Uh Oh. Dodgers New Owners Don't Have The Money.

[chazmaniandevil]

Guys Who Spent $2 Billion On The Dodgers Do Not Have $2 Billion

Did it seem too good to be true when news hit that Magic Johnson and a series of investors had $2 billion to pay for the Dodgers, to rescue the team from financial ruin? Yup. Two weeks later, it looks too good to be true.

Andrew Ross Sorkin reports in the New York Times this morning that the chief backers behind the Dodgers new ownership don't exactly have the money for the team. Instead, they anticipate that they will borrow money to purchase them … but they haven't exactly secured that money?

The lead man behind the sale, Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter, apparently is expecting to use some money from his insurance group to pay.

As Sorkin reports: "Using insurance money—which is typically supposed to be invested in simple, safe assets—to buy a baseball team, the ultimate toy for the ultrarich, seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen."

Which, fine! Guggenheim Partners can deal with that. But Sorkin also reports that Walter may not have actually told his investors that he wanted to purchase the team and that he wants their money.

Maybe Walter can argue that this is a really smart investment? Sports teams do appreciate wildly in value. Frank McCourt spent less than $500 million (also leveraged) for the team, and he more than quadrupled that sale price. But Walter would have an easier time making that case if his group hadn't outspent the next closest competitor on the market by as much as a half billion dollars. Or if he hadn't already said he's not interested in getting a return on his investment—just a play thing for himself and Magic and Magic's grandkids.

Sorry, Dodgers fans. The Murdoch-McCourt era of drama isn't quite behind you after all. Enjoy the lawsuits.

http://deadspin.com/5900620/guys-who-spent-2-billion-on-the-dodgers-do-not-have-2-billion

 

[EmpireWF]

Poor Dodger fans...

The sale will get done somehow and they'll be fine. For their sake :smug:

 

[Villain]

The new owners are borrowing money from themselves. Guggenheim Partners owns the companies that it's going to "borrow" from.

 

[chazmaniandevil]

new espn story saying "don't expect new dodgers owners to spend big. LOL

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/page/rumblings120413/bet-new-los-angeles-dodgers-owners-spending-big

 

[Villain]

More fail by you. That story doesn't say they lack the cash, the story says that overspending isn't Stan Kasten's style. You're a dumbass.

 

[Villain]

Hey look! More reasons why you're stupid! Since it doesn't seem like you're one to read through entire articles to find the impertinent facts, I went ahead and highlighted them for you.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-13/dodgers-win-court-approval-to-sell-team-exit-bankruptcy

The Los Angeles Dodgers, set to end court oversight of the club about 10 months after filing for bankruptcy, won permission to sell the Major League Baseball team for a record $2.15 billion.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Wilmington, Delaware, approved the Dodgers’ reorganization plan, which is built on the sale of the team to a group including former basketball player Magic Johnson, Guggenheim Partners Chief Executive Officer Mark Walter and former Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals President Stan Kasten. Walter will be the controlling member of the group, according to court documents.

The team and MLB will now submit any disputes related to the sale to a retired federal judge who is acting as mediator. The mediator will make final decisions in time for the deal to close on April 30.

“I suspect I will be hearing some issues in the future, but hopefully they will be limited,” Gross said in court yesterday, referring to continuing disputes between the team and MLB.

Major League Baseball “has issues” with the sale, including who will own the stadium parking lots and whether a court-appointed mediator will retain the authority in the future to make final rulings related to the transaction, attorney Thomas E Lauria said in court.

Mediator Praised
Gross praised the mediator, retired federal judge Joseph Farnan. He said that without Farnan’s work, the sale and the end of bankruptcy would have taken much longer.

“Judge Farnan has gotten this case to the point where it really needed to be,” Gross said.

The remaining disputes will not threaten the sale, Dodgers attorney Bruce Bennett said in an interview after the hearing.

"I don’t think there is any realistic possibility that the transaction will not close,” Bennett, with Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP in Los Angeles, said.

Owner Frank McCourt put the Dodgers into bankruptcy in June, claiming Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig forced the team into a cash crisis by rejecting a new contract with News Corp.’s (NWSA) (NWSA) Fox Sports, which holds the club’s television rights through the 2013 season.

The sale is scheduled to close April 30, after opponents to the reorganization plan have a chance to decide if they want to appeal Gross’s approval. The team will then officially exit bankruptcy.

