8 replies to this topic

[MDI]

http://latimesblogs....ll-dodgers.html

First and foremost

Frank McCourt agreed Tuesday to sell the Dodgers, abruptly surrendering the team after fighting to retain it over two years and in two courts.

McCourt and Major League Baseball have agreed to seek approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for an auction of the Dodgers. The sale is expected to include the team, Dodger Stadium and the surrounding parking lots, a package bought by McCourt for $421 million in 2004 and likely to sell for two to three times as much now.

The league hopes a new Dodgers owner can be in place by opening day.

The new owner would be the third since Peter O'Malley sold the team to News Corp. in 1998. The Dodgers had remained in the O'Malley family since its patriarch, Walter, moved the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958.

Photos: The Dodgers and the McCourts

The sale agreement caps what might be the most tumultuous season in club history, which started with a fan nearly beaten to death in the Dodger Stadium parking lot and ended with the league charging McCourt with "looting" $189 million in team revenue for personal use. The Dodgers called that allegation "inflammatory" and unsupportable.

In the interim, the Dodgers played before a half-empty stadium, with McCourt claiming the league had spooked fans by raising unwarranted concerns about stadium security and the league claiming fans had refused to support McCourt's ownership.

McCourt took the team into bankruptcy in June. McCourt and Commissioner Bud Selig had been scheduled to testify at a trial this week, but the court postponed the proceedings to allow settlement talks to proceed.

But he was interested earlier in the year apparently...

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Los-Angeles-Dodgers-Mark-Cuban-says-asking-price-too-steep-11111

Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, offered to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers several months ago but pulled out of negotiations because the price was too high.

Embattled Dodgers owner Frank McCourt told Cuban the price would be in the range of $1 billion to $1.2 billion, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"At that price, I wasn't interested," Cuban said Tuesday, adding he would still be interested in buying the team if he could get a better deal.

"At the right price, I'm interested," he said. "Not if the price is over $1 billion."

Its a long shot though since Comissioner Selig and the other MLB owners dont like Cuban.

Edited by MDI, December 01, 2011 - 09:15 PM.

[GP1_KB24]

Please... I would love that.

[lakerswiz]

Mark Cuban would be SICK to have as the Dodger owner. I don't even really care about baseball and just his presence would have me a bit more interested. I'd imagine upgrades to Dodger Stadium would soon follow.

[DRDental]

Just like the other MLB owners didn't like when Cuban was interested in buying the Cubs.. they won't want him in the league buying the Dodgers... I'm not a Dodgers fan, but I'd like Cuban owning a team because he'd spend the money and try to build a winner any way he can. I think he'd be good for baseball.

[West Coast]

Give me Cuban or someone with money in the bank.

Whoever takes the team is going to have to spend some big bucks in the next two years. Resigning Kershaw, Kemp, and Ethier then bringing in a couple big free agents is going to be necessary for this team to get back to being a contender.

[GP1_KB24]

Cuban would bring so much excitement to LA, and baseball in general. Not to even mention the money!

[West Coast]

I know everyone wants Mark Cuban and I hope it could happen because of the excitement it would bring but don't sleep on this man, Dennis Gilbert. Here is some stuff about him below:

When baseball industry analysts name prospective new owners for the Dodgers, they always include former high-powered player agent Dennis Gilbert, who has a home in Calabasas, an office in Beverly Hills and eight front-row seats at Dodger Stadium.

Gilbert will not say he is interested in buying the debt-ridden franchise - nor will he say he isn't.

But Gilbert's interest is widely assumed, as is the wherewithal of the impeccably tailored man with the brightest grin at the ballpark.

Many Dodgers fans know his name from his days as the agent who negotiated record-shattering contracts for players as big - and controversial - as Barry Bonds.

Many know of his other connections in the sport as a speedy former minor-league outfielder nicknamed "Go Go," as promoter of causes from needy ex-scouts to inner-city ballfields, as an adviser to Chicago White Sox management, and as head of an investors group that came close to buying the Texas Rangers in 2009.

And some have a sense of the local roots of the Gardena High School and Los Angeles City College product who used to coach a college all-star team called the San Fernando Orioles.

No wonder his potential in the Dodgers Ownership Derby is an open secret.

As Gilbert was having a light
breakfast with a reporter at a Woodland Hills deli recently, the waitress poured coffee and casually told the frequent customer: "When you buy the Dodgers, let me know."

Gilbert, 64, who has lived in Calabasas for more than 20 years with his wife, Cindi, and three daughters, has never been away from the game for long.

"When you talk with me, you talk baseball," he said.

He grew up without money in Gardena, playing ball in a park where players had to dodge a water fountain in right-center field. In those days before Major League Baseball came to Los Angeles, Gilbert loved to listen to radio re-creations of big-league games on Saturdays.

After the Dodgers arrived in 1958, Gilbert and his friends would buy 90-cent tickets for the top deck, and save money by parking on the street.

Now he pays six figures each year for season tickets in the front row right behind home plate, where he is visible in TV camera shots at virtually every Dodgers home game.

Gilbert began his rise in insurance and estate planning at age 24 after his career in the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets farm systems stalled.

Dale Gribow, an attorney who has been close friends with Gilbert for 40 years, said he remembers lending Gilbert $10,000 "on a handshake" so he could upgrade his one-suit wardrobe and replace his van with a car.

Gribow said Gilbert repaid him, just as years later Gilbert reimbursed him and clients after an investment tip went bad.

