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Posted on 06/20/2011 2:20:43 PM PDT by illiac
The settlement between Frank and Jamie McCourt announced Friday was contingent on Commissioner Bud Selig's approval of a new Dodgers TV contract. A provision in that proposed contract that would have funneled $173.5 million to the estranged couple immediately was apparently unacceptable to Selig, leaving the team's future in limbo.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Move em’ back to Brooklyn.
Other than all the horrible astroturf and the designated hitter (why is that still around?), I miss Bowie Kuhn.
McCourt has lost all credibility. I no longer go to Dodger games. When Steve Garvey leads a group that buys the team, I’ll be back.
According to the information that’s gone public the problem with the contract is that the payee is McCourt NOT the Dodgers. So whatever future owner the Dodgers have would be stuck with a team that has a long term TV contract from which they are making no money. That wouldn’t add value to the franchise.
Maybe not. If I own a company and I sign a deal that is supposed to bring in $350 million of revenue over a certain period of time, then that contract will be built into the value of the company. But if the deal is structured so that I (personally) walk away with half the value up front, then it's not a $350 million deal from the standpoint of the company's value -- it's a $175 million deal.
I'm no fan of Selig, but he's not out of line here. It is the responsibility of any professional sports league commissioner to ensure that the various franchises in the league (especially the big-name franchises in large markets) don't have their ability to field competitive teams undercut by poor management or business deals like this one.
In all the maneuverings you mentioned above, there is no criminal activity on the part of Frank McCourt.
The bottom line is that he's still financially solvent, unless Selig forces him into bankruptcy by putting pressure on FOX to not honor this new lucrative contract that the parties agreed to. Maybe Selig - and some other owners - are just plain jealous of the value of the new contract?
BTW, up until now, I've thought that Selig was interceding on behalf of Jamie McCourt, who was looking to squeeze Frank for every dollar she could get in the divorce settlement. I thought that Jamie's agreement that she would not oppose the new TV contract would tell Selig not to block it. Now that Selig insists on saying NO, you have a hard time coming up with a reasonable explanation as to what he's doing here. He's looking for trouble and he may just get it in the form of a huge suit.
He was eventually traded after Pocklington was trying to sell part of the team as a publicly traded company and had to renegotiate the contract in order to get Gretzky listed as an asset of the Oilers.
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I don't agree with premise, because many teams in all professional sports have poor management that has has undercut their respective teams' competitive performance, and there has been no intrusion from the commissar. Since when is Selig concerned about the Dodgers' competitiveness anyhow? He's a Milwaukee Brewers' fan, isn't he?
McCourt still has one of the higher player payrolls in the National League. The reason why the team is doing poorly on the field right now has everything to do with poor player personnel decisions, not McCourt's finances - if Selig will leave him alone, that is, and not force him into bankruptcy and a takeover by Selig and his Park Avenue suits. The latter can only result in worse financial straits and lousier performance on the field with a drastic falloff in attendance and interest. Remember the Montreal Expos? Case closed!
In any business arrangement where an owner's personal financial situation is affected by marital turmoil, the only way to resolve the situation without harming the company is to completely separate the resolution of the marital situation from the organization . . . even if it means the ownership interest of the person in question company has to be sold in order to avoid having the whole situation drag on indefinitely.
That seems to contradict the posted LA Times story. If I read correctly, FOX has stated that they would be willing to do the same TV contract with any future owner.
The Dodgers belong in Brooklyn.
Jamie McCourt has already agreed to a tentative divorce settlement that Selig is now undermining. She will not get the bulk of the value of the TV contract, which totals somewhere between 1.7 and 3 billion dollars. This total is at least twice the estimated current value of the Dodgers' franchise.
There's plenty more to go around after the Jewish American Princess takes her cut.
I didn’t know that about Gretz. Things were weird back then, especially in the NHL.
Fox being “willing” to sign again is nice, but if the contract were allowed to stand as is there’d be nothing to sign again until 2028 and at least a good chunk of the money (depending on how you read things it’s anyway from 385 million up front or more after the upfront) is destined for McCourt NOT the Dodgers. Actually the idea that Fox would be willing to cough up 3 billion for 17 years for the new owners is all the more reason to null this one that gives 10% straight to McCourt, because it shows he negotiated poorly and in a way that clearly shorted the team.
The problem was that the renegotiated contract was much shorter (five years, I think), and when outside financial analysts tried to "appraise" Gretzky for the IPO they had a hard time justifying his value to prospective investors because at the end of five years he would be an unrestricted free agent with a value of $0 on the company's balance sheet. That's why the most important part of the Gretzky trade, from Pocklington's perspective, was the $15M in cash that the Kings were willing to send along with a couple of players and a first-round draft pick. There was no disputing the value of the cash in the appraisal of the Oilers.
It's still one of the most lucrative TV contracts ever negotiated by a professional sports team. There's still plenty of money to go down the road, regardless of McCourt's take.
Since when is Selig interested in the Dodgers future as a team anyhow? He's a Brewers fan (BTW, the record shows that the teams he owned there were on the whole bad), and he's just trying to use a fake interest in the Dodgers' future as a pretext to intervene. The Dodgers' future is a lot bleaker if Selig should run them for any length of time. His record on the field and at the gate with the Brewers and later the Expos (when he took them over for more legitimate reasons) is awful!
So what does that mean would Frank Mccourt have sell the Dodgers NOW???
You know that for a certainty?
MLB's responsibility includes keeping the Dodgers competitive. That's to the benefit of both the league and the fans.
If Frank McCourt is allowed to piss away the franchise's future, both the league and the fans will be short-changed. I work in baseball and am quite familiar with what it takes to run a successful franchise. If something approaching half of the TV proceeds end up in Jamie's account, the franchise is in deep trouble.
The Commissioner's first mistake was approving McCourt as an owner. He's trying to avoid another one. If he can't, both MLB and the fans lose.
I'd prefer they not...
I just looked up his California contributions.
Mostly Dem Party donations - but he did throw about $40,000 to Arnie and Meg Whitman.
Liberals, all.
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