The only thing that can save current Dodgers owner Frank McCourt is a high-dollar and stable new television contract -- one that will bring financial security to a club buried in bankruptcy court.
Well aware of that fact and still craving an ownership change, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has made his most aggressive move yet, threatening to terminate the Dodgers from the league if McCourt does not sell the team. This according to Maury Brown, founder of The Biz of Baseball.
Selig would never actually go through with it. He’s not going to give the boot to a franchise with a cherished 128-year history and further alienate an already frustrated fanbase. But the threat of termination alone is sure to scare away any potential investors who might have helped McCourt climb his way back to respectability. And that includes television networks.
McCourt is planning a response, the language of which could turn ugly now that the 58-year-old divorcee has been backed into a corner. But what’s been apparent all along is now even more indubitable: McCourt is cooked. Fried. Roasted. Because the club he’s owned since 2004 is nothing without the league it’s part of, and landing a television deal is going to be near impossible for a team labeled -- even falsely -- as doomed.
