Winston-Salem, NC -- Some fans have asked me to comment on the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of the crown jewel franchises in baseball, filing for bankruptcy this past Monday.
The Dodgers filing for bankruptcy should be seen as no surprise if you’ve been following this fiasco. The owner (Frank McCourt) bought the team mostly on borrowed funds and shaky real estate ventures. As we all know, real estate was at a premium in 2004 when he bought the team. With the collapse of the financial markets, coupled with an ultra expensive divorce, McCourt ran out of money pretty quickly. It’s so bad that he probably won’t be able to make payroll on June 30th. By filing for bankruptcy, McCourt is hoping to use this ploy to hold on to the team for as long as he possibly can.
Aside from this incident, and Bernie Madoff and the Mets, I don’t think the league is struggling by any means. They could allow a deal with FOX to front McCourt $30M (future TV deal), but MLB is wisely nixing this deal, so that they can usurp the team from McCourt when he misses payroll. In a nutshell, MLB made a mistake selling a crown jewel franchise to this fool. If MLB went liberal and sold it to Mark Cuban, the only worries would involve Cuban blasting the umpires or something like that.
I will be discussing this topic in this week's podcast (6.29.11; #74) on The Less Desirables. Please tune-in to the show as we host Sound Lizzard Productions.
