Los Angeles Dodgers president Stan Kasten on Friday firmly shut down speculation that the franchise could be sold amid questions surrounding controlling owner Mark Walter.
“The Dodgers are not being sold. They’re not gonna be sold. They’re not for sale. There’s no process that has been started to sell it, period,” Kasten told reporters on the field at Dodger Stadium before a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. “We are planning only to win.”
The comments came roughly 10 days after Walter agreed to sell his controlling stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger in a deal valued at $12.5 billion. Walter had purchased the NBA franchise less than a year earlier.
The sudden move, combined with federal investigations into aspects of Walter’s business empire involving TWG Global, fueled online conjecture about the Dodgers’ future.
Kasten described the Lakers transaction as “sui generis,” a one-of-a-kind situation with no bearing on the baseball club.
“I can’t tell you how important the Dodgers are to Mark,” he said. “The Lakers thing? The Lakers were important to him, too, but it’s kind of an extraordinary opportunity, which he took.”
He added that Walter’s broader sports portfolio, including the Professional Women’s Hockey League and motorsports holdings, is expected to remain intact. Kasten said he knows of nothing involving the Dodgers that is part of any investigation and characterized the organization as “very stable, well-managed and [with] very solid ownership.”
The Dodgers, Kasten emphasized, stand on their own financially and remain focused on competing.
“The Dodgers aren’t going anywhere,” he said. “I feel that very strongly, and Mark feels even stronger than I do.”
Walter has been the club’s controlling owner since Guggenheim Baseball Management acquired the team in 2012.
