“Basketball legend Magic Johnson led a group that won an auction for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team Tuesday night, marking the final chapter in a soap-opera-style saga for the legendary franchise,” the Wall Street Journal is reporting.
“With a bid of $2.15 billion, including the surrounding land, Mr. Johnson, controlling partner Mark Walter and partners Peter Guber, Stan Kasten, Bobby Patton and Todd Boehly beat out a group of some of the wealthiest businessmen in the country to land a team that is one of Major League Baseball’s flagship franchises. The sales figure shatters the previous record sales price for a U.S. sports franchise, Steve Ross’s purchase of the Miami Dolphins for $1.1 billion three years ago.
“But buying the Dodgers now comes with a unique opportunity to launch a potentially lucrative regional sports network in the country’s second-largest market, or sign a new local broadcast deal with the current broadcaster, News Corp.’s Fox unit, which has already offered the team a 17-year extension valued at nearly $3 billion. (News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal).
The rest of the article is here.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Peter Gruber’s involvement is a little strange to me. As part owner of the Golden State Warriors there is a regional conflict, LA vs the Bay Area. Will he pay enough attention to the Warriors to make them a championship team again? Will there be a Steve Garvey bobblehead night at a Warriors game?
Sorry, it’s Guber, not Gruber
Now all we need to do is to convince Lew Wolfe to sell the As. Just sell Baby!!!!
The new owners represent a very wealthy consortium. I would think there are billions more they will use to improve the Dodgers organization. Assuming the deal closes this year and it sounds like it will, current players across MLB who enter free agency at the end of this season will certainly be keeping an eye on the Dodgers. This could very well shift the big boys in NYC and Boston to Chavez Ravine.
Oh no, Joe Torre and Don Mattingly are all L.A. is gonna get. And besides, those Yankee players are hooked on New York pizza. What they pass off for pizza down in L.A. won’t fool Girardi’s gumbas.
Did they buy the parking lot?
My understanding is that they bought 50% of the parking lot with McCourt keeping the other 50%. However, the new group controls the parking with McCourt only having an interest in the real estate.