McCourt Agrees to Sell Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Major League Baseball announced late Tuesday night that they have agreed to sell the team and its media rights through a bankruptcy court. The team will be auctioned off with Dodger Stadium, the surrounding parking lots, and a package bought by McCourt for $421 million in 2004.

The Blackstone Group LP will manage the "court supervised process" according to a joint announcement. This decision made by MLB's Commissioner Bud Selig comes long after McCourt refused to sell the team.

The team filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June, after McCourt claimed Selig's rejection of a media rights deal left him without the funds to meet the baseball team's payroll. McCourt was also under pressure to pay his former wife a reported $130 million mandated in his divorce settlement.

Now, with the team out of McCourt's hands, fans are wondering who will buy the team in the auction. Some hope that the owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA Team, Mark Cuban, will buy the team. There are even websites devoted to the potential deal.

According to the LATimes, Cuban offered to buy the Dodgers several months ago, but instead declined entering negotiations when McCourt named the price of the team to be between $1 billion to $1.2 billion. However, a spokesman for McCourt told The Times that McCourt doesn't even know Cuban.

McCourt bought the Dodgers, the stadium and the team training facilities located in Vero Beach, Fla. and the Dominican Republic, in 2004 from the News Corp.

The next owner will be the third owner of the Dodgers since Peter O'Malley sold the team to the News Corp. in 1998.

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