Thursday, September 2, 2010

Day four preview.

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Today's trial date was a bonus addition, scheduled just Monday morning. After spending all of yesterday examining Frank McCourt, David Boies is expected to finish relatively quickly this morning. Afterwards, Steve Susman will spend a significant amount of time on cross-examination, attempting to rehabilitate his client's image.

And that's a tall order. Yesterday was a rough one for Frank McCourt, particularly the afternoon session which revealed details about his long-term baseball operations plans, including a payroll very much below what most fans expect of a big-market team. Frank's legal team will play an elaborate game of 'so what'--yes, Wednesday's time on the stand was rough. But what did it really accomplish? That's their line of thinking, anyway.

After Susman finishes with Frank, Jamie McCourt is expected to take the stand. The plan is for Boies to wrap up her case--she, as the petitioner, went first--once Jamie is done. Then it will be Frank's turn to call witness and establish his claims. That won't likely happen until the trial resumes on September 20--if it resumes at all. The sides may hope to make significant progress toward a settlement in the down time.
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10 comments:

  1. If we want to see the McCourts out as owners of the team, what is the best outcome a Dodger fan can hope for? A Frank win or a Jamie win?

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  2. I don't think its possible for Jamie to get full control of the team. That leaves two options, either ownership gets split, or Frank gets the team. So for everyone except the McCourts, their sons, and Giants fans, the best chance for the team is to be split, which in turn would be much greater incentive for them to sell. If Frank gets it, he's all but said that he's going to turn it into his personal piggy bank and if the amount of work he's put into holding on to the Boston property is any indication, he will probably try and hold on to the Dodgers until he's six feet under.

    Josh can correct me if I'm wrong, of course.

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  3. Josh, what was Frank's Fallujah joke?

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  4. Just to add onto what anon@11:01am said, if you're a Dodger fan that want the McCourts out, the best outcome is for jamie to win because then the Dodgers would become communal property and neither party (Frank or Jamie) have enough cash to pay the other party out which would necessitate the bringing on of additional partners to infuse cash or more likely, the team being sold.

    However, as one of the Times articles on the divorce case today, if that happened, the McCourts would be lucky to get 10% of the team's value were they to sell. This would be catastrophic for either one of them.

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  5. The big article from the times today (as if we didn't need more reason to hate them):
    http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dodger-finances-20100902,0,7260669.story

    So if I'm reading this correctly, after liquidating his assets and settling his debt and deferred tax payments, Frank McCourt would have somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million or less...that seems like a far cry from the billionaire status that was being thrown around in the press a couple years ago. Am I misunderstanding this?

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  6. I am mos def rooting for Jamie.
    If she is awarded 50% of the team, they have to sell, just like what happened in San Diego. Oh, gee where are the Padres in the standings now?

    If Bud Selig were alive, he would have forced these fools to sell.

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  7. Where the heck is Selig?

    Oh... wait...there he is... over there polishing his statue.

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  8. Im just hoping they dont hold on to the team long enough to get the expiring TV contracts.. with counter suing, appeals, etc etc, this can drag out for a few years...

    I just dont see them ending up with 80 mil and giving up the team... this is money we are talking about, RICH peoples money.. its different.. expiring fox contracts are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for BOTH of them.

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  9. one of the Times article today addressed the specific point about the TV money, they could get a front loaded deal from Fox for TV rights soon, much sooner than before 2013 and that would go a long way to solving a lot of their money troubles (like the $443M debt at the holding company level.)

    Also, if the plan is indeed to start a Dodgers channel, efforts on that front would need to be geared up fairly soon in order to start in time for the 2013 season.

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  10. Just a point of clarification: a lawyer asking questions of his/her own client is not cross-ex but direct. So when Susman asks Frank questions, it will be direct and when Boies asks Jamie questions it will be direct.

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