After a two year long court battle, Dodgers and Dodgers Stadium owner Frank McCourt has agreed to sell off the team and its related bits, according to a joint statement from McCourt and Major League Baseball issued late Tuesday night.

The news came at 8:30 pm PST, roughly, which is 11:30 pm on the East Coast. In its entirety, the statement read:

“The Los Angeles Dodgers and Major League Baseball announced that they have agreed today to a court-supervised process to sell the team and its attendant media rights in a manner designed to realize maximum value for the Dodgers and their owner, Frank McCourt. The Blackstone Group LP will manage the sale process.”

The decision caps off a tumultuous two years for the team and marks the third time it will change hands since it was sold to News Corp by owner Peter O’Malley in 1998, whose family had moved the team from Brooklyn back in 1958. When buzz began that a settlement was imminent, Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw commented to press about the impending resolution. He said:

“That’s positive… Whatever happens, it’s definitely great to have it all resolved.”

The Los Angeles Times notes that the sale includes the team itself, Dodger Stadium and its parking lots, all purchased for $421 million in 2004 by McCourt. It’s estimated that the entire package will now fetch two to three times that price, but the paper also speculates that factoring in all McCourt’s financial considerations, the final sale price may need to come in at around $1 billion. MLB hopes to have a new owner in place by the start of next season.

Frank McCourt Agrees to Sell Dodgers is a post from: The Inquisitr

Round one in the Los Angeles Dodgers, bankruptcy hearing has come to an end, and one thing remains pretty clear. The Judge is the one calling the shots now, and he apparently does not buy any of Frank McCourt’s baloney. The first ruling in this case is that Frank McCourt cannot use the very unfavorable loan he secured to make payroll, and that he and MLB must negotiate a loan with more favorable terms from the league. Since McCourt stood to lose 5.5 million dollars if this loan did not get approved the Judge felt his judgment in this matter had been compromised. On the plus side, McCourt lost another 5.5 million dollars.

This is a huge win for Bud Selig and the MLB, even though the Judge has also ruled that MLB cannot use this loan (once negotiated) as a basis for taking control of the Dodgers. The win really comes from the fact that it is now legal fact that McCourt puts his own interests in front of his team, and that little ruling will likely have profound effects on how all of this plays out.

Once again, as I have said over and over both here and on my radio show for mtrradio.com, it is time for McCourt to give up this fight. He is not going to win, and should start to negotiate a sale of this team to MLB who can then go out and find a far more suitable owner for this historic franchise. If this Judge remains consistent and rules that in each of the many McCourt sins against baseball and the Dodgers were made in the best interest of the owner and not the team, McCourt has already lost this case.

Los Angeles Dodgers lose first round of bankruptcy hearing is a post from: The Inquisitr

When I first heard about this story, it didn’t make a heck of a lot of sense. However, after pondering it for a while it might make perfect sense. In a story reported by hardballtalk.com and others, it may just be that Major League Baseball reached out to AEG, who are trying to build a NFL stadium in downtown Los Angeles, about the possibility of building a new Dodger stadium downtown close to the AEG owner Staples Center.

First and foremost Dodger Stadium is awesome no doubt, but it is currently the third oldest active ball park in MLB, and the Dodgers have called it home since 1962. On top of that, Frank McCourt owns most of the land, and the stadium itself in a separate company that MLB does not have control over. Even if they wrestle control of the team away from him, he will likely still own the Stadium and a lot of the land around the stadium. He of course will make it tough for the new owners to do, well to do anything.

This of course may be just a threat, a way for MLB to get leverage over McCourt and get him to sell the team, stadium, and land back to them. However, there are some concerns about Dodger Stadium. Sure, they ranked third in attendance for 2010, but many of their fans come in late. That is the number one complaint I hear about that team and stadium. A downtown stadium might help their fans get to the park on time and help this team make a lot of money.

For now, this is only a rumor, and I seriously doubt that it will come to fruition. However, it does look like MLB is ready to fight McCourt as much as he is ready to fight them over control of the Dodgers.

MLB considering a new Dodger stadium is a post from: The Inquisitr

It has been 581 days since Frank and Jamie McCourt filed for divorce throwing the ownership situation of the Los angels Dodgers into complete chaos. I don’t know which is sadder that it takes that long to get divorced, or that it seems their divorce proceedings is longer than many other marriages. Now the Dodgers sit days away of reportedly not being able to make payroll, and a possible seizure by Bud Selig and Major League Baseball. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles times breaks down what could be looming for this team.

