The Los Angeles Dodgers, for years, have operated like money is no obstacle for them. But that financial prowess is now under uncomfortable scrutiny. Their owner, Mark Walter, recently sold his majority shares in the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion. And reports suggest he is exploring another sport-asset sale.
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The government is investigating whether the insurers controlled by Walter have injected more money into his businesses than disclosed. The questions have now become more pointed with an MLB insider breaking down the allegations against him.
“How much cash made its way back to the Dodgers?” sportswriter Jeff Passan detailed the whole scenario involving the ongoing investigation on a podcast with Max Mannis. “That we’re not quite sure yet, but it was clearly part of this whole financial ecosystem that the Dodgers created.”
The insider explained that the insurance companies collect premiums and invest that money somewhere else to earn profit. Walter, the co-founder and CEO of the Guggenheim Partners, did the same. But Passan highlighted that there is a limit to how much you can invest the money coming from the premiums into your own business.
And according to the ongoing investigations, Guggenheim was taking a much larger portion of that money and injecting it back into companies the organization owned. What’s worse is that the actual figure was approximately $17 billion more than what was originally reported (42% of the company’s portfolio, instead of just 3%). Passan emphasized that part of that money went into the Dodgers or the television contracts from the franchise.
Currently, the federal prosecutors and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are running a parallel investigation on Walter and his companies. The investigation initially seemed to have no relation to the Dodgers, but the filings recently flagged a $4.1 million loan to Dodger Tickets LLC. Delaware Life, one of the companies under Walter’s control, listed the Dodgers-linked entity as unaffiliated in its 2025 annual statement.
But another filing in March this year classified the same entity as affiliated. Hence, it raises further questions regarding their relationship.
Many people thought the investigation into Walter would have little impact on the Dodgers. But the way he finalized selling the majority of the Lakers in just 72 hours has caused some serious panic. On top of that, the businessman is reportedly also exploring the sale of his Chelsea stake. Some reports also suggest that Mark Walter tried to unlock cash from the Dodgers’ TV.
But the biggest question isn’t the sale of his different assets. It is whether all these developments regarding the Dodgers’ owner will have an impact on MLB, more specifically the looming lockout.
Passan admitted to Mannis that the MLB franchise has been one of the integral parts of the CBA discussions. And commissioner Rob Manfred also highlighted the payroll gap between the Dodgers and the Marlins to reiterate his salary cap proposal.
That’s why Jeff Passan asks the most uncomfortable question. He asks if the Dodgers’ financial muscle was even partly supported by transactions that were later found to be illegal: “Is that really the case that should be pointed to as the right way to make your pro-cap argument?”