The last couple of months have been taxing on Los Angeles sports fans. Teams haven’t done as well, and there are several ownership changes. Some owners even face some legal trouble. I am here to break it all down with you as the faces of LA sports ownership must now deal with a reckoning.
CLIPPERS FACE SEVERE PENALTY
I have alluded to and spoke of this several times, but after months of investigation…boy this is a doozy. The NBA found that the Los Angeles Clippers violated the league’s salary cap. All parties are paying a hefty price. Kawhi Leonard was fined $700,000. President of basketball operations Lawrence Frank has been suspended for six months without pay. President of operations Gillian Zucker has been suspended a year without pay. Owner Steve Ballmer has been suspended for a year. But the biggest price of all is being paid by the Clippers themselves: fined $30 million plus…forfeiting FIVE first round draft picks.
These penalties are harsh…but the loss of five years of this team’s future is a clear warning to the rest of the league that the NBA will not tolerate this again. At the heart of this investigation was the violation that the Clippers assisted star player Kawhi Leonard in arranging endorsement deals. These deals allowed Leonard to earn additional millions that he would not be able to make under the salary cap requirements. Among these deals was for $28 million for a company that had already declared bankruptcy.
Already, there are reports of from analysts and “experts” calling for Ballmer to sell the team. The thinking is that it will restore trust with fans. Here is my take on that: it doesn’t matter and it won’t happen. Ballmer has no reason to sell the team. Even if he did, he would want a price close to what Mark Walter got for selling the Los Angeles Lakers. And even IF he did sell, that’s NOT going to bring back those five first round draft picks, barring an appeal. The damage is already done, their bed is made, and now the team and the fans will have to lie in it.
LAKER OWNERSHIP CHAOS
In a stunning move, Mark Walter suddenly sold the Los Angeles Lakers not too long ago as I previously stated in another article. Walter sold the team to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger for $12.5 billion, a record-breaking price. Not long after that, the Buss family announced in a statement that it was selling its remaining 17.8% stake in the Lakers.
However, now Jeanie Buss is contesting her siblings’ vote to sell the family’s remaining share of the team. Jeanie Buss, through her lawyer Adam Streisand, is contending that a court ruled in 2017 that no sale could be “effectuated without approval by the co-trustees, i.e. Jeanie, Janie and Joey Buss.” Controlling ownership of the Lakers could be at stake, as Jeanie Buss would no longer have the ownership percentage needed to remain governor of the team if the transaction goes through. She had an agreement with Walter when he first bought the team that she would remain the franchise’s controlling owner through 2030.
Iger told the California Post last week that he intended to honor that agreement with Buss but, he added, “If something changes, then it changes.” Iger met with Buss late last week and the two discussed the transition from Walter, sources said.
If this seems familiar…that’s because it is. We saw this play out not long after Buss Family patriarch, Dr. Jerry Buss, passed away. When the Lakers started to decline to the point that fans were angry with the direction of the team, Jeanie waged a civil war that wrestled control of the team from her brothers, including Jim. This might get even uglier than the last fight…
DODGERS NOT FOR SALE
The selling of the Lakers prompted many to ask why Mark Walter did so after buying the team less than a year ago. Well, the sale came after reports of a whistleblower complaint prompted insurance regulators and federal investigators to look into allegations that insurance companies owned by Walter — Delaware Life Co. and Clear Springs Life and Annuity Co., operating under the parent company Group 1001 — did not properly disclose that billions of dollars in private credit holdings backed other parts of Walter’s business ventures.
This triggered the speculation that…the Los Angeles Dodgers were funded fraudulently and might get sold as well. TWG called those allegations “false and not supported by the facts.” “The Dodgers have the highest revenue in baseball,” TWG said in its statement, “and it significantly exceeds the team’s obligations to its players.” Los Angeles Dodgers president Stan Kasten attempted to calm online speculation about the future of the franchise as well. “The Dodgers are not being sold. They’re not for sale. There’s no process that has been started to sell it, period,” Kasten told reporters on the field before the team’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. “We are planning only to win.”
It makes sense that people are speculating the end of the current Dodger ownership. They’ve built a juggernaut in this decade, and they still look to win another championship despite falling into a bit of a slump. You can see why many who accuse the Dodgers of “ruining baseball” would love to see its demise.
ANGELS WERE FOR SALE
But one MLB team that WAS for sale turned out to be the Los Angeles Angels. As I reported in a previous article, the Angels were sold to Stan Kroenke, current owner of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. The sale puts an end to the tumultuous ownership of Arte Moreno. Angel fans have been singing praises, thanking the heavens, and more since news of the sale broke.
The Angels were riding high off their first World Series win in 2002, and then Moreno bought the team not long after. Since then, it’s been a long, slow, steady slide to the bottom of MLB for the Angels. It’s been a painful series of scandals, bad contracts, and other factors from Moreno’s inept leadership that has led to the Angels’ 11th consecutive losing season and their 12th consecutive non-playoff season, both the longest active streaks in the majors.
Angel fans are hoping Kroenke can do for their team what he did for the Rams in 2022 when the Rams won the Super Bowl. Angel fans will also remember Moreno the way Dodgers fans remember Frank McCourt…and how Clippers fans might view Steve Ballmer if the loss of five first round picks puts the Clippers in jeopardy.
