Dodgers’ Dominance Linked to Court-Approved TV Deal, While FIFA’s Infantino Faces Backlash

The Dodgers’ recent acquisition of pitcher Tarik Skubal highlights the franchise’s continued ability to outspend rivals, a situation amplified by a bankruptcy-court-approved local television contract that forces MLB to treat the team’s actual $334 million yearly earnings as only $84 million for revenue-sharing, effectively granting the club a multi-tens-of-millions-dollar advantage each season. The column traces the team’s financial turnaround from the early-2010s, when owner Frank McCourt’s divorce and a voided TV deal left the club cash-strapped, to today’s lucrative arrangement.

MLB owners are now pushing for a salary cap to curb such disparities, while the players’ union seeks a larger share of TV money for smaller markets. In a separate sports-governance story, FIFA president Gianni Infantino abandoned a plan to sell a 20 percent stake in a new commercial subsidiary to investors linked to Thrive Capital after members criticized the move as privatizing the sport and objected to the Kushner connection. The article concludes with a light-hearted review of Apple TV’s pickleball movie “The Dink,” recommending it for a brief watch.