He recently got sole possession of the Dodgers after the divorce settlement. He wisely didn’t want to split the profit from the sale with his ex-wife.
There won’t be much profit. He will still owe his wife. But the sale is rumored to fetch $1.3 billion.
It amazes me. The O’Malley’s were more or less forced to sell it because they were afraid of the tax liability if they gave it to the kids. If they only knew how much it would appreciate in 15 years! They sold it for $300 million to Rupert Murdoch/Fox. Now if anyone could have afforded to keep the team it would be Murdoch. But he didn’t care about the team at all, he wanted the broadcast money and the local affiliate control. Ultimately it was a failed franchise and he sold it for about 50% profit to McCourt because Murdoch needed cash for his $6 billion satellite deal.
Now McCourt ran it to the ground, owes $500M on it, owes his wife another $500M (or whatever he owes), can’t pay the day to day operations of the team, and will probably end up paying $10 million or more to the kid who was nearly beaten to death by gang bangers (for whom the LA Dodgers means more than just baseball, not quite sure why) for wearing San Fran Giants memorabilia in the parking lot yet he will end up getting more than anyone ever got for a losing, out of focus team.
MLB is doing all it can to force McCourt out, but if they took the team (which they really want to do) it would be bad precedent and scare the other owners. So they facilitate the buy out with so much money nobody can complain.