Remember how Frank McCourt, upon buying the Dodgers, split the team’s assets up into multiple different businesses and holding companies and things? Yeah, that couldn’t even lead to a depressing outcome. Bill Shaikin:
This reminds me of Wayne Huizenga and the Florida Marlins. Whereas McCourt has screwed up the Dodgers via ineptitude, Huizenga just burned the Marlins down following their 1997 World Series championship. Then, after selling the team, he held on to huge chunks of team parking and concession revenues because those things were separate from the ballclub itself. And there was (Is? Does Wayne still have this stuff?) nothing more depressing to Marlins fans than knowing that the guy who destroyed a championship team was making more money off the Marlins than the Marlins were.
Unlike Florida, however, there could be obstacles to McCourt serving as the Dodgers’ landlord. For one thing his ex-wife will claim a stake in all of those ancillary interests, so she will either have to be bought out of them or else will they will have to be sold, with the most likely bidder being whoever ends up buying the team (and anyone who wants the club will almost certainly want the stadium too).
Shaikin also suggests that Major League Baseball could say something about it, but it’s not quite clear to me how that’s possible given that their rules apparently don’t prohibit busting up team assets like that and their authority seems to extend to management of the club, not management of the owners’ assets.
My hope is that McCourt can’t hold onto the ballpark and parking lots because he’s too leveraged to do so. Given his track record, it’s probably a reasonable hope.