In a perfect world the next owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers would have deep pockets, deep L.A. roots and a deep commitment to better security for fans and the neighborhoods surrounding Dodger Stadium.
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In the real world, the next owner may have only deep pockets. Getting somebody with deep Los Angeles roots and commitment to better security depends on who Dodgers owner Frank McCourt handpicks between now and April 6 as the white-hot auction to buy the team heats up. The sale, set to be completed April 30, is part of an agreement in McCourt’s bankruptcy settlement.
“For many years, the Dodgers ownership used to have a family feeling around here,” says Steve Appleton, president of the Elysian Valley Riverside Neighborhood Council and a fan who lives five minutes from Dodger Stadium. “Unfortunately, it hasn’t felt that way the last few years. We’re all hoping the new owner can restore that family feeling.”
More than a dozen ultrarich guys, sports legends and civic titans — all men — are vying to be the new owner, with no clear consensus among Angelenos about a front-runner. But name recognition matters, or at least it did in the early stages of media coverage. That coverage helped make Lakers legend Magic Johnson, bombastic Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and highly respected former Dodgers manager Joe Torre the current people’s choices. Dodger legends Steve Garvey and Orel Hershiser, front men for an investment group, also are in that mix.
“The hometown guy that strikes me as the best choice is Magic,” Appleton says. “As long as he is willing to reach down into the neighborhoods and respond to issues like traffic control and alcohol overconsumption.”
Initial bids were due Monday, Jan. 23.
Now, Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig will choose up to 10 finalists. McCourt then will conduct a closed-door auction and secretly tell the bankruptcy judge his choice by April 6.
He’s more likely to choose the highest bidder rather than the most admired bidder. After all, McCourt has already proved that he doesn’t care what people think of him. His bottom line is the bottom line.
That means L.A.’s oldest, most beloved pro sports franchise could be sold to a very unlikely and unloved owner. The unofficial list of Dodgers bidders includes controversial Wall Street trader and hedge fund executive Steven Cohen, who’s worth more than $8 billion; jet-setting real estate tycoon and Saudi expert Tom Barrack, who owns Neverland and runs $36 billion Colony Capital; Tony Ressler, formerly of Drexel Burnham Lambert, who runs $35 billion Ares Management and is deeply involved in leveraged buyouts and distressed debt; apartment king Alan Casden, builder of 90,000 rental units; and Tom Golisano, a payroll processing magnate and player in New York GOP politics.
Baseball insiders jumping in may include, in addition to Torre, Garvey and Hershiser, former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley; sports agent Dennis Gilbert, whose firm Gilbert-Krupin advises the wealthy on tax avoidance; and a team that includes long-ago Dodger general manager Fred Claire.
“Frank McCourt is the most unpopular person in L.A.,” says Redondo Beach attorney Tony Capozzola, a Dodgers season ticket holder since 1977. “He doesn’t seem to care if anyone approves of what he does. He’s all about the money.”
Capozzola prefers former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley, who sold the team to News Corp. (Fox) in 1997.
“He realizes the mistake he made selling it to Fox, and I think he wants to make up for it by returning it to the kind of classy ownership his family provided for 47 great years,” Capozzola says. “He deserves a second chance to restore his father Walter’s legacy. That’s assuming that he has the financial resources.”
With the bidding possibly passing $1 billion, the only consensus is that the next owner of the Dodgers must be extremely rich, so that every decision is about improving the team — not about hiking ticket prices, or siphoning off money to buy one more mansion or get one more $400 haircut.
Other potential bidders with high name recognition may include Oracle founder Larry Ellison; supermarket magnate and aging party boy Ron Burkle; and Roy Disney and his longtime ally Stanley Gold, CEO of hostile takeover firm Shamrock Holdings.
“If someone is going to buy the Dodgers franchise, they need to be in the billionaire’s club,” former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan tells L.A. Weekly. “We can’t end up with someone like Frank McCourt, who didn’t have the money to cover his losses.”
And if he is not a billionaire, he — and it almost certainly will be a he — had better have at least one billionaire partner rather than a posse of mere multimillionaires.
See a detailed List of Dodgers Bidders here.
“The ‘many partners’ model doesn’t work,” says Riordan, who dropped his four Dodgers season tickets when McCourt eliminated his box seats. “You need someone comfortable enough to make improvements on a daily basis without worrying about expenses.”
