Moreno is a billionaire, but his net worth pales in comparison to other Southern California franchise owners. He purchased the team in 2003 \u2014 the year after they won their first and only World Series title<\/a>. Fans had high hopes at first.<\/p>\n Angels owner Arte Moreno cheered when he signed Josh Hamilton in 2012, but the troubled outfielder proved to be one of many expensive busts.<\/p>\n (Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n The Angels remained a playoff team for a few years under Moreno. But after signing some expensive busts, he stopped spending big on the team. <\/p>\n Moreno\u2019s new model seemed similar to the one former Clippers owner Donald Sterling employed, with less of a focus on winning and more emphasis on stadium atmosphere, Durbin said.<\/p>\n The news that Moreno was selling the team to Kroenke for an estimated $4 billion<\/a> was met with celebration from fans who hope the Rams owner\u2019s deep pockets and track record with winning teams \u2014 he also owns franchises that have won championships in the NBA and NHL, in MLS and the English Premier League \u2014 will improve the team\u2019s fortunes. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Angels have to put up a competitive team against a team \u2014 the Dodgers \u2014 that has such deep pockets, it can spend twice as much as virtually any other team in Major League Baseball,\u201d Durbin said. <\/p>\n But the Angels sale also could signal an end of an era for independent, albeit wealthy family dynasties owning teams for bragging rights or simply because they enjoy the sport. <\/p>\n Walter O\u2019Malley and, later, his son owned the Dodgers from 1950 until the team was sold to Fox Entertainment Group in 1998 for more than $300 million. In 1979, Jerry Buss bought the Lakers, the Forum and the Los Angeles Kings for $67.5 million. The Lakers now are being sold for $12.5 billion, and the Dodgers are valued at between $7.8 billion and $9 billion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe value of these franchises has really kept pace with the most successful businesses in the country,\u201d said Lee Ohanian, an economics professor at UCLA and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.<\/p>\n Ballmer once came to Clippers\u2019 rescue<\/p>\n The Clippers have a story similar to the Angels\u2019 \u2014 being eclipsed by a prosperous powerhouse franchise. <\/p>\n The team had experienced the allure of star power, particularly in the \u201cLob City\u201d era in the 2010s with star trio Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. But a championship has remained elusive. <\/p>\n Ballmer purchased the Clippers in 2014 on the heels of a scandal in which Sterling was recorded making inflammatory statements about Black people. It was a spectacle that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called an \u201cunprecedented\u201d crisis for the league. <\/p>\n Steve Ballmer, center, brought enthusiasm and deep pockets to the Clippers. <\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Ballmer, invested handsomely in the team, moving it away from Crypto.com Arena \u2014 home of the Lakers \u2014 to his widely praised new arena, Intuit Dome in Inglewood. His team executives went after big names in the NBA, making a big splash in 2019 by acquiring a pair of perennial All-Stars, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, then completing their new star trio by trading for another, James Harden, in 2023. <\/p>\n \u201cBallmer wants to have a championship team,\u201d Durbin said. \u201cHe did not buy them to be the second team in Los Angeles. He wants to be the best team in Los Angeles.\u201d <\/p>\n The Clippers failed to win even a conference title with Leonard & Co. George departed in 2024, and the team traded Harden last season after getting off to its worst start in franchise history. In the background, the NBA was engaged in a probe into whether the Clippers participated in arranging endorsement deals for Leonard, which would be a violation of the league\u2019s collective bargaining agreement. <\/p>\n Last week, the NBA presented the results of its investigation<\/a>, finding that Leonard received $66 million in endorsement pay and equity from four companies facilitated by Ballmer and Clippers executives at the behest of Leonard\u2019s former business manager. <\/p>\n The NBA sanctioned the team, stripping the Clippers of five future first-round picks and imposing a $30-million fine. Ballmer was suspended from all league and team activities for one year; Clippers president of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended without pay for one year; and Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was suspended without pay for six months. Leonard was fined and his Clippers days appear over; the team arranged a trade in June. <\/p>\n The New York Times reported <\/a>on Thursday that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn opened a criminal investigation into the matter. The Times could not independently confirm the probe.<\/p>\n The Clippers have pushed back on the NBA\u2019s findings, saying they will fight \u201cto demonstrate our innocence.\u201d <\/p>\n The Dodgers juggernaut<\/p>\n When Walter shockingly purchased the Lakers last year, there was the assumption he would do for basketball what he did for baseball.<\/p>\n Under his ownership, the Dodgers became the most exciting team in baseball, and he was willing to spend and spend to keep the wins coming. He brought on Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Yoshinobu Yamamoto \u2014 and money seemed no object. Indeed, the contract to sign Ohtani away from the Angels was unprecedented (and unmatched by Moreno): $700 million over 10 years.<\/p>\n Dodgers owner Mark Walter helps Shohei Ohtani put on a jersey while introducing him in 2023. <\/p>\n (Wally Skalij\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n The Dodgers\u2019 spending dwarfed that of other teams: They signed seven players to contracts worth more than $2 billion combined in the last six years alone.<\/p>\n When Walter purchased the Lakers for a $10-billion valuation, the storied team was at a crossroads. Megastar LeBron James was nearing the end of his tenure, and the team was not at its Showtime best. But it had swung a blockbuster deal for a new star, Luka Doncic, months earlier, and that, combined with the prospect of the Dodgers owner\u2019s deep pockets, energized the fan base.<\/p>\n Then last month, another stunning sale. And this time the Lakers were being bought by owners with little to no track record of success in pro sports.<\/p>\n Walter did not explain the abrupt sale <\/a>to former Disney boss Bob Iger and venture capitalist Joshua Kushner, who is the brother of President Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner.<\/p>\n But it comes as Walter\u2019s companies face a federal inquiry <\/a>regarding $16 billion to $21 billion<\/a> in undisclosed loans. He has denied any wrongdoing. Walter made a profit off the Lakers deal, and there is speculation he needs the money to address the financial challenges facing his businesses. <\/p>\n \u201cI think he saw an opportunity to sell a team that had appreciated in value by a considerable amount in a short period of time,\u201d Washington University\u2019s Rishe said. <\/p>\n Walter said the Dodgers are not for sale. But it\u2019s unclear whether the free spending will, or can, continue.<\/p>\n And what about the Lakers?<\/p>\n Durbin expects them to be able to reload with star players, even if it means going through a weak transition period. <\/p>\n \u201cTo a certain degree this is cool L.A. drama,\u201d Durbin said. \u201cIt\u2019s like \u2018The Big Lebowski\u2019 \u2014 everybody in Los Angeles gets to fantasize they are whatever they want to be, even when they\u2019re not.\u201d <\/p>\n And for all the boardroom drama, experts say, L.A. sports fans might end up not feeling the upheaval all that much on the court or the field. All the owners spent a lot of money to acquire these gems, and now they just have to show what they can do. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As summer peaked, it felt like a good time to be a Southern California sports fan. The Dodgers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1426,6665,150007,426,1953,48,52,51,1415,10572,47,50,49,63,26269,50957,129,39153,112821,427,72],"class_list":["post-462483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-angels","tag-clippers","tag-daniel-durbin","tag-dodgers","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lakers","tag-league","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mark-walter","tag-moreno","tag-nba","tag-new-era","tag-steve-ballmer","tag-team","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Angels](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789297331_151_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Clippers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789297331_662_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Dodgers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789297331_676_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n