How does the Dodgers' poor start affect business?

It really doesn't, certainly not over the short-term, given the goodwill generated because none of the new owners are named McCourt. Sports franchises are not like traditional businesses in that their revenue streams are established well in advance of day-today performance. So teams like the Astros and Marlins can keep losing and their owners will still share revenue from other franchises, an arrangement that owners of big-market, big-value teams have to accept. The Dodgers, meanwhile, enjoy predictable revenue streams from TV rights and season ticket sales. Having a poor season might eat into operating income on the edges, but the team's brand is so secure in L.A. that it would take a multiyear plunge for the basic valuation to change appreciably. Even so, the first two months of the season can't be fun for the new owners. From this week's Business Update on KPCC:

Mark Lacter: Deal-making is never a sure thing - Rupert Murdoch certainly discovered that when he bought MySpace in 2005, and then the social media site took a nosedive because of a little outfit called Facebook. There also was the disastrous purchase of AOL by Time Warner, and the even more disastrous purchase of Countrywide Financial by Bank of America.

Steve Julian: Now, to be fair to the Dodgers, it's still early - sort of.

Lacter: Sort of - not just for the season, but for the ownership. And, let's not forget the huge number of injuries the team has faced. Of course, to succeed longer-term (and this is true for any business), you need more than a few breaks - the folks who follow this stuff say the real answer is to develop a strong farm system (as the Dodgers used to have), but that could take several years, and that's not fast enough for the fans who have been without a World Series championship for 25 years. So, for now, they're trying to become competitive by signing the most talented players they can get their hands on. The strategy makes sense, except that it doesn't seem to be working out very well. Money always helps, but it's never enough.

Julian: Let's keep things in perspective: this is just one season. Does it really affect the owners?

Lacter: Frankly, not much. The Dodgers remain an extremely valuable franchise, even if it turns out that the new owners overpaid a little. That's because the purchase has been predicated on the massive amount of money available from television rights - we're talking $7 billion over the next 25 years. Those are the basic terms of a partnership deal between the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable that would go a long way towards recouping what the owners paid for the team. The Dodgers will effectively own the channel carrying the games - that's as of next season. Time Warner Cable figures it won't have to keep renegotiating TV rights deals with the Dodgers every few years, which has been a real problem because the teams keep demanding more money.