Rooted in a legacy that began with the founding of the original John McCourt Company in 1893 as a construction business in Boston, McCourt Global’s (MG) history is a story of perseverance and invention. It is the story of a family business that built a city; that transformed itself to serve a nation; that forged the human connections upon which communities thrive; and that never lost its commitment to visionary global leadership.
Today, across real estate, sports & media, technology, finance and social impact, MG is creating cutting-edge ideas and infrastructure to reshape our society and enhance our world. Led by fifth-generation builder and civic entrepreneur Frank McCourt alongside an international executive team, MG is dedicated to exceptional projects and, in the grand spirit of the American Project, is committed to delivering a better future.
Our 130-year commitment to civic leadership and financial results continues to drive MG today in projects around the world. We are still creating innovative products, transforming spaces, and elevating communities. We are still looking out at the horizon and imagining new opportunities. Like those who came before us, we are still taking the high road and the long view – advancing the promise of our extraordinary past and building a bold new future.
Our History
The story of McCourt Global begins with family.
When the McCourts emigrated from Ireland to Boston in the mid-1800s, they brought with them a strong work ethic and a rock-solid faith in the American Dream. After working his way up from the bottom at the Boston Gas Light Company, John McCourt launched the John McCourt Company in 1893 — and, in the decades that followed, built something lasting: a construction business that would be passed down through the generations. The roads, highways, and airports the company built – and, eventually, new telecom and utility networks – became a part of the city’s character and a staple of the region’s infrastructure.
New generations of McCourts expanded and diversified the company, but they always stayed true to the family’s code of duty and innovation and kept a keen eye toward the future. They instilled in successive generations a sense of social justice, imparting lessons about respect, understanding, and integrity that infused the ethos of the family business. By the time Frank – one of seven siblings – was born, his grandfather was a part-owner of the Boston Braves baseball team and had helped establish the Jimmy Fund, the first organization to raise funds for children’s cancer research. The McCourt family was part of the fabric of Boston.
When Frank left his great-grandfather’s 80-year-old construction business in the 1970’s to launch his own real estate development firm, The McCourt Company, he brought that legacy with him – along with a sense of civic responsibility and a deep connection to the community. Although he was driven by a bias to act and an eagerness to create positive change, those deep-seated values instilled an understanding that if his projects were to serve people they had to be built on strong, lasting foundations and enhance the public realm.
As his familial predecessors had done in the previous century, Frank quickly made an indelible impact, working with Boston’s leaders and city officials to create what would become the Seaport — an ambitious, groundbreaking vision that transformed abandoned waterfront railyards into a thriving, new city landscape. As The McCourt Company grew and changed its name to McCourt Global, it built a portfolio of innovative development projects across and beyond the United States, from New York to London.
An example of this is the Aerial Rapid Transit project in Los Angeles, a cutting-edge and environmentally friendly urban gondola that MG donated in 2023 to Zero-Emission Transportation (ZET), a local subsidiary nonprofit of Climate Resolve. This unique transit solution presented an opportunity to partner with public officials and community stakeholders to contribute to the region’s aggressive climate goals and promote sustainability through innovative, zero-emission mobility technology. Consistently, MG has strived to expand the thinking around what spaces can become — by confronting preconceptions, connecting with a community’s history, and building a new future.
Frank knew from his family’s history and from his upbringing in Boston how sports can bring a community together. In 2004, Frank acquired the Los Angeles Dodgers – and, under his stewardship, the team achieved a victory in the playoffs for the first time in 16 years and made back-to-back appearances in the National League Championship Series for the first time in over 30 years. MG enhanced the team’s infrastructure with a cutting-edge spring training complex in Arizona and a state-of-the-art renovation of Dodger Stadium; launched ThinkCure, modeled after the Jimmy Fund, to raise funds for cancer research; and led the Dodger Dream Foundation by committing to build 50 “Dodger Dreamfields” where kids could play baseball across Greater Los Angeles.
In 2012, Frank sold the Dodgers for $2.2 billion — at the time, the largest sale of a professional sports team in history – and secured a commitment from the new owners to continue the Dreamfield initiative. To date, 60 Dreamfields have been created to serve children across the region and the owners have pledged to complete 75 fields by 2033 – the 75th anniversary of the Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles.
This commitment to sports and the people it brings together did not end there. In 2016, Frank purchased the legendary French football club Olympique de Marseille (OM). Becoming a steward of this great, pedigreed, historic club held much meaning to Frank. As with the thread of family history woven throughout much of his career the connection between his roots and Marseille was strong. During WWII, while his grandfather was building military airports and bases for the U.S. throughout New England – Frank’s father, a U.S. Army serviceman fighting for his country in Europe, had landed in Marseille. Another strong connection that resonated clearly with Frank were the similarities he found between Marseille and the Boston he knew so well. As in Boston, where sports live in the very DNA of the city and its people, OM lives in the very heart of Marseille. In both cities, the passion of the fan base is unparalleled – encompassing much of the spirit of the nations they represent.
OM played in its first Europa League final in 14 years in its second season under McCourt’s direction and returned to football’s biggest stage, the UEFA Champions League, in 2020, and again in 2022. When isolation due to COVID-19 led to an increase in domestic violence in Marseille, OM opened the living spaces at its training center to women and children who were victims of abuse. In their stewardship of iconic teams and international competitions, from the Los Angeles Marathon to the Global Champions Tour, Frank and MG have recognized that sports offer a vehicle for positive change and an opportunity to rally individuals around something much larger than themselves. This sense of shared community and shared experience has been a common thread throughout Frank’s life and an animating force stitched into MG’s DNA. In Boston, for over a decade Frank was deeply involved in the South Boston Neighborhood House, which offers services to children, families, and seniors in South Boston. And in New York City, he played a central role in establishing The Shed – a new cutting-edge cultural institution and performance center in Hudson Yards. A longtime member of Georgetown University’s Board of Directors, Frank helped launch Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy in 2013, endowing it with a donation of $100 million. In 2021, he contributed an additional $100 million, putting the school on a path to become tuition-free. In 2021, in what is arguably his boldest and most important “infrastructure” initiative, Frank publicly launched Project Liberty, a global, multistakeholder nonprofit effort to rebuild the internet, prioritizing people over platforms. The project seeks to reverse the immense harm done to human lives by a small group of enormously powerful social media platforms, protect people’s data and restore human agency to the lives they lead online. It brings together academic partners and collaborators, including Georgetown, Sciences-Po, Stanford, MIT, and Harvard; technologists; corporate leaders; and policymakers to design and build a new civic architecture for this digital age.
As immigrants to the United States, members of the McCourt family have always viewed themselves as part of the American Project — beneficiaries of its opportunities and contributors to its legacy. Today, with Frank McCourt as Executive Chairman and a dedicated executive team, MG operates with that same unbreakable sense of responsibility, with a recognition of our place in history and a commitment to civic life. More than 130 years after the original John McCourt Company was founded, we are focused on what has inspired our organization’s work from the very beginning: taking the high road and the long view to build a better future.