MLB, Fox won’t try to stop Dodgers sale

Neither Major League Baseball nor Fox Sports plans to try to stop the sale of the Dodgers, virtually assuring that the deal will receive court approval on Friday.

MLB and Fox, the Dodgers’ two most formidable combatants in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, expressed relatively minor concerns on Tuesday, the deadline for parties to object to the sale.

Frank McCourt, the Dodgers’ outgoing owner, agreed last month to sell the team to Guggenheim Baseball Management for $2 billion. MLB has been frustrated by what it considers a lack of information about that transaction -- and a separate one in which McCourt and Guggenheim will jointly own the Dodger Stadium parking lots.

However, the court almost certainly would have rejected any MLB objection on those grounds, as the league already approved Guggenheim as a buyer, and the McCourt entity that currently owns the parking lots is not part of the bankruptcy case.

In Tuesday’s filing, MLB repeated its contention that the court should compel McCourt to pay the league about $8 million, mostly in legal fees. The matter already has been submitted to the court-appointed mediator.

Fox asked for explicit written assurances that rival Time Warner Cable is not part of the Guggenheim group. TWC is not involved, according to multiple sources familiar with the sale process. Guggenheim is expected to negotiate with Fox, TWC and perhaps CBS on a television contract that could be worth up to $5 billion, and the Dodgers also have the right to launch a team-owned cable channel.

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MLB, Fox won’t try to stop Dodgers sale