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Murdoch wins Dodgers
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March 12, 1998: 8:25 p.m. ET
O'Malleys sell last family owned baseball team to mogul's Fox Group
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The Los Angeles Dodgers, owned for decades by the O'Malley family, announced a final agreement had been reached Thursday to sell the team to the Fox Group, ending an era of family ownership of major league baseball clubs.
Fox is a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Although the terms of the deal weren't announced, previous estimates put the tab at between $310 million and $350 million -- a record price for a professional sports franchise.
The sale still needs approval by 75 percent of National League owners and a majority of the American League owners. Voting is scheduled for next week in St. Petersburg, Fla.
"The Fox Group is pleased with the opportunity to join the Dodger organization in building on a 40-year tradition in the Los Angeles community," said Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp. and chairman and chief executive officer of the Fox Group.
Fox officials named Dodger Executive Vice President Bob Graziano as the club's president and chief executive officer. Peter O'Malley will become chairman of the board. Graziano has been with the Dodgers for 13 years and becomes the club's 11th president.
In September, Murdoch announced he and the O'Malleys had agreed on a preliminary deal to sell the club.
In early 1997, once the O'Malleys had expressed a desire to relinquish the club, prominent politicians in Brooklyn, N.Y., began a drive to have the team return to what had been its home until 1957. However, those initiatives never materialized.
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