August 4 may be the make-or-break day for Frank McCourt and his ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In a divorce settlement reached Friday by Frank and Jamie McCourt, the judge overseeing the settlement scheduled a one-day trial on Aug. 4 to determine if the team will remain solely Frank McCourt's or will be sold as a community property asset.
According to a report from the New York Times, the publicly feuding couple agreed to terms under which Frank McCourt was authorized by the judge to complete a cable television deal with Fox worth $2.5 billion to $3 billion over 17 years. The deal would give a McCourt subsidiary 35 percent of the channel, Prime Ticket, that shows Dodgers games.
The Fox contract requires the approval of baseball's commissioner, Bud Selig, who has so far withheld it, angering McCourt.
According to the report, the McCourts' divorce agreement lays out how a $385 million loan from Fox would be used: $235 million would go to the Dodgers, with up to $23.5 million to Frank McCourt, to repay part of a personal loan from FOX.
Those funds helped him meet payroll with $80 million to cut team debt; $5 million for Frank McCourt and his wife, Jamie, to use as they desire; $5 million each for lawyers' fees; and $50 million for use at the court's discretion.
MLB however is concerned about how much of the proceeds from the Fox deal would flow personally to the McCourts. During their divorce trial, evidence showed that the McCourts had used $108 million from the team over five years to finance their lavish lifestyles.
And the divorce settlement gives baseball veto power; if Selig rejects the Fox deal, the agreement is null and void. Indeed, it would appear that the trial is contingent on Selig's say-so, or on changing how the $385 million is paid out.
Frank McCourt insisted in a telephone interview that the agreement ended the uncertainty over the team's ownership; it will be his or it will be sold. "In either pathway, Jamie does not have control," he said.
Despite Frank McCourt's confidence that the divorce agreement smoothed the obstacles to Selig's approval of the Fox deal, baseball's problems with him go deeper, including the way he has run the franchise.
In April, Rob Manfred, an M.L.B. executive vice president, said, "'There is no owner who, during the period 2004 to 2011, that we've spent more time with on his business problems, his business issues and his desire to be treated differently under applicable rules than Frank McCourt."
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