The Dodgers, on the other hand, have been in the news because the team is for sale. Former owners Frank and Jamie McCourt seemingly made a hash of running the team and developed their own domestic problems along the way. So the team (including parts thereof, including telecast rights) is on the market.
Times columnist Carl Erskine likes the Green Bay Packers model and suggests that the Dodgers become community owned as a non-profit with stocholders who are OK with no prospect of dvidends or stock appreciation ("Best owner for the Dodgers would be you and me"). The Green Bay team is even able to sell new meaningless shares. Erskine ends his column this way:
So, while fat cats circle our beloved Dodgers here on the coast, back in the heartland, shares of Packers stock are doing fly patterns off the shelves. It's as if the front office is printing its own currency, for the shares offer no dividend or appreciation, really nothing much more than bragging rights.Love or money? Many people like love. But would there ever be enough love in LA to pay Pujols-scale money? I was ready to dismiss Erskine's idea as pretty silly -- until I recalled that the Dodgers have an additional fan base 3,000 miles away in Brooklyn, New York. There might be enough love in LA if it were complemented by Brooklyn love. In fact, the whole might be greater than the sum of the parts. Love is like that.
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