Checketts Withdraws Dodger Offer

New York sports executive David Checketts said Friday that he has withdrawn his $600 million offer for the Dodgers because owner News Corp. is not interested in selling the related sports channel that was a condition of his bid.

The retreat by Checketts, who had been in negotiations with News Corp. for nearly a year, leaves three suitors for the Dodgers, sources said.

The high bidder at the moment is believed to be Los Angeles real estate tycoon Alan I. Casden, with an offer of as much as $450 million for the team and its stadium. Also bidding for those assets is Tampa Bay Buccaneer owner Malcolm Glazer, whose offer is about $400 million, sources close to the talks said.

Radio entrepreneur Jeffrey Smulyan, the former owner of the Seattle Mariners, put in a bid on behalf of a group of Los Angeles investors, but the proposal is contingent on the sale of six television stations owned by News Corp.’s Fox subsidiary. The Dodgers and the stadium are valued at about $350 million in the offer from Smulyan, who would add the stations, worth another $500 million or more, to his Indianapolis-based media company, Emmis Communications Corp.

News Corp. has been negotiating with some bidders this week after last Friday’s deadline for offers. Major League Baseball has final approval of any candidate who strikes a deal with News Corp.

Sources said that Checketts could be withdrawing from the Dodger auction in part to pursue other baseball teams that he has a better chance of landing.

Checketts would not discuss whether he is in the running for AOL’s three Atlanta teams, the NHL’s Thrashers, the NBA’s Hawks and the baseball Braves, and a related sports channel and local sports arena. But sources say Checketts has offered $450 million for the assets, which the media company is looking to sell to help pay down debt.Checketts was considered a front-runner for the Dodgers earlier this year, but made his deal contingent on a controlling 80% of the Fox Sports Net 2 channel that airs games of the Dodgers, Mighty Ducks and Clippers.

“Everybody knew that my real passion was to own the Dodgers and make it a financially viable entity by owning the channel too,” Checketts said.

Controlling cable distribution is considered essential to offsetting the unprofitable economics of baseball teams that stem from their escalating payrolls. The Dodgers say they lost $40 million last year.

“Though we have negotiated for some time, we were unable to bridge issues related to the purchase of the controlling interest in Fox Sports Net 2,” said Checketts, who formerly ran basketball’s New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden.

The cable channel is one of 13 wholly-owned regional sports channels owned by Fox that together form a national competitor to the Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN.

The channels are considered keys for News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch as he takes on the cable industry with his proposed purchase this week of 34% in DirecTV parent Hughes Electronics Corp.

Cable operators have fought Fox for years over rate increases for sports programming -- sometimes dropping channels in protest. With DirecTV, Murdoch will have his own pay television power base to use as a competitive battering ram in these skirmishes.

For Checketts, the Dodgers are the second team he’s lost in the last year or so. He made a run at the Boston Red Sox, but lacked the financing.