It seems highly likely this will be yet another prolonged legal fight. We all know the deal here, when people, organizations and sports league get involved in protracted legal fights the only winners are the lawyers who get a little more rich. The fans of teams and leagues always lose as their favorite teams and or players get bogged down by legal proceedings. It really is a lose-lose proposition for all of us.

McCourt has a couple of options here. He could continue the chaos and take the Dodgers into bankruptcy court (a move that worked out very well for the Phoenix Coyotes, NOT), but he would likely have a hard time convincing a judge there that he should remain in control. He could challenge the assertion that MLB can seize his team, or he could try to hold them hostage since a separate company he owns controls much of the land surrounding Dodger stadium.

McCourt could also sue MLB, and file an injunction to try and prevent Selig from selling the club. Again, he would have to prove that not only can he win that lawsuit, but that he should remain in control of this team. Since that seems unlikely at this point, maybe he should negotiate a settlement with MLB and simply sell the team. That would be best, not only for him but for Dodger fans as well.

Related Links:

• The Business of Major League Baseball
• Joshua Lobdell.com

What’s next for the Los Angeles Dodgers? is a post from: The Inquisitr

As the Los Angeles Dodgers battle the Philadelphia Phillies for a World Series birth, their owners Frank and Jamie McCourt are battling one another in divorce court. Since this was a story that could not be contained until after the post season, it is sure to get very ugly. Further complicating this situation is the fact that Jamie McCourt serves as the CEO of the Dodgers, and is unwilling to give up her role with the team. Another problem for the team is that under California law Jamie would be entitled to half of the Dodgers in a divorce proceeding. It is unclear at the moment if the couple had signed a pre-nuptial agreement.

Frank McCourt bought the team from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in 2004 for 271 million dollars. The sale included Dodger stadium and Forbes Sports Money has the worth of the organization at 722 million dollars. That means under California law Jamie McCourt would be owed 361 million dollars for her half of the team.

Dodgers GM Ned Colleti stood on the field last night, possibly unaware of the freight train that is headed his way. For an example of how an owner’s divorce can affect a team he needs only look 120 miles to the south. Two years ago, after finishing tied for the National League West division lead, Padres owner Jeff Moorad and wife Becky filed for divorce. The resulting legal actions caused the team to become paralyzed and ultimately led Moorad to sell the team off.  The Padres have yet to recover from this incident. In 2008 they lost 99 games, and in 2009 they were unable to improve significantly.

Dodger divorce could get very ugly is a post from: The Inquisitr

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt has died after a long battle with malignant melanoma with meningeal involvement at the age of 78.

McCourt, a former New York school teacher started his writing career late in life, penning his memoir Angela’s Ashes in 1996. Angela’s Ashes was a world wide sensation, selling 4 million copies in 20 languages, and earning McCourt the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. The book was also turned into a movie of the same name in 1999.

His three follow up works, Tis (19990, Teacher Man (2005) and Angela and the Baby Jesus (2007) sold well, selling a combined 6 million copies. In 2002 he was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Western Ontario and won the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award. Frank McCourt was a member of the National Arts Club and was a recipient of The International Center in New York’s Award of Excellence.

Frank McCourt is survived by his wife Ellen, daughter and several grandchildren.

(img: Wikipedia)

Author Frank McCourt dies aged 78 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Frank McCourt is in a New York hospice dying of a sudden case of meningitis, Malachy McCourt has confirmed.

Despite having been diagnosed with melanoma earlier this year, McCourt, 76, has been fairly sprightly, doing book tours and talks he was until stricken by the fast moving illness recently. Malachy said:

“He’s not too good at the moment,” said Malachy, an actor, politician and author in his own right. “He was doing fine, but he got meningitis two weeks ago and it turned the whole thing topsy-turvy.”

In 1996, Frank made his literary debut at the age of 66 with Angela’s Ashes, a funny but harrowing tale of the poverty and difficult circumstances endured by he and his siblings growing up in Brooklyn and Limerick City, Ireland. A New York Times review of Angela’s Ashes described the work.

“Writing in prose that’s pictorial and tactile, lyrical but streetwise, (McCourt) does for the town of Limerick what the young Joyce did for Dublin: he conjures the place for us with such intimacy that we feel we’ve walked its streets and crawled its pubs.”

In typical Irish fashion, his critics back on the auld sod weren’t so kind, deriding the work for being “embarrassing,” over-stated and not an accurate representation of Limerick City or Ireland in general in those days. Irish expats on Long Island even held a book burning to protest perceived inaccuracies in the book.

McCourt is not expected to survive the illness.

[Source: The Star]

Irish author Frank McCourt “near death” says brother Malachy is a post from: The Inquisitr