{"id":1016455,"date":"2026-08-22T05:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T05:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1016455\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T05:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T05:44:15","slug":"kasten-dodgers-not-being-sold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1016455\/","title":{"rendered":"Kasten: Dodgers “Not Being Sold”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dodgers president Stan Kasten met with reporters on Friday evening to reiterate ownership\u2019s commitment to the team. \u201cI wanted to make sure everyone understood one thing very clearly: The Dodgers are not being sold,\u201d Kasten told L.A. media (links via Jack Harris of The California Post<\/a> and Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not going to be sold. They\u2019re not for sale. There\u2019s no process that has been started to sell it, period,\u201d the team president added. \u201cWe are planning only to win. That is what we are always doing. And we are still continuing to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kasten\u2019s comments come amid changes to controlling owner Mark Walter\u2019s other businesses. The Dodgers chairman sold his majority share in the NBA\u2019s Los Angeles Lakers at a $12.5 billion franchise valuation last week. (MLBTR\u2019s sister site, Hoops Rumors, covered<\/a> the basketball implications.) Walter had only purchased the NBA franchise 14 months earlier at a $10 billion valuation.<\/p>\n

The Financial Times<\/a> reported earlier this week that Walter and business partner Todd Boehly (also a minority owner of the Dodgers) were willing to sell their minority share in the English Premier League team Chelsea F.C. Walter and Boehly each have roughly 13% shares in the Premier League club.<\/p>\n

The majority of Chelsea is owned by Clearlake, the private equity firm of Jos\u00e9 E. Feliciano \u2014 whose purchase<\/a> of the San Diego Padres was approved by MLB owners on Monday. Clearlake would look to buy Walter and Boehly out of their shares, but no agreement has yet been reached. (ESPN\u2019s James Olley<\/a> reported that Clearlake\u2019s relationship with Boehly, in particular, had deteriorated in recent years.)<\/p>\n

This all comes at a time when some of Walter\u2019s businesses are reportedly under scrutiny. The CEO of Guggenheim Partners, Walter built his wealth through financial and investment firms. He has an estimated net worth in the $18 billion range, according to Bloomberg\u2019s Billionaire Index<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As recently detailed by Laurence Darmiento of The Los Angeles Times<\/a> and Matt Slater of The Athletic<\/a>, the dealings of Walter\u2019s insurance companies are under investigations related to the FBI, the SEC, and the DOJ. Those interested in the financial specifics are encouraged to read those posts in full.<\/p>\n

The abbreviated version is that investigators are exploring whether investments and loans made by Walter\u2019s insurance businesses were properly reported to regulators. No charges have been filed. Walter\u2019s conglomerate, TWG Global, released a statement earlier this month denying wrongdoing and saying they\u2019re cooperating with the investigations.<\/p>\n

Even if authorities clear Walter of any wrongdoing, an ongoing investigation can impact investors\u2019 confidence in the businesses. Sridhar Natarajan and Katherine Burton of Bloomberg News<\/a> reported last week that TWG Global was seeking investors to help pay down loans of the insurance companies under investigation. That\u2019s led to some speculation about Walter selling off his sports franchises for a cash influx.<\/p>\n

To this point, none of this has directly impacted the Dodgers or Major League Baseball. Kasten called it \u201cnot really a Dodgers story\u201d when news of the Lakers sale broke on August 12. He doubled down on that today. \u201cThe Lakers thing was what we lawyers call \u2018sui generis.\u2019 It was just one of those one-of-a-kind things that really has nothing to do with what\u2019s happening with us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kasten also pushed back against the notion that potential cash flow problems would impact the Dodgers\u2019 payroll. \u201cThe Dodgers stand on their own pretty well.\u201d Los Angeles had an MLB-high $417MM competitive balance tax number and paid $169.4MM in luxury taxes in 2025. MLBTR\u2019s Payroll Tracker<\/a>, courtesy of contributor Ethan Hullihen, estimates this year\u2019s CBT number at $428.23MM \u2014 roughly $59MM more than any other team. They\u2019re on track to pay around $178MM in luxury taxes.<\/p>\n

Shohei Ohtani\u2019s<\/a><\/strong>\u00a010-year deal counts for about $46MM annually of that CBT number. It also included the unique \u201ckey man\u201d clause which would allow Ohtani to opt out after any season in which either Walter or president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman left the organization.<\/p>\n

However, fans of other teams shouldn\u2019t hold out much hope that this could be a precursor to the game\u2019s best player leaving Los Angeles. The Athletic\u2019s Fabian Ardaya<\/a> was among those to report that Ohtani would be highly unlikely to opt out even if Walter were to sell. The point of the clause was to ensure they\u2019d reinvest the money saved by his massive deferrals and build a competitive roster. They\u2019ve certainly held up their end of that bargain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dodgers president Stan Kasten met with reporters on Friday evening to reiterate ownership\u2019s commitment to the team. \u201cI…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1016456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[56,4712,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1016455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-mark-walter","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117137576542328758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1016456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}