"He's the hardest-working man I know, and the most honorable man I know," Gribow said.

Gilbert added baseball players to his increasingly glittering client list, a move that led him to his second career as an agent. He began with a partnership with former Red Sox star Tony Conigliaro that was cut short by Conigliaro's heart attack and stroke (which led to his death eight years later).

Gilbert became a passenger and a pilot of the sport's economic skyrocket.

Three times in 1990-92, Gilbert's Beverly Hills Sports Council negotiated record-high salaries for Jose Canseco, Bobby Bonilla and Bonds.

A 1993 Sports Illustrated article drew a contrast between Gilbert's style and rival superagent Scott Boras' more controversial approach.

"He understood the management side as well. He'd negotiate in a way that was a win-win," Roland Hemond, a veteran baseball club executive, said last week, remembering how Gilbert would break the ice with pranks and magic tricks.

Hemond said something about Gilbert you might not expect to hear about an agent: "He's quite a guy. He's well-respected in the game."

After 19 years as an agent, Gilbert sold his share of his agency to his partners in 1999, saying he wanted to return to the insurance business - and do other things in baseball.

Gilbert, a partner in the Wilshire Boulevard insurance and estate-planning firm Gilbert-Krupin, has better seats at Dodgers games than Frank McCourt.

This is the type of baseball savvy figure the Dodgers could thrive under. A man who dealt with high profile players and getting them contracts, a man who knows the tradition of the Dodgers because he is a Dodgers fan, and most of all, just an all around smart business man with deep pockets.

[MDI]

http://espn.go.com/l...ers-right-price

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is interested in buying the Dodgers, but only for the right amount.

"It all comes down to price," Cuban wrote Wednesday morning in an e-mail to ESPNLosAngeles.com. "It's important to have more than enough money to pay players and invest in the organization."


Cuban inquired about buying the Dodgers from current owner Frank McCourt recently, but backed off because McCourt's asking price of $1 billion to $1.2 billion was too high, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday.
Later Tuesday night, McCourt and Major League Baseball reached an agreement to sell the Dodgers, along with Dodger Stadium and the surrounding real estate.

Cuban has tried unsuccessfully to purchase the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers. In August 2010, an investment group led by Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan beat out Cuban in a bankruptcy auction for the Rangers with a bid of nearly $600 million.

Baseball had cleared Cuban and Jim Crane to participate in the auction, but not as a partner who would have a controlling interest. "There would have been significant opposition to him as a 'control guy,'" one source in baseball's inner circle told ESPN.com's Jayson Stark in August.

Cuban's tendency to speak his mind about officials, rival teams and players has earned him numerous fines from NBA commissioner David Stern over the years. However Lakers executive vice president Jeanie Buss, one of his fiercest competitive rivals, told ESPNLosAngeles.com on Wednesday that she was "delighted to endorse him" as an owner, should he pursue the Dodgers.

"Mark is dedicated to his team and his fan base," Buss said. "Some may say he goes over the top but there is a direct correlation between season ticket renewals and the faith fans have in ownership.

"He has put his reputation on the line for his team so fans feel comfortable devoting their time and resources to the Mavs because he does. When I hear someone criticize Mark, I ask them to name the person who owned the team before him. They never can."

Buss has worked closely with Cuban on several NBA ownership committees, including the labor relations committee working to reach an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement with the players union.

"He has been a tireless member of several committees on behalf of NBA owners, putting his own personal agenda aside to focus on larger issues that concern the entire league," Buss said. "Some say he pays the luxury tax so he can win a championship -- well, he won. But if you look at it, one of their best, highest-paid players was out most of the season so if you take away his salary, the Mavs were almost below the tax threshold.

"What he did was piece together a team of parts that became a much bigger whole. He committed to his coach and supported the system he used which help bring together a roster of stars and role players. Almost like a basketball 'Moneyball'"

The Mavericks, of course, swept Buss' Lakers out of the playoffs in the second round. The loss ended the Lakers pursuit of a third straight title, and the coaching career of legendary coach Phil Jackson, Buss' longtime boyfriend.

"After the Mavs swept the Lakers in the second round, Mark shook Phil's hand and told him 'Don't leave the game, we need you,'" she wrote. "Yes, they had their barbs back and forth but there is a mutual respect between Phil and Mark.

"After they won [the title], he asked the founding owner of the Mavericks, Donald Carter, to accept the trophy on behalf of the team. Very cool."

[MDI]

http://www.latimes.c...0,4083910.story

Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, said Thursday that he plans to participate in the bidding process for the Dodgers.

The process could begin next week, when the investment bank handling the sale of the Dodgers is expected to provide prospective buyers with confidential financial data in a bid book.

He "will see a book," Cuban wrote in an email.

Cuban told The Times last month that he had inquired about buying the Dodgers but "wasn't interested" at an asking price of at least $1 billion.

Dodgers owner Frank McCourt subsequently agreed with Major League Baseball on a deal in which he would sell the team and its stadium but keep the surrounding parking lots, subject to a lease that would guarantee the new owner could use the lots on game days.

As part of his due diligence, Cuban said, he would explore whether the exclusion of the parking lots might reduce the purchase price of the team.

He "will take a look and determine if one impacts the other," Cuban wrote.

Cuban previously pursued the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers. He said last month he would not be interested in the Atlanta Braves if that franchise were put up for sale.

"I like franchises that need a lot of help," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "The Braves have a great franchise."