Months after selling the Los Angeles Lakers for a cool $12 billion, Dodgers majority owner Mark Walter says he doesn’t plan to do the same with his crown jewel sports asset, despite an ongoing government probe into his finances.
The billionaire president of insurance powerhouse Guggenheim spoke with the California Post this week to discuss the burning question that Dodgers fans have been sitting with since the team was eliminated from World Series contention.
Walter said in no uncertain terms that there were no plans to sell.
“We’re going to keep the team no matter what,” he told the Post’s Jack Harris. “We’re going to be winning for 10 years or more. I think our commitment to do so will be just like it has been in the past. And, you know, we don’t win every year, but we’re going to try to.”
The comments aren’t entirely unexpected. Walter, team president Stan Kasten and baseball operations president Andrew Friedman have said as much.
But that hasn’t stopped rampant speculation about the future of Walter’s sports properties, which he’s been offloading rapidly to reportedly settle some mounting debts.
Why would Mark Walter potentially sell the Dodgers?
The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been looking into Walter and Guggenheim’s finances, sniffing around for some potentially fraudulent loans to businesses Walter owns that were provided by companies under his stewardship.
The investigation was kept relatively under wraps but, in August, a monumental moment in sports history took place when it was announced that Walter would be selling the Lakers just over a year after finally convincing the Buss family to part ways with their family legacy.
Walter stunned the sports world by purchasing the Lakers for a then-record $10 billion, and then flipped the iconic franchise for $12.5 billion to former Disney CEO Bob Iger and Trump-adjacent venture capitalist Josh Kushner.
He continued to look into offloading his sports properties, selling a minority stake in English Premier League powerhouse Chelsea. He is also reportedly looking to sell the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, which he acquired in the initial deal with the Buss family.
Reporting from major outlets has speculated that the sales were necessary to raise funds to settle those potentially fraudulent loans that could put Walter’s business empire at risk. TWG Global, Mark Walter’s holding company, has denied any wrongdoing.
The comments made this week by the Dodgers’ now, and presumably future, owner come less than two weeks after his team was unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs and their bid for three consecutive World Series titles ended in a National League Championship Series sweep by the Milwaukee Brewers.
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It’s a delicate time for both Walter and the team. The Dodgers already have the largest payroll in baseball and have a record-breaking number of deferred contracts on the books.
The team made a major deal to acquire one of the greatest pitchers in baseball in Tarik Skubal, who is headed to free agency and is expected to sign the largest pitching contract in MLB history.
If the Dodgers are in financial turmoil, the idea of re-signing Skubal, as well as spending on other free agents to bolster the team that came short of glory, might be less of a no-brainer than in recent years.
The team is aging, its top stars have failed to produce during some of the biggest moments in the postseason, and the aforementioned Brewers look like the most complete team in baseball.
That doesn’t even touch on the fact that the league could be looking at a lockout if a new collective bargaining agreement isn’t signed prior to the start of the 2027 MLB season.
But Walter insists that things are all good, and promised to do everything possible to restore the team to its place atop baseball’s mountaintop.
“We don’t see any glaring weaknesses that demand our attention, but there’s always room to get better,” he said. “We’ll explore every avenue we can to make this team stronger.”
It’s true that the Dodgers roster looks solid on paper. This recent saga tells us that sometimes things aren’t quite as sturdy as they appear.
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