Larry at IIATMS discusses the McCourt family’s plundering of the Dodgers in detail.
Here is the money quote:
It’s been frequently reported that McCourt “bought the Dodgers on a credit card”. That’s only half the story. The other half of the story, the more important half, is that McCourt bought the Dodgers on the Dodgers’ credit card. (emphasis original)
Once McCourt had control of the Dodgers’ credit card, he continued to use it, this time to finance his family’s cost of living. Then Dodgers’ Executive Vice President Jeff Ingram (now team Vice Chairman) testified that the Dodgers built their team budgets around the personal cash demands made by the McCourts – from a financial standpoint, the team’s top priority was to raise the funds required by the McCourt family. Ingram described it like this: the “family and business checkbooks were largely one and the same.” Ingram actually testified that the family used the team like a “credit card”.
The article was written before Major League Baseball predictably rejected the planned television deal between FOX and the Dodgers a few hours ago. Still, the piece is a must-read.
EDIT: Thank you, Fletch. The link has been repaired.