Big Local Action

From the AP:

MLB’s Los Angeles Angels to be sold to Rams and Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke

Did the fans in the stands at the Big A audibly chanting "Artie sucks!", "Sell the team!" & "Fuck you Artie!" during Angels broadcasts effect beer baron Artie Moreno? Talk is US$4 billion, highest price ever for an MLB team. And the Angels beat the Yanks 10-1 last night.

Other local sports ownership stuff:

Mark Walter scandal, LA Lakers sale raise concern about ownership in pro sports

Walter, who made his billions in the insurance business and until this summer owned stakes in the Lakers, Los Angeles Dodgers and the English Premier League’s Chelsea, is reportedly under investigation by the federal government for alleged tax irregularities and failure to report billions in financing for key portions of his businesses.

His abrupt sale of the Lakers to an ownership group that includes Josh Kushner, the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law, is raising suspicion Walter is attempting to curry favor with the federal government and avoid the harshest of possible punishments.

Two-bit ass-licking crook trying to bribe his way out. How many people has his insurance scam ripped off? Throw him in jail for all of his crimes.

Private equity is now ruining sports along w/ everything else.

“There is probably no drier topic than billionaire debt service for everyday people, but we know for sure that fans are a more than a little bit tired of seeing their favorite teams treated like assets as opposed to community goods,” said Will Norton, director of the McCormack Center for Sport Research and Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “These teams are becoming so expensive that you simply have to look to open up avenues to capital that otherwise would look like precarious choices for the long-term health of the club.”

More franchises than ever in the NFL, NBA, NHL and other leagues are partially owned and controlled by either private equity firms, owners who live and do business hundreds of miles away from a club’s home city or top executives with financial priorities that have little to do with the sports brands they own.

Not to mention former Microsoft executive (guilt by association) Steve Ballmer, owner of L.A.'s Clippers, who appears to have been paying player Kawhi Leonard under the table.

Everything the Rich Touch Dies.