Television Rights
After mediation sessions with Farnan, McCourt agreed to sell the team, ending his battle with MLB in November and, in January, dropping his effort to sell the television rights separately from the team.

The Magic Johnson group won an auction for the team last month, beating competing offers from Stan Kroenke, who owns the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams and Arsenal of English soccer’s Premier League, and a group led by Steve Cohen, who runs hedge fund manager SAC Capital Advisors LP.

Fox initially opposed to the sale, seeking written assurance that competitor Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) (TWC) wasn’t part of the group buying the Dodgers. Fox agreed to drop its objection after the team agreed to give the broadcaster written assurances that Time Warner isn’t part of the Johnson group, attorneys for both sides in court.

Ex-Wife’s Claim
Gross threw out a request by McCourt’s ex-wife, Jamie McCourt, to include her $131 million divorce settlement as a claim against the team. Jamie McCourt, the team’s former chief executive officer, must seek payment from Frank McCourt, not the team, Gross ruled.

Under the divorce settlement, McCourt must pay Jamie McCourt $131 million by April 30.



The case is In re Los Angeles Dodgers LLC, 11-12010, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).

 

[Primetime]

Why you mad though?

 

[Villain]

Why you mad though?

How could I be mad? Dodgers are 7-1 and Frank McCourt is on his way out. :smug:

 

 

[Villain]

Uh Oh. New Dodgers Owners Expect to Have Extra Cash...

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/j...s-1st-pitch-suggests-group-far-from-tapped-ou

Incoming Dodgers prez throws 1st pitch, suggests group far from tapped out

One thing everyone knows about incoming Dodgers president Stan Kasten is that he favors player development as a way to build a team. Both teams he ran previously started with the worst development systems in the game, and wound up with the best.

The other thing about Kasten is he pulls no punches, and he's a lot better for colorful quotes than most of the suits who currently run sports franchises these days.

I got Kasten on the phone to ask him whether his Guggenheim group that won the Dodgers for an unprecedented, historic and (some believe to be) wacko $2.15 billion will have any money remaining to pay for big-time players. And I got a very Kasten-like response: "Do you think these people spent their last $2 billion?'' he said with incredulous inflection. "Give me a friggin' break.''

In other words: there's more where that came from.

Kasten's ownership team, financially led by Mark Walter of the Chicago-based investment group Guggenheim Partners but spiritually led by Lakers icon Magic Johnson, is for the most part counting on Kasten to run the Dodgers in the same manner he ran the Braves from 1986-2003 and the Nationals from 2006-2010, with an emphasis on player development and pitching. Kasten (who knows Magic well from Kasten's days running the Atlanta Hawks) learned early from the great Bobby Cox to ask for an extra arm whenever making a trade.

Kasten also understood quickly that player development is the way to build a championship team that lasted. The Braves won 14 straight division championships in a record that may rank with Cy Young's 511 career victories and Johnny Vander Meer's two straight no-hitters as near-to-unbreakable.

Kasten didn't want to say anything more about his new team's plans, not until after the $2.15-billion deal is finalized April 30, at which point he promised we won't be able to get him to shut up. But it is clear at this point that he plans not to get too crazy making big personnel changes among key Dodgers decision makers. Beyond the fact that the Dodgers seem to be doing quite well at the moment, thank you, that just isn't Stan's style.

So manager Don Mattingly and GM Ned Colletti can surely expect to keep their jobs into the foreseeable future.

Beyond that, they can also expect no one else with power over ballplaying personnel will be hired above Colletti. (So while Kasten won't comment, the Tony La Russa rumors really don't seem to fit.) Kasten is, after all, the team's president. Which makes sense since Kasten is the very one who helped shepherd into power the Guggenheim Group.

Also, despite Kasten's preference for player development, count on the Dodgers to be substantial players for big-time free agents. They are by far the biggest market in their division, and expect them to throw their financial might around. While no one person in the winning group is as rich as Stevie Cohen (seen as the heavy favorite if the sale got to the auction, certainly by the Guggenheim Partners, who won the Dodgers by striking early in a pre-emptive fashion and thus circumventing the auction), Kasten reminded us they are far from tapped out.

