Frank H. McCourt Jr. (born August 14, 1953) is an American business executive and philanthropist. As of 2023, he is the executive chairman and former CEO of McCourt Global, owner of French football club Olympique de Marseille and founder and executive chairman of international non-profit Project Liberty. He was the owner and chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dodger Stadium from 2004 to 2012.
In 2004, he purchased a controlling interest in the Dodgers from Fox Entertainment Group, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Prior to purchasing the Dodgers and moving to Los Angeles, McCourt was a Boston real estate developer, whose family resided in Brookline, Massachusetts.
In 2013, he donated $100 million to establish the McCourt School of Public Policy, the ninth school of Georgetown University. He made a second $100 million gift to Georgetown University in March 2021, for the express purpose of ensuring that "the McCourt School can open its doors more widely and build a pipeline of future public policy leaders that reflects the true diversity of our communities."
In 2016, McCourt entered exclusive negotiations for the takeover of French Ligue 1 football club Olympique Marseille from Russian-born billionaire Margarita Louis-Dreyfus. The negotiations reached completion in October with a press conference officializing the news.
In 2021, he founded the non-profit Project Liberty. The initiative has multiple components which includes the development of the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), the founding of the McCourt Institute with founding academic partners Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and Sciences Po in Paris and a network of partners within the Unfinished network.
In 2023, he transitioned from CEO of McCourt Global to executive chairman and announced Shéhérazade Semsar-de Boisséson, former POLITICO Europe CEO, as McCourt Global's CEO.
On March 12, 2024, McCourt's first book, Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity and Dignity in the Digital Age, was released by Crown Publishing Group.
In 2024, he announced plans to build a consortium to buy TikTok. A year later in May 2025, McCourt said that he and the consortium's other backers remained "on standby" regarding a $20 billion offer to buy the social media platform.
McCourt is the founder and chairman of the Premier Jumping League (PJL), which launched in March 2026. The PJL is a show jumping competition where riders selected on merit will compete against one another in events hosted around the world, including Europe, North America, and the Middle East. McCourt and McCourt Global are backing the PJL's guaranteed $300 million prize pot.
Early years and business background McCourt was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was raised as a Catholic and attended Georgetown University, where he earned an economics degree in 1975. He met his future wife, Jamie Luskin, when they were both freshmen at Georgetown. They married in 1979. The McCourt family has a long association with real estate and construction in the Boston area.
In 1977, McCourt stopped working for his father's road contracting company and founded The McCourt Company, which specialized in the development of major commercial real estate projects. The McCourt Company developed multiple condominiums in Boston, including the first and most notable development, the Union Wharf Condominium on Boston Harbor. McCourt later purchased a 24-acre plot of the Boston Seaport and played a role in the development of what became the South Boston Seaport District.
The McCourt Company headquarters moved to Los Angeles in 2004 in connection with the family relocating to Los Angeles. The McCourts owned a $16 million, home in Brookline, Massachusetts, that was acquired by John W. Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.
Sport investments
Failed Red Sox bid Before buying the Los Angeles Dodgers, McCourt made a bid to buy the Boston Red Sox, planning to build a new stadium on the land he owned and used for parking lots on the South Boston waterfront. Instead, the Red Sox were sold in 2002 to John W. Henry, Tom Werner and Red Sox president Larry Lucchino.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Purchase of the L.A. Dodgers In 2004, McCourt bought the Los Angeles Dodgers for US$430 million from News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's flagship enterprise. McCourt's purchase of the Dodgers was financed mostly by debt.
In 2004, McCourt's South Boston parking lot property was used as collateral for some of the financing to acquire the Dodgers from NewsCorp. Later, the South Boston property was turned over to NewsCorp in exchange for canceling acquisition debt. NewsCorp received approximately $200 million when they re-sold the property to Morgan Stanley and Boston real estate investor John B. Hynes III in 2006.
The Dodgers assets acquired by McCourt included significant real estate assets related to the stadium in Chavez Ravine, including stadium parking lot land. Plans were announced for new real estate developments at Dodger Stadium; however, those plans never came to fruition. One discussed plan was for an NFL stadium and adjacent retail complex. However, after the Boston Herald reported the details of the plan, political pressure forced both the NFL and McCourt to deny that either party was aggressively pursuing the idea.
To offset the purchase, McCourt raised ticket and concession prices every year. By April 2009, the team and its related assets, in which McCourt had invested heavily in improvements, had increased in value to $722 million according to Forbes.
In 2010, the value of the team was estimated at $727 million according to Forbes.
