Mark Walter Tried to Cash Out Dodgers’ TV Deal Amid Reported Investigation

Charter, which paid $8 billion for the right to broadcast Dodgers games through 2038, declined.

Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing (68) receives his World Series ring from team owner Mark Walter prior to the game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium on March 27, 2026. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter's business empire was largely hidden from public view for most of the 14 years he's owned the team. That changed in a big way once Walter was reported to be the subject of a federal investigation late last year into the relationship between the insurance companies he controls and the businesses that received loans from them.

Since then, Walter has sold his majority share of the Los Angeles Lakers, and is now in talks to sell his stake in Chelsea FC, the English Premier League soccer team he bought with Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly.

An abundance of reports since have dug into the inner workings of Walter's insurance empire. Few have attempted to articulate exactly how much cash Walter needs to come up with, or why. That makes it premature to guess the second-order effects if Walter must sell all or some of his reported 27 percent stake in the Dodgers.

According to Puck's John Ourand, Walter's financial needs are urgent enough that he turned his attention to SportsNet LA, the team-owned network that generates an average of $334 million per year (before revenue sharing) from 2014-38 from Charter Communications to air Dodgers games in Southern California.

"But since the [Lakers] sale was announced last week, I’ve learned that Walter has been looking to secure cash for months, and even engaged Charter Communications in talks to let the cable company out of the Lakers’ and Dodgers’ local TV deals early for a lump sum payout," Ourand reported. "Those talks went nowhere. Toward the end of last year, Charter hired the Raine Group to try and sell Spectrum SportsNet, the regional sports network that carries Lakers games. It’s unclear how Kushner and Iger’s purchase of the team will affect that process."

SportsNet LA was in the news again Thursday, when Charter completed its $34.5 billion buyout of Cox Communications. SportsNet LA is now available to Cox customers in the Dodgers' territory from Southern California to Las Vegas because of the buyout.

It's perhaps not a coincidence that Charter needed the money to complete its buyout of Cox, and denied Walter the lump-sum payment he sought to exit the final 12 years of its payouts to American Media Productions, the shell company owned by Guggenheim Baseball Management that owns SportsNet LA.

If recent reports prove anything, it's that the Dodgers are merely one small part of a much larger business empire Walter owns, in whole or in part.

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