exploit on television, in movies and at its Disneyland theme parks. Those investments, though, failed to pay off for Disney and proved to be money losers.

Moreno, 56, has an estimated net worth of about $940 million, according to Forbes magazine. He made his fortune in the outdoor advertising business, running a company that sells ads on billboards and at sports arenas and mass transit stops. In 1999, he and his partner, William Levine, sold their company, Outdoor Systems, to Infinity Broadcasting for more than $8 billion.