LOS ANGELES – When Frank McCourt bought the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2004 with his then-wife Jamie at his side, he promised to restore a treasured franchise that hadn’t made the playoffs in seven years and hemorrhaged tens of millions of dollars under its previous owner.

Indeed, the team has gone to the postseason four out of the past seven years. Yet the team’s financial woes have worsened so badly that Major League Baseball has appointed a monitor to oversee the Dodgers, and Jamie McCourt has asked the judge presiding over the couple’s divorce trial to order the sale of the team. That doesn’t even factor in a lawsuit filed by the family of a San Francisco Giants fan who was beaten in a Dodger Stadium parking lot.

Dodgers fans have just recently been getting a taste of the lavish spending the McCourts bestowed upon themselves, using the Dodgers – as one family adviser infamously put it – like their personal credit card.

McCourt, a real estate developer, bought the Dodgers for $430 million using a 24-acre waterfront property in Boston as collateral and obtaining short-term loans. He was described at his divorce trial as being asset-rich and cash-poor.

In order to fund their indulgent lifestyle, the McCourts opted to borrow against Dodgers-related businesses to the tune of at least $108 million between 2004 and 2009, according to documents.

Most notable was the string of real estate purchases they made upon their arrival to Southern California. They bought a pair of homes next to each other near the Playboy Mansion and another two in Malibu at a total cost of more than $70 million.

Burdened by the mortgages as well as improvements – $14 million to rip out tennis courts for an indoor, Olympic-size swimming pool at one of the homes – McCourt has said he took out $60 million (part of the $108 million) on the land around Dodger Stadium to pay down the mortgages.

That debt is apparently due this year.

Among the other expenses listed in court documents the couple incurred: a $225,000 monthly lease of a private jet, $10,000 a month for Jamie McCourt’s hair stylist and tens of thousands of dollars on designer clothing for both of the McCourts.

McCourt still lives at a posh Beverly Hills suite that runs about $30,000 a month.