Hour 1: Melody Gutierrez

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**Michael Kay** (0:37)
And a good afternoon everybody. This is indeed The Michael Kay Show. We thank you for joining us on this Wednesday. It's August 19, 2026 Me and you for two. Those are the rules of engagement. It's the fastest moving two hours in sports talk radio, maybe in the world. We thank you for being a part of it and you're a big part of it simply because of the fact that you are co-host 1-800-919-3776.
If you're watching us, you are watching us on the Espn New York YouTube channel, made possible by our good friends at the Parisman firm and you're listening on the Espn New York app because the Mets right now are on 880 to finish up their series with the Padres. We'll keep you up to date on what's going on in that game, of course. So if you like to consume us and know what's going on, well, we will do it. We will do it because we have a lot of stuff to do. We have a great guest list as well and you should settle in because I'm so fascinated by what's going on with the Lakers and Mark Walters and somebody's doing a good job following it for the athletic is Melody Gutierrez. And we will talk to Melody at 1.3 about how this impacts the NBA and if the Dodgers could be up for sale because from everything that I'm reading, Mark Walter needs to get $20 billion to pay off the loans to his insurers by December 31st. It's awfully hard to get $20 billion.
Now he sold the Lakers for 12.5, but I don't think that's all him. And also he also paid 10 for them. So that essentially is getting him $2.5 billion. He sold his interest in Chelsea FC from the Champions League. That's still not getting him $20 billion. He sells to Dodgers. That's probably going to get him $10 to $15 billion. So I want to talk to Melody about if that is in fact in play.
And there's another thing I'm thinking about.
All we have heard is that the Dodgers do business the way everybody should do business. Everybody could spend like the Dodgers spent. And you read all of these stories. I don't want to get too much into the weeds because it's very, very complicated and very, very wonky. But they are so highly leveraged and their television deal is so highly leveraged where it's kind of like the backing for insurance that he sells to people. Everything is so intertwined and everything is so pushed down the road. Is it a house of cards? Is it like a professional Ponzi scheme? And I do wonder if the owners that got overwhelmed by the Dodgers spending, if they're sitting back and they're just laughing just a little bit.
Okay, everybody should do that. Well, everybody can do that because maybe that's not on the up and up. That's why they're able to do it.
They've got all of this big money, over a billion dollars have to be paid somewhere in the late 2030s, where Mark Walters might not even own the team at that point.
I wonder if somewhere in Tampa, House Dynburn has his hands behind his head laughing. He's getting criticized for having a $330 million payroll, the Dodgers spending crazy money.
And okay, they've won two championships in a row, but did they do it with money that was actually available?
You have to wonder, and if the Dodgers do get sold, you have to wonder, are they going to change the way they're going to do business? Can a team spend the way they've spent, without any regard whatsoever to any kind of payroll, any kind of limit to what they could spend? Even Steve Cohen didn't go past what the Dodgers are spending. Indeed, Steve Cohen personally is worth more than Mark Walters. Now, maybe not more than the entire Guggenheim Partners, but he's worth more, and he didn't even go there. The Dodgers are the only team that went there. The Phillies didn't go there. The Yankees didn't go there. The Mets didn't go there. The Dodgers are the only team that said, well, you know what? We make so much money, let's just spend it. Nobody else makes money?