Reuters: Bankruptcy News: Dodgers sale: 3 bidders, $1.5 billion price seen

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Dodgers sale: 3 bidders, $1.5 billion price seen Mar 28th 2012, 00:48 By Ronald Grover March 27 | Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:48pm EDT March 27 (Reuters) - Major League Baseball owners sent the Los Angeles Dodgers sale into its final innings, approving three bidders for an auction that is expected to start in New York Wednesday morning and produce a record bid for the famed franchise, sources said. Dodgers owner Frank McCourt is expected to choose from among the three bidders, most likely by April 1, in what is expected to be a final bid of around $1.5 billion, according to two sources with knowledge of the bidding. The three finalists are a partnership that includes hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen and biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, a group headed by St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke and a group largely financed by Guggenheim Partners in which former basketball superstar Magic Johnson is a partner. Major league spokesman Patrick Courtney said he had no comment. The sale process began in November, when Major League Baseball and McCourt ended litigation and agreed to a sale of the team supervised by the bankruptcy court that has overseen it since June. The auction is to be conducted by McCourt's financial adviser, Blackstone Group, with the process supervised by a mediator approved by the court. Still at issue is whether McCourt will maintain control over the Dodgers' parking lot, as he planned. Without the parking lot, the team is worth $1.2 billion, said Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based sports consulting firm Sportscorp, which is not involved with the deal. With the land, it would be worth closer to $1.5 billion, he said. "The team will likely go for more than that simply because McCourt has more than one bidder," said Ganis. "But there is still the potential for a lot of twists and turns before this deal is complete," he said. With the Dodgers sale nearing completion, News Corp's Fox sports unit and Time Warner Cable are also headed toward what could be a multi-billion dollar showdown over the rights to telecast the franchise's games. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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