Chinese Money Behind $1.2 Bil. Offer for Dodgers
By wchung | 07 Apr, 2026

Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has received a $1.2 billion offer for the Dodgers funded by China’s state-owned investment firms. If accepted the price would be the biggest ever paid for a major-league baseball franchise.

The offer group is led by Los Angeles Marathon founder Bill Burke, according to a letter sent to McCourt Tuesday. The letter was disclosed to The L.A. Times by two people who were not authorized to discuss the content publicly. Burke declined to discuss the bid in a phone conversation with a Times reporter.

The letter gives McCourt 21 days to accept the offer and contemplates closing within 90 days, subject to approval by Major League Baseball and the judge in the Dodgers’ current Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The proceedings were triggered to a large extent by wrangling over assets in McCourt’s divorce proceedings. McCourt’s wife Jamie, who claims half ownership of the Dodgers, had asked the judge to order a sale to facilitate property division. However, that request was formally withdrawn after the Dodgers sought Chapter 11 protection.

McCourt has said that he had no interest in selling the team and that he would keep ownership after the team emerges from Chapter 11. However, such talk may have been prompted by posturing in the adversarial divorce proceedings. Also an eye toward sale may be behind the delay in pursuing cable TV rights sales that would likely net enough to get the Dodgers out of bankruptcy.

The letter said funds from the offer would come from “certain state-owned investment institutions of the People’s Republic of China” as well as unidentified American investors. MLB would not object to foreign ownership interests in the Dodgers. The Seattle Mariners are owned by the American subsidiary of Kyoto-based video gamemaker Nintendo.

The current record sale price for a major league team is $845 million, paid by the Ricketts family for the Chicago Cubs when they bought the team from Tribune Co. in 2009.

If concluded, the sale wouldn’t be the only connection between Burke and McCourt. Burke founded the Los Angeles Marathon and sold it in 2004 to a Chicago group which in turn sold it to McCourt in 2008.