Murdoch sells Dodgers, retains TV rights

net1

Rupert Murdoch has sold the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball for $430 million. The media mogul bought the family-owned baseball franchise six years ago. News Corp subsidiary Fox Entertainment will retain the broadcasting rights.

The sale comes nine months after Murdoch finally clinched a $6.6 billion purchase of US satellite TV operator DirecTV and its 11 million subscribers. Analysts had long expected Mr Murdoch to sell the Dodgers to help finance the DirecTV purchase.

A group of investors led by Boston real-estate developer Frank McCourt has bought the team, its 56,000-seat stadium on 120 hectares north of downtown Los Angeles, a training academy in the Dominican Republic and a lease on a spring-training camp in Vero Beach, Florida.

Fox bought the team and stadium from the O'Malley family in 1997 for a then-record price of $311 million, doubling the previous record for a baseball team, according to US reports