A billionaire completes a spectacular takeover of one of the world’s most cherished sporting institutions and immediately goes on a lavish, jawbone-loosening spending spree. New signings pile up like presents under the Christmas tree. Debts spiral into the hundreds of millions, piquing the ire and envy of their rivals. But on its own terms, it works: success is duly bought, the people placated, the sport gently bent to its will.
This is the story of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team under Todd Boehly and his business partners and, for all the sense of cataclysm and upheaval surrounding Chelsea of late, what is most striking of all is what hasn’t changed. Results on the pitch have largely been maintained: the same players and the same coach playing roughly the same level of football in front of roughly the same people. Third place and Champions League football next season were secured. And now one ambitious tycoon has simply been replaced by another.
