Los Angeles Dodgers owner and chairman Mark Walter made the news when he agreed to sell the Los Angeles Lakers. Walter, 66, agreed to sell the Lakers to Thrive Capital’s Joshua Kushner and ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger for $12.5 billion.
Naturally, the follow-up to that news is how that sale affects Walter’s other team. Bill Shaikin of the LA Times reports that Walter has no intention of selling the Dodgers.
Walter, the CEO of the private equity firms Guggenheim Partners and TWG Global, purchased the Dodgers from Frank McCourt in 2012. In the following 13 seasons, the club has qualified for the postseason. They’ve won the National League West in 12 of them.
After the news of Walter selling the Lakers dropped, Dodgers president Stan Kasten spoke to the media, including the LA Times‘ Maddie Lee. Kasten insists that it is merely a Lakers story, not a Dodgers one.
While Kasten says there is nothing more to it, it’s hard to ignore the potential domino effect. Two businesses under TWG Global are under federal investigation by the Department of Justice.
Following the Lakers’ sale, Ryan Anderson of the New York Post published a report that TWG Global is looking to get cash to pay down some of their loans.
Mark Walter’s Tenure as Dodgers Owner
GettyMark Walter, Shohei Ohtani, and Andrew Friedman represent three of the most important people on the Dodgers. (Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)
After the sale of the Dodgers in 2012, Mark Walter became the face of ownership. His first major move was bringing in then Tampa Bay Rays general manager Andrew Friedman to oversee their baseball operations in 2014.
The hope was Friedman’s ability to spend efficiently would translate to the scale of a big-market payroll. That gamble has paid off massively, considering the overall success of the franchise over the last decade.
The true test of how much the Dodgers were willing to spend came when two-way player Shohei Ohtani reached free agency. The Dodgers spared no expense, grabbing him on a heavily deferred $700 million contract.
Since signing Ohtani, Los Angeles has consistently been one of the top spenders in MLB. Their Competitive Balance Tax payroll has exceeded $400 million in each of the past two seasons, the price to pay for winning back-to-back titles.
Their spending has drawn the ire of opposing fan bases, and some in the media are parroting that the team is “ruining baseball” after their trade for two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal on August 2.
MLB owners are taking that sentiment and trying to leverage it into instituting a hard salary cap, aimed at restricting the Dodgers’ spending. MLB owners and the players’ union are headed for another contentious Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiation this offseason.
Mark Walter’s Sale of Lakers Opens Possibility of Dodgers Exit
With Mark Walter’s sale of the Lakers, the possibility that he leaves the Dodgers can no longer be ignored. Andrew Beaton, Justin Baer, and Margot Patrick of the Wall Street Journal reported on July 29 that Walter suffered a stroke in the team’s 2024 championship run.
Shohei Ohtani’s contract also contains a key stipulation. That if either Walter or Andrew Friedman left the Dodgers, he would gain the ability to opt out of his contract and hit free agency again. Considering Walter’s age and recent medical emergency, there is a good chance he leaves the franchise before Ohtani’s deal expires in 2033.
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