Mark Walter's panic over Dodgers TV deal could be the real smoking gun

Mark Walter's abrupt sale of the Los Angeles Lakers this month puzzled everyone. Purchasing a controlling interest in the Lakers for $10 billion and then flipping that majority stake about a year later seemed to make little sense. But now that more information has emerged about the federal investigation into Walter's insurance businesses and his reported liquidity crunch, the dots are connecting.

The latest detail in the ongoing saga might be the most eyebrow-raising one yet. According to a newsletter from Puck's John Ourand, Walter spent months attempting to free the Lakers and Los Angeles Dodgers from their local television contracts with Charter Communications in exchange for a lump-sum payout.

Walter's attempts to sell the TV contracts went nowhere, but the fact that he made the effort at all reveals how desperate he is for cash.

Lakers, Dodgers TV deals are wildly lucrative, but Mark Walter still wanted out

The revenue numbers on both deals are humongous, even for a multi-billionaire. These are the type of revenue machines that even the richest men in the world would never think to discard, unless one's liquidity was of urgent and desperate concern.

The Dodgers deal runs through 2038 and is worth approximately $8.35 billion. The Lakers deal runs through 2031 and is worth approximately $3 billion. The two contracts combined represent over half a billion dollars of revenue flowing to the franchises on a yearly basis, which is an absolute killing in an era when many regional sports networks are collapsing.

So again, Walter trying to get out of these deals for a lump sum reveals the kind of financial situation he must be in. After all, the immense future revenue streams that the TV deals represent do nothing to solve a present liquidity crisis, do they?

The aforementioned investigation involves federal scrutiny of up to tens of billions of dollars in related-party loans. Walter has not only sold the Lakers for a $2.5 billion profit, but he's also reportedly exploring selling his stake in Chelsea FC. Suddenly, it's not that shocking that Walter was also trying to dismantle two of the strongest local TV deals in sports in exchange for immediate cash.

Unfortunately for Walter, Charter Communications wasn't seeing eye-to-eye on the plan, per Ourand. The parent company has reportedly been exploring a sale of Spectrum SportsNet to escape the Dodgers rights fee that's become an overly expensive burden. Logically, Charter would only have been interested in entertaining Walter's idea at a deep discount, which is where the talks may have fallen flat.

Through all of this scrambling for cash, Walter has publicly asserted that the Lakers sale was not driven by the federal investigation. He's also said that he does not plan to sell the Dodgers, a franchise that is valued at around $9 billion. Still, it's impossible not to view Walter's attempt to shop such valuable TV deals as the real smoking gun of this entire situation.

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