Don’t rain on my championship parade!
Why have fans been accusing the current MLB champions of “ruining” baseball
With a hard-fought victory in an extra-inning Game 7 of the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays, the L.A. Dodgers have become the first MLB team to win back-to-back World Series in 25 years. Unfortunately, their victory has been marred by a series of controversies summed up with one phrase: the Dodgers are ruining baseball.
At the centre of this narrative is the Dodgers’ enormous payroll. The team led the league in spending this past season, with a luxury-tax payroll of US$416.8 million. Their tax bill alone exceeded the total payroll of 13 MLB teams.
The Dodgers also have one of the largest contracts in sports history, with Shohei Ohtani’s contract valued at US$700 million. In fact, the only other two contracts in the entire sporting world worth more belong to Cristiano Ronaldo and fellow MLB superstar Juan Soto.
However, the Dodgers are not the only big spenders in the league. Their World Series opposition, the Blue Jays, sit fifth in the league in total payroll at US$280 million. Their star first baseman, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., under contract for US$500 million, is the third-highest in MLB behind Ohtani and Soto.
Therefore, the complaint is not just that the Dodgers spend too much, it's how they spend.
The Dodgers have over US$1 billion tied up in deferred contracts, meaning they pay later. In fact, US$680 million of Ohtani’s enormous contract exists in deferred payments. Contrasting this with Guerrero Jr.’s US$325 million signing bonus shows the true scale of the Dodgers’ spending habits.
The controversy surrounding the Dodgers' payroll is so profound that it might become the driving force behind an impending MLB lockout. The MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement ends after the 2026 season, and salary cap concerns appear to be taking centre stage.
For those not entrenched in the wonderful world of sport franchise finances, a salary cap is essentially an imposed maximum amount that a team can spend on players’ salaries, though leagues usually include exceptions that allow teams to exceed it.
While the other three major North American sports leagues (NBA, NHL, NFL) have a salary cap, the MLB does not. This essentially means that the teams with the most money can outspend the rest of the league and “buy a championship,” which some argue the Dodgers are doing.
So far, players have generally opposed a salary cap, while owners support implementing one. The players argue that it is the responsibility of smaller market owners to invest more money in their teams and players. Owners view the Dodgers' repeat as a sign that the league needs to implement safeguards for smaller market teams.
Jeffrey Cohen of the Baylor Lariat summed it up best: “While the billionaire owners and millionaire players bicker over where money should go, the fan is the one who suffers.”
However, it is my humble opinion that the notion of the Dodgers ruining baseball is fanciful at best and delusional at worst.
To start, regardless of who you supported, this year’s World Series was electrifying. It featured the longest World Series game of all time and an extra-inning Game 7 with 51 million viewers (the most since 1991). The sport is undeniably as appealing as ever to fans and casuals alike.
Regarding the salary cap, I find it hilarious that in all this debate, the idea of a salary floor has essentially disappeared. A salary floor would ensure that teams spend a reasonable amount on their rosters.
Teams like the White Sox, Angels, Athletics and Rockies are arguably much more responsible for “ruining” the sport, as their owners allow their fans to watch teams that have no hope of competing at the highest level. This becomes relevant especially in North American sports, where leagues don’t regulate the worst teams to a lower league like European soccer.
Lastly, the notion that teams can buy a championship or that baseball is dominated by fewer teams than the other Big Four leagues is flat-out false. Since 2001, only three teams with the highest league payroll have won the World Series: the 2009 Yankees, the 2018 Red Sox and the Dodgers. Competitive imbalance exists everywhere, salary cap or not.
Sure, the last nine World Series have only seen 11 different teams compete. But using that same logic, the last nine Super Bowls have only seen eight different teams, and the NBA faithful remembers the four consecutive years where the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors met in the finals.
So no, the Dodgers are not ruining baseball, and it doesn’t take much to see why.
Just look at the recent history of other sports. Superstar Kevin Durant joined the winningest team in NBA history, which led to the Toronto Raptors pulling off a historic upset just a few years later. The Chiefs were supposed to ruin football, and instead, the Eagles dominated them in the Super Bowl. Manchester City was all but guaranteed to win the Premier League last season, and instead, Mohamed Salah led Liverpool to the finish line late in his career.
Moral of the story: no matter how much a team dominates in the moment, they’ll only be setting up the next big upset.
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