Good morning, all an happy Thursday!
If MLB is not concerned about the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership they should be. My hunch is they are. And I’m not talking about the Dodgers winning back-to-back World Series, their exorbitant payroll or their end around the salary cap by constantly signing players to deferred contracts.
Their owner Mark Walter has been in the news lately, and not because he spoke briefly at the White House ceremony last month honoring the World Champs. Since then word has broken that Walter, worth $18.5B, is under federal investigation and that the FBI seized his phone and laptop late last year. More intriguing, Walter, who purchased the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers 14 months ago, has reached a deal to sell the team to former Disney CEO Bob Iger and billionaire Joshua Kushner, the shortest turn around of a major league franchise ownership in history. Kushner’s brother is the son-in-law of President Trump, but the White House denies any involvement in the saga.
Meanwhile, The Wall St. Journal and The Athletic website are both doing deep dives into Walter’s past. A native of Iowa, many former classmates wondered what had happened to Walter, until he emerged at the lead buyer of the Dodgers in 2012. Throughout his ownership tenure, he has managed to keep a low profile. He cannot anymore.
You can be sure MLB is using the Dodgers huge payroll as exhibit A in its quest for a salary cap in negotiations with the players union. An investigation of a billionaire owner of one of the sport’s signature franchises is the last thing it needs.
Scottie heads the field
Round two of the PGA’s FedEx Cup playoffs is this weekend. Here are the rankings:
The Giants made it official 69 year ago
Sixty-nine years ago today, New Yorkers awakened to the news the Giants were moving to San Francisco. The franchises’s board of directors met the day before and voted 8-1 to move. The lone “nay” vote was from M. Donald Grant, a Wall St. broker who would one day become chairman of the New York Mets.
Fans from yesteryear love to romanticize the era of three baseball teams in New York, but the reality was both the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field were falling apart and New York was reluctant to help either team in their quest for new ballparks. Attendance was dwindling at both venues. Giants owner Horace Stoneham summed it up best when he said, “I feel sorry for the kids, but not enough of their parents have been showing up at the games.”
What’s the big deal?
Sports media critics are making far too much of MLB’s Field of Dreams game last Thursday between the Phillies and Twins in Dyersville, Iowa, taking a precipitous drop in viewership. The game attracted 1.66M viewers compared to averaging 3M, when Fox televised previous Field of Dreams games. The bottom line is the game was on Netflix, a streaming service. I dare say MLB was probably ecstatic with those numbers, not to mention Netflix paid MLB a pretty penny to televise the game.
For the record, however, the game returns to over-the-air TV next season on NBC.
That is going to do it for today’s newsletter. Thank you for subscribing and have a terrific Thursday!
DAN