That will come as no surprise to baseball's other 29 owners who have been busy signing their top free agents to be this spring. The Guggenheim Partners should understand that strike-early strrategy. If anyone knows about pre-emptive strikes, it is them.

 

[Villain]

 

 

[Villain]

I fucking love that this thread exists.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgersnow/la-sp-dn-dodgers-fox-sports-tv-20121130,0,5806289.story

By Bill Shaikin

November 30, 2012, 5:40 p.m.
The exclusive negotiating window for Fox Sports to negotiate a new television contract with the Dodgers expired Friday, but the two sides are expected to continue talks on a deal that could be worth more than $6 billion over 25 years.

There was no indication Friday that the parties had agreed to extend the exclusive negotiating window. However, the Dodgers remain hopeful they can finalize a deal with Fox and are not planning immediate solicitation of other offers, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Assuming the exclusive window has not been extended, the Dodgers must provide Fox with a final offer by Dec. 7. Fox would then have 30 days to accept or reject the offer.

In the meantime, the Dodgers can consider other options, most notably Time Warner Cable SportsNet.

TWC has made no secret of its intent to bid for the Dodgers if the opportunity arises. TWC signed the Lakers for a guaranteed $3.6 billion over 20 years, with options that could make the deal worth $5 billion over 25 years. That deal pays the Lakers straight cash, via an annual rights fee.

The Dodgers' proposed deal with Fox would not pay the team straight cash but would provide the team with a substantial ownership stake in Prime Ticket.

 

[Glenbino]

How could I be mad? Dodgers are 7-1 and Frank McCourt is on his way out. :smug:

 

Ah what could have been.. Seemed like the Dodgers would be running away with this division the way Kemp was crushing the ball. Good thing they got Adrian Gonzalez to provide those three homers he hit for them. :smug:

 

[Villain]

Ah what could have been.. Seemed like the Dodgers would be running away with this division the way Kemp was crushing the ball. Good thing they got Adrian Gonzalez to provide those three homers he hit for them. :smug:

:yep: Last season had a ton of potential even though there were pre-season expectations of nothing. And yes, it is a very good thing we have A-Gone manning 1B for the forseeable future, I'm glad you brought that up.


:smug::smug::smug:

 

[NAHSTE]

The Dodgers TV deal is very nice and as a Braves fan it's hard not to be jealous. The Braves, being among the 5-6 most popular franchises, theoretically could set up a RSN and the windfall would be similar to the newfound revenue explosion the Rangers and Dodgers are currently enjoying, but ... we signed a terrible 30-year television deal 10 years ago with no escalators and no, I repeat, NO, renegotiate clause. They are locked in at about 20% of what they should be earning for the next two decades, all while TV revenue skyrockets around the league. Fun times.

 

[Villain]

Well you can see why Bud Selig blocked Frank McCourt from the 3 billion dollar FOX deal from last winter.

 

[PP]

The Dodgers TV deal is very nice and as a Braves fan it's hard not to be jealous. The Braves, being among the 5-6 most popular franchises, theoretically could set up a RSN and the windfall would be similar to the newfound revenue explosion the Rangers and Dodgers are currently enjoying, but ... we signed a terrible 30-year television deal 10 years ago with no escalators and no, I repeat, NO, renegotiate clause. They are locked in at about 20% of what they should be earning for the next two decades, all while TV revenue skyrockets around the league. Fun times.

I thought Turner owns the Braves? Wouldn't it then not matter? Too lazy to look up if he sold them though.

 

[Bigpapa42]

I thought Turner owns the Braves? Wouldn't it then not matter? Too lazy to look up if he sold them though.

Sold them back in something like 2007. Though it wasn't Turner that sold them - when he sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner, they became the de factor owners.

 

[NAHSTE]

I thought Turner owns the Braves?

:yao:

The Braves are owned by a media conglomerate and have been since 1996 when they were part of an asset merge between Turner and AOL/TimeWarner. AOL/TW sold it to Liberty Media more recently (2007, around when TBS dropped Braves baseball and started doing national broadcasts and playoffs) and they give the team a pretty tight budget. Payroll will not get above $85-90M anytime soon I don't think.

 

[EmpireWF]

I thought Turner owns the Braves? Wouldn't it then not matter? Too lazy to look up if he sold them though.

Turner got buttfucked because of the AOL/Time Warner merger. Bad.