Mark Walter might soon part ways with another slice of his sports empire.
Despite this, there’s no current buzz suggesting the Los Angeles Dodgers will be part of that transaction.
Coming on the heels of last week’s shocking Lakers deal, Walter finds himself making headlines once more. According to the Financial Times, he and business associate Todd Boehly, also a co-owner of the Dodgers, are exploring the option of offloading their shares in Chelsea Football Club, a prominent team in the English Premier League.
Much like when Walter offloaded the Lakers amidst a federal investigation into his insurance businesses, Monday’s announcement has reignited speculation about his role with the Dodgers.
Insiders, however, report that there’s an understanding within the organization that Walter has no intention of putting the MLB franchise on the market just yet, a source informed the California Post on Monday.
For now, there’s been no apparent change from the status quo of last week, when Dodgers president Stan Kasten insisted the club’s ownership situation was unaffected by the Lakers sale.
“This is a Lakers story,” Kasten told reporters then. “It’s not really a Dodgers story.”
The exact same can’t be said now, of course, with Boehly and Walter looking to offload ownership stakes in Chelsea that they had held since 2022.
But in this case, at least, the Chelsea sale isn’t coming completely out of the blue, thanks to years of reported strife that Boehly and Walter had with the soccer club’s other chief investors at private equity firm Clearlake Capital (which, notably, counts newly-minted San Diego Padres owner Jose E. Feliciano as one of its co-founders).
According to reports, Boehly and Walter are now considering selling their minority shares of Chelsea to the Clearlake group.
Still, amid the vacuum of information that remains regarding the status of Walter’s business empire and the ongoing investigation into his various companies, speculation about his ownership of the Dodgers will ensue.
Last week, Kasten declared he had “no reason to think” the resources provided to the team by Walter and his Guggenheim ownership group would change –– yet also professed not to have intimate knowledge of Walter’s non-sports businesses nor the investigation into them.
There have also been reports linking Dodger-affiliated companies (including one called “Dodgers Tickets LLC”) to the larger inquiry from federal prosecutors into Walter’s business practices.
It is all contributing to a cloud that continues to hang over the franchise, amid it’s attempt to win a third-consecutive World Series this year.
And while, to this point, there have been no signs of change within the organization, uncertainty still very much abounds in the wake of yet more news surrounding the owner.