Now that Frank McCourt has reached a settlement with Major League Baseball to sell the Los Angeles Dodgers, it is open season to find the potential bidders for the team. The team is expected to fetch somewhere in the $1 billion range, which is nearly two and a half times the amount paid by McCourt in 2004. One of the new bidders could be an old bidder, Fox, who owned the Dodgers from 1998-2004.
"If it comes down to paying $3 billion for telecast rights or $1 billion for the team, the math may mean you buy the team," a person familiar with Fox's thinking told Steven Church of Bloomberg News. Darren Rovell of CNBC also thinks Fox could, and should be in play:
The reason Fox sold the Dodgers is that they thought buying TV rights were a better financial move. They were reportedly losing tens of millions of dollars managing the team. But now, that just might be the cost of doing business in a marketplace that is much more competitive than it was just seven years ago.
Fox currently has a television contract with the Dodgers that runs through 2013, so a new TV deal is of paramount importance to any new owner. It is also why any media companies, such as Time Warner, that would bid on the Dodgers TV rights would also potentially be interested in purchasing the team as well.
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