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.

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.

The McCourts owned a $16 million, 13,000 sq ft (1,200 m2) home in Brookline, Massachusetts, that was acquired by John W. Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.

In 2004, McCourt bought the Los Angeles Dodgers for US$430 million from News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's flagship enterprise.

[13] 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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

The settlement was contingent upon Major League Baseball approving a 17-year television contract between the Dodgers and Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket.

[39] 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.

[41] This event occurred shortly after an LA Times report that McCourt had obtained a personal loan from Fox to cover the team's payroll for April and May.

[44] McCourt separately sold the land surrounding the stadium for $150 million to the same group, while maintaining some economic interest in the property.

Also, the new ownership pays $14 million to rent the parking lots surrounding Dodger Stadium from an entity half-owned by McCourt.

The vision for combining the entities was to catalyze the social impact potential of both organizations by creating a bicoastal portfolio of events that promote healthier communities.

[54] On August 29, 2016, McCourt entered exclusive negotiations to purchase the French Ligue 1 club Olympique de Marseille from Margarita Louis-Dreyfus.

[56][57] For the first transfer window in the McCourt era in January 2017, Marseille reinforced the team with the purchase of Dimitri Payet, Patrice Evra, Morgan Sanson and Grégory Sertic, for a total of around €45M.

[58] In an op-ed in newspaper Le Monde, he drew a direct parallel between the opaque centralization of power in both the domains of football and technology, stating that: "We need to think of our institutions not as purely profit-seeking enterprises designed to funnel money and influence to a monopolistic private few, but as part of a larger ecosystem that impacts the public good.

"[59] In 2021, McCourt announced $100 million funding for a non-profit initiative called Project Liberty, with the intention to "construct a new internet infrastructure.

[61] It also included the founding of a "digital governance" institution called McCourt Institute at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and Sciences Po in Paris, to support research on "technology that serves the common good"[8] and public discussions[9] that aim to "influence the direction taken by technology and its players," according to McCourt in an interview with Usbek & Rica.

[71][72] Haugen received funding from Project Liberty for a "Duty of Care" initiative, aimed at studying harms and identifying practices to deter them.

[76] The event was a convening of Unfinished's network partners and speakers that included journalists, technologists, and artists, together with host Baratunde Thurston.

[77] The event included a free public exhibit by artist Refik Anadol, titled "Project Liberty Experience" after the founding initiative of Unfinished.

[81] Entities affiliated with McCourt Partners submitted plans to the City of Los Angeles in 2023 for several apartment complexes in the Chinatown neighborhood adjacent to Dodger Stadium.