LOS ANGELES, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The former president of basketball's New York Knicks has launched a nearly $650 million bid to buy Rupert Murdoch's Los Angeles Dodgers, the baseball team's stadium and the regional network carrying their games, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Dave Checketts, also a former president of New York's Madison Square Garden arena, is said to be bidding for the team, the stadium and the Fox Sports 2 cable channel in a package much like baseball's Boston Red Sox were sold in 2001.
Media conglomerate News Corp. Ltd. , which bought the Dodgers and their stadium in 1998 for about $310 million, has retained Allen & Co., where its board member Stanley Shuman works, to help with a sale, separate sources said.
A News Corp. spokesman declined to comment. Shuman also declined to comment. Checketts did not return a call seeking comment, nor did officials of the Dodgers and Major League Baseball, which would have to approve the team's sale.
Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., has been thought to be pursuing a sale of the Dodgers to raise funds for a bid for all or part of the No. 1 satellite television broadcaster DirecTV, a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp.
Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball, told the U.S. Congress a little more than a year ago that the Dodgers had the highest operating loss in the league, pegging the figure at about $55 million.
Still, Forbes magazine recently valued the team at $430 million, in part because of its location in one of the prime U.S. media markets and its storied history.
Last August, Checketts bought Utah-based SportsWest Productions, a syndicated distributor of live college sports programming.
Before SportsWest, Checketts' primary athletic involvement was with the National Basketball Association, where he served as president of the Utah Jazz and later as president of the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden.
Among 18 baseball teams that have been sold since 1995, News Corp. paid the highest per-revenue multiple of any of them, according to an analysis by sports adviser Moag & Co.
In December 2001, the Boston Red Sox, their stadium Fenway Park and an 80-percent interest in the New England Sports Network cable channel were sold at a price published reports pegged at around $650 million.
The Los Angeles Times reported this week that News Corp. was seeking at least $400 million for the team alone and that potential bidders included Checketts, real estate magnate Alan Casden and former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth.
Casden, through his attorney, declined comment, while Ueberroth could not be reached for comment. ((Reporting by Ben Berkowitz; editing by Michael Miller; Reuters Messaging: [email protected]; +213-955-6781; [email protected]))
