Jamie McCourt

Jamie D. Luskin McCourt

• School Georgetown University, University of Maryland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Born December 5, 1953 in Baltimore, MD USA

Biographical Information

Jamie McCourt was co-owner and a senior executive for the Los Angeles Dodgers during the period when her husband, Frank McCourt, was the team's principal owner. She was named Vice-Chairman of the team when it was purchased in 2004, then was promoted to President in 2005 and Chief Executive Officer in 2009. However, late in 2009, the couple separated and began to go through an acrimonious divorce that eventually forced the sale of the team through a bidding process supervised by a bankruptcy judge. Shortly prior to the team's sale, she had reached a divorce settlement with Frank McCourt whose terms were kept secret but were generally believed to make it the costliest divorce in the history of California. She tried to have the agreement nullified after the team's sale in 2012 when the price obtained by her former husband was much higher than any previous estimate, including the valuation which had been used to reach the divorce settlement.

The daughter of a wealthy owner of a chain of appliance stores, she studied French at Georgetown University and then law at the University of Maryland and later business at MIT. She married real estate developer Frank McCourt in 1979 and worked as a practicing attorney in Boston, MA for a number of years, until relocating to Los Angeles, CA with her husband when he purchased the Dodgers in 2004. She has served as an adjunct professor at UCLA.

The ownership tenure of the McCourts was a rocky one, particularly after Jamie filed for divorce, as the highly indebted Frank had difficulty making payments when faced with a looming huge divorce settlement. Major League Baseball had to step in to ensure that the team's assets were not used to prop up the personal finances of its owners, and to prevent the signing of a long-term television deal with Fox Sports that would have given the McCourts financial breathing room - at the detriment of the longer-term interests of the team and its fans. In addition to vetoing the proposed television deal, Commissioner Bud Selig named a temporary administrator to ensure that the club met its financial obligations, as it came close to missing payroll.

After the divorce, Jamie McCourt worked as a real estate developer. She was an ardent fundraiser for Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016 and as a result, the following year, was nominated to be the United States' Ambassador to Belgium. However, Trump's team turned around shortly after that and withdrew her nomination, designating her instead as the United States Ambassador to France and Monaco in August of 2017, one of the most prestigious assignments in the entire U.S. foreign service.

Further Reading

• A.J. Perez: "Ex-Dodgers owner Jamie McCourt up for ambassadorship to France after switch from Belgium", USA Today Sports, August 3, 2017. [1]