Hiring and firing of Paul DePodesta In 2003, under NewsCorp ownership, the Dodgers' record was 85 wins and 77 losses. Shortly after purchasing the team, McCourt fired then general manager Dan Evans, replacing him with Paul DePodesta. DePodesta is featured (along with Billy Beane) in the book Moneyball, as it discussed their sabermetric-based approach to using statistics to build the Oakland A's. In Los Angeles, DePodesta made a trade in the middle of the 2004 season that sent the Dodgers' starting catcher, Paul Lo Duca, its set-up man, pitcher Guillermo Mota and outfielder Juan Encarnación to the Florida Marlins for the high on-base percentage first baseman Hee-Seop Choi, power pitcher Brad Penny and pitching prospect Bill Murphy, who was in turn flipped with Koyie Hill and Reggie Abercrombie to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Gold Glove center fielder Steve Finley and catcher Brent Mayne. At the time, DePodesta said of Choi: "I think we've acquired one of the better offensive players in the league."
Finley hit 13 home runs for the Dodgers in his two months with the team. Choi batted .161 with no home runs for the Dodgers after the trade, though he walked eleven times in 87 plate appearances. In the playoff loss to St. Louis that season, Penny did not play, Choi had one at bat (hitless) and Dodger catchers were 3-for-10.
In 2004, the Dodgers won the NL West with a record of 93-69, but lost in four games to the St. Louis Cardinals in the Divisional Series. In the offseason, the Dodgers decided not to re-sign Adrián Beltré due to his high contract demands (Beltre finished second in the NL MVP voting and would later sign with Seattle for 5 years/$64 million). DePodesta signed outfielder J. D. Drew for five years at $55 million, sinkerball pitcher Derek Lowe for four years at $36 million, and All-Star second baseman Jeff Kent.
However, the 2005 season, with a record of 71–91, was the Dodgers' second-worst record since moving to Los Angeles, due in part to players' injuries. That offseason, manager Jim Tracy was fired. Soon after Tracy was fired, McCourt fired DePodesta and about a month later, hired Ned Colletti to replace him.
Ned Colletti/Joe Torre era Ned Colletti's first action as GM was the signing of the former Red Sox manager, Grady Little. Colletti then signed several veteran players such as Rafael Furcal, Nomar Garciaparra, Kenny Lofton and Bill Mueller. These players were among those who led the 2006 Dodgers to the NL Wild Card spot, with an 88–74 record. The Dodgers were swept by the New York Mets in the National League Division Series. In the winter of 2006–07 the team signed Juan Pierre, Jason Schmidt, and Luis Gonzalez.
In October 2007, Grady Little resigned and Joe Torre was hired as their new manager. In 2008, with Torre, Ned Colletti signed Andruw Jones, Hiroki Kuroda and Chan Ho Park. During the trade deadline, the Dodgers acquired Manny Ramirez in a trade with the Boston Red Sox.
In 2007, Dr. Charles Steinberg was hired as executive vice president, marketing and public relations, of the Dodgers after working with the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles. In 2009, he was reported to be on his way out and was said to be allied with Jamie McCourt and had lost influence as she did, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
Dodgers' Dream Foundation In 2010, it was revealed that then California Attorney General Jerry Brown was opening an investigation into the Dodgers' charitable foundation, the Dodgers' Dream Foundation. According to tax returns, the charity's chief executive, Howard Sunkin, earned a salary of nearly $400,000 per year, almost a quarter of the foundation's entire budget. Sunkin is a close associate of McCourt and has worked with him during his divorce proceedings. The courts eventually awarded the funds to be repaid, and McCourt personally repaid $100,000.
Divorce proceedings On October 14, 2009, it was announced the McCourts would be separating after nearly 30 years of marriage. While speculation was raised on the impact upon the McCourt family and Dodger ownership, a spokesperson for Jamie McCourt said the following day that "the focus of the Dodgers is on the playoffs and the World Series." Jamie was fired from her position as Dodgers CEO on Thursday, October 22, 2009, the day after the Dodgers were eliminated from the playoffs. She officially filed for divorce shortly thereafter. He has claimed that the divorce has "no bearing on the team whatsoever."
On December 7, 2010, the judge in the divorce case of the McCourts invalidated the post-nuptial marital property agreement ("MPA") that Frank McCourt had claimed provided him with sole ownership of the Dodgers. In the wake of this decision, Frank McCourt's lawyers said that Frank would use other legal avenues to establish his sole ownership of the Dodgers, while Jamie McCourt's lawyers said that Jamie would be confirmed as the co-owner of the team as community property of their marriage. "Dodgers in limbo after judge throws out McCourt property agreement" L.A. Times, December 7, 2010, by Bill Shaikin and Carla Hall
On June 17, 2011, the McCourts reached agreement on a settlement of their divorce. The settlement was contingent upon Major League Baseball approving a 17-year television contract between the Dodgers and Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket. The discussion set aside the Dodgers' ownership issue until a scheduled one-day trial on August 4, whereupon if the judge sided with Frank he would keep the team and pay a settlement fee to Jamie and if the judge sided with her the team would be sold. However, on June 20, baseball rejected the television deal and the settlement agreement fell apart.
On October 17, 2011, the McCourts reached a settlement in their divorce case, whereby Jamie would receive about $130 million and relinquish her claim on the Dodgers. This ended what is widely believed to be the costliest divorce in California history.
Ownership dispute with Major League Baseball: Bankruptcy and sale of the Dodgers