to complicate matters further, a journalist friend of mine pointed out that fox may be dragging its feet on cable negotiations with frank because its not guaranteed that he is going to end up sole owner of the team, so why talk to him?

. . . so why talk to him?

Fox may get a better deal from an owner with cash flow problems who can't hold out for top dollar or do much to finance a team-owned regional cable network. The ripple effects from McCourt's ownership could impact the Dodgers for decades.

yea. its a little surprising to me how much the cable negotiations wrinkle is being underreported. unless i'm missing something, whoever owns the dodgers is looking at a payday at least as big as what the rangers just scored.

jamie's problem is that even with a good lawyer she doesn't have that strong a case. frank still has the hammer. i think she's fighting as hard as she is in order to inflate the dollar figure on the settlement. and frank's got a lot of incentive to settle if the fox deal is as lucrative as observers suggest. he's walking a tightrope.

That is why I have always said that not settling makes no sense for either party. If the judge makes them sell the Dodgers, after debts, they clear no more than $100-150 million each. Which is what Frank is offering her now. Which is not going to be enough for Jamie.

I still think this will end up being a $350-400 million settlement for Jamie, with the bulk of payments being from 2013 to 2022 or something like that. It would be crazy for Frank to let it get to the point where the judge makes a ruling.

can the judge make them sell the dodgers? i thought what he can do is basically one of two things: make a ruling on ownership or urge a settlement. my gut is telling me he is going to forestall a ruling on ownership as long as he can and keep urging them to get to the table. why? because the conflicting arguments being offered up are not compelling on either side. if he makes a ruling on the ownership issue, whatever side that loses is going to appeal and make a lot of noise doing it. at this point in time, most of what i've read and heard is that frank has the upper hand, but its not a slam dunk. so the judge must be feeling like it would be easier for all involved if the two of them would just settle up. the two sides understand that there is no way frank comes out of a settlement without sole ownership, so what is being negotiated is the price of her slice. whether that slice is the size jamie envisions it or as frank envisions it is what is at stake. i know she has said all along its community property and she loves the dodgers and all that, but i really think at the end of the day she's just trying for as big a chunk of change as possible. so she has to put up that line to keep the heat on frank.
i'll bet the potential worth of the new cable deal is creating problems for frank.
but i am not a divorce lawyer; the above is just my impression of what is going on.

can the judge make them sell the dodgers?

Not in those terms, at least not generally*. What he can do is compel Frank to pay Jamie for her "portion" of the Dodgers in such a way that Frank has no choice but to sell. But the judge isn't going to want to do that either so if it looks like the facts would compel such a solution the judge is likely to (1) tell Frank and his lawyers that it might happen and (2) suggest to them that they work out a compromise so that he isn't forced to order something that effectively forces a sell.

The lawyer/doc switch thing last week may (it's impossible to know from media reports) change the complexion of this thing but I suspect you are mostly right (at the same time I haven't really followed the matter that closely.) Frank is going to keep the Dodgers and Jamie is going to get a chunk of change since the Dodgers are the marital estate's only real asset at this point. That being the case, the precise value of the asset is as important as how it's split. And trying to pin a precise value on the Dodgers is not going to be easy (the Fox thing won't help.) Particularly when both sides have differing preferences as to what the final number will be.

*- EDIT- That's a poor way to say it. As a general matter, the court won't look to push either party to transfer marital assets without a compelling reason. There doesn't seem to be a reason to force a transfer in this matter.

It's amazing what being human and having needs can cause people to do stupid things. The local farmers co-op was run by Charlie for years. Good fella. Solid. And the co-op paid him a good salary and every few years a nice bonus. He was maybe 7-8 years from retirement. And then the bookkeeper left, they hired a new one, and the two of them got involved and Charlie was so enthralled he either let her or couldn't see straight enough as she embezzled from the co-op. It finally blew up, she went to jail and poor Charlie lost his job, his wife and his life savings in the divorce.

All for a piece of *ss.

I ran into Charlie a while back. Working at a home supplies store.

D*mn sad.

I know of a guy who bought a rental property with a bunch of partners, including a woman with who he ultimately had an affair. He moved in with her briefly, but reconciled with his wife and stayed married until his death about 40 years later. In that period, he had bought out the other partners, but the woman, who owned less than 5%, had fallen out of touch, and he was running it as if he alone owned it. He finally contacted her and tried to buy her out, but they couldn't agree on a price.

So now, the widow has the 95% and is thinking of donating it to some organization, who will then deal with the ex-gf. I suspect they might be able to settle much more easily now.