The Los Angeles Dodgers have enjoyed arguably the best stretch in franchise history since Guggenheim Baseball Management bought the club in 2012.
In every full season since the ownership group, fronted by Stan Kasten, Mark Walter, Magic Johnson and Peter Gruber took over, the Dodgers have won over 90 games and reached the postseason.
Needless to say, the owners have raked in a major profit from their purchase. According to a report, Guggenheim is looking to cut someone else in on a minor share of the profit.
The Dodgers owners reportedly are again pursuing the possible sale of small stake of the franchise, via Sports Business Daily:
“The owners of the MLB L.A. Dodgers approached int’l investors to sell a minority stake in the franchise, which would value it at “substantially more” than the $2.3 [billion] for which it was purchased six years ago, according to Massoudi & Lewis of the FINANCIAL TIMES…”
Besides the team’s on-field success, the Dodgers’ value has seemingly skyrocketed due to the team’s controversial television deal that started in 2014. Ownership has likely also benefitted from their remodel of Dodger Stadium, which at 56,000 seats remains the highest capacity venue in Major League Baseball.
Minority ownership in American professional sports is common, but the levels of influence those owners can have varies. Patrick Soon-Shiong has owned part of the Los Angeles Lakers for years, but was not well-known to Angelenos until he bought the L.A. Times.
Stan Kroenke, on the other hand, was a minority owner who positioned himself to buy out Georgia Frontiere’s majority stake of the St. Louis Rams when Frontiere died. That set in motion a chain of events leading to Kroenke’s relocation of the Rams back to Los Angeles.
A new minority owner of the Dodgers would likely have a minimal impact on the club, with Walter and Kasten the only real hands-on members of the main ownership group anyway. However, when concerning a franchise as high-profile and successful as the Dodgers, even a minor sale like this is worth paying attention to.
