Will Teams State Case Against Dodger Deal?

Speculation has centered on the Atlanta Braves and Chicago Cubs. If opposition arises to Peter O’Malley’s sale of the Dodgers to Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp., the Atlanta and Chicago cable giants are thought to be potential ringleaders.

That may prove to be the case, but a National League owner suggested to this reporter this week that he may be looking in the wrong places.

“There’s a better story in your own neighborhood,” he said.

Own neighborhood?

“According to the tom-toms, Peter’s friends to the north and south are working to undermine the deal,” he said.

The reference was to the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants.

Why would they try to undermine it?

“Competition,” the owner said. “Everyone is scared to death Rupert will throw everything he’s got into the Dodgers and create an uneven playing field. Some clubs could live with that easier than others.

“It would be difficult if you’re in the same neighborhood, but whether anybody will follow [those two clubs] is another matter.”

The Dodgers and Fox are closing in on an agreement in principal, the major league ownership committee having voted unanimously to allow Fox to inspect the Dodger ledgers. The agreement will be sent back to the committee, which will forward it to the executive council, which will make a recommendation to the full ownership. The Dodgers and Fox hope that a vote will be on the agenda for an owners’ meeting Sept. 16-18 in Atlanta, but given the normal pace in these affairs, that may be optimistic.

Ultimately, majority approval by the American League is expected to be a breeze. The three-fourths requirement in the National League, where four clubs could kill it, could be tougher.

What happens if the leagues first approve the radical realignment plan that would totally revamp the AL and NL?

Acting Commissioner Bud Selig said the Dodger vote would still be based on the current alignment.

“We’re confident [the sale] will be approved,” Dodger Vice President Bob Graziano said. “We believe there may be some concern, but not opposition. [That concern] is not dissimilar from other recent sales in which clubs owned by private or small groups were sold to larger corporations.”

The Padres and Giants?

“We’re not trying to undermine anything,” Padre President Larry Lucchino said. “But I think it would be accurate to put the Padres in the undecided category, and we’ve let the Dodgers and Fox know we’re undecided.

“We need more information on the sale and [Murdoch’s] operational philosophy. This is still in the earliest stages. None of us have received any details. I think there’s quite a lot of people in the undecided category.”

Larry Baer, the Giants’ executive vice president and chief operating officer, said there is no bias on the part of his club and no attempt to undermine the deal.

“We don’t sense any organized resistance to the Fox application, but we haven’t seen the application yet,” he said.

“There’s no reason to believe we’ll oppose it, but we haven’t any information. Peter has been a good friend of the Giants and certainly has the right to make the best deal he can make, but we obviously want to know more about it.

“Is the club going to be operated by Fox, by Murdoch? Who’s the principal owner? What’s the philosophy? We’ve met with [Fox Group chairman] Peter Chernin and [Fox Television Chairman] Chase Carey and been impressed. We expect that they’d be responsible operators, but we need more information.”

Given Murdoch’s resources and aggressive business tactics, no recent sale has generated more conversation and concern. Will Michael Milken become club president? Will Fox turn the outfield fences into advertising billboards? Will Murdoch buy every free agent on the market?

None of that is likely to happen. O’Malley is mulling Fox’s offer to remain as club president and said he “would do what’s necessary to help with a smooth transition.” At Fox’s urging, he has given three-year contracts to Vice President Fred Claire and the management team.

Stability and continuity, Fox executives say, are paramount.

However . . .

“Rupert recently said that he’ll spend what he needs to spend to have a quality team, and that wasn’t taken well at all [among owners],” an NL executive said.

“There’s also concern he’ll attempt to do internationally what Ted Turner did [for a time] domestically [with TBS] and that is to put Dodger games on his satellite connections without sharing the revenue.

“Fox is also tied to so many of the clubs through its regional outlets that there’s the opportunity for Rupert to try and influence competitive balance by controlling local revenues. I think there has to be some special covenants in the deal, but at the end of the day I think it will be approved. My sense is that one or two clubs may vote against it, but not four. Besides, the deal has a lot of positives going for it.”

Among them:

* Owners like the idea of using the $350-million sale price as a benchmark.

* They can learn from Murdoch’s business and marketing success, and take advantage of his global connections to expand the game internationally.

* He is already the leading investor in baseball, and they are not about to bite the hand that feeds them.

Fox is paying $565 million for its five-year, over-the-air rights, more than $100 million for national cable rights on FX and Fox Sports Net and many million more for regional contracts. Fox televises a quarter of all big league games.

In San Diego, as expressed by owner John Moores in a recent interview with The Times, there is concern that any increase in the number of games televised by the nearby Dodgers could damage attendance in a limited market.

“Peter has been a good neighbor in that regard, and we want to be sure Fox would continue to be,” Moores said.

A turf war in California? Probably not, but it is an aspect of the sale worth following.