On their way into the clubhouse Thursday, Dodgers players were greeted by the World Series championship trophies they won in 2024 and 2025. In center field, Dodgers fans were greeted by oversize replicas of those trophies, the better for taking a selfie.<\/p>\n
On social media, the Dodgers unveiled their Opening Day hype video<\/a>. These were the first words: \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with being the bad guy?\u201d At Dodger Stadium, the threepeat hype video was a movie trailer with this tag line: \u201cGreat sequels build legendary trilogies.\u201d<\/p>\n To the rest of that country, all that winning and all that spending makes the Dodgers the bad guys. For more than a year, the owners of other major league teams have telegraphed their desire to restrain all that spending, preferably through a salary cap.<\/p>\n How does the owner of the Dodgers feel?<\/p>\n Does baseball truly have a problem?<\/p>\n Sit down, Dodgers fans. You might expect the owner of the Colorado Rockies to say that revenue disparity among teams is so great that competitive balance has been destroyed, and he did<\/a>.<\/p>\n You might not expect Dodgers owner Mark Walter to say this:<\/p>\n \u201dHere\u2019s what the problem is: Money helps us win. We can\u2019t win all the time. We\u2019ve got to have some parity,\u201d Walter told me.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we\u2019ve got to come up with something that will give us some parity.\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t take this the wrong way: Walter will always want to win. But the owners, Walter included, are increasingly united in the belief that revenue disparity is the primary explanation why a small-market team has not won the World Series in 11 years.<\/p>\n The Dodgers are making more money from Uniqlo in naming rights<\/a> this season than some teams are making from local television rights and the Dodgers also are making 10 times as much on their SportsNet LA deal.<\/p>\n The Dodgers generated an estimated $850 million in revenue last season, according to Forbes<\/a>. Their opening day opponent, the Arizona Diamondbacks, generated an estimated $324 million.<\/p>\n If Walter were to support the pursuit of a salary cap, the owners\u2019 vote could be unanimous. For now, negotiations with the players\u2019 union have not started. There is no formal owners\u2019 proposal on the table, so there is nothing for Walter to approve or reject.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll have to see what it is,\u201d Walter said.<\/p>\n The players\u2019 union does not dispute the revenue disparity. The union believes the owners should solve that issue among themselves, by sharing more revenue and adding incentives for lower-revenue teams that win. The union also believes \u201ccompetitive balance\u201d is a fig leaf for \u201ccost control that increases owner profits.\u201d<\/p>\n In the NFL, which has a salary cap, either the Kansas City Chiefs or the New England Patriots has played in the AFC championship in each of the last 15 years.<\/p>\n And, even if the Dodgers are the bad guys, they are not bad for business. The Dodgers hold five of the top 12 spots on baseball\u2019s list of best-selling jerseys<\/a>: Shohei Ohtani at No. 1, Yoshinobu Yamamoto at No. 2, Mookie Betts at No. 5, Freddie Freeman at No. 7 and Kik\u00e9 Hernandez at No. 12.<\/p>\n The last two World Series, in which the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, juiced television ratings<\/a> across the country and around the world. The World Baseball Classic dominated headlines<\/a> and social media content at what is usually a sleepy time for baseball.<\/p>\n All of that momentum would be at risk if owners shut down the sport in \u201csalary cap or bust\u201d collective bargaining, crossing their fingers that players would surrender as soon as they started missing paychecks next spring.<\/p>\n It is against that backdrop that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts encouraged fans to appreciate this season opener. With potential armageddon looming in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, who knows when the next season might actually open?<\/p>\n \u201cI understand that,\u201d Roberts said Thursday, \u201cin the sense of, this is where the CBA is at, as far as the expiration. And I do agree: Enjoy it, because nothing is guaranteed. It\u2019s going to be a great year and I hope everyone pours their spirits and their joy into this season, because it\u2019s going to be a great one. We\u2019ll just figure out where it goes after that.\u201d<\/p>\n And, if it goes haywire after that, the Dodgers inevitably will be blamed.<\/p>\n \u201cThat,\u201d Roberts said with a laugh, \u201cseems like it\u2019s always been the case recently.\u201d<\/p>\n What would Walter tell Dodgers fans concerned that what might be in the best interest of baseball might not be in the best interest of the Dodgers?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to hurt us,\u201d Walter said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n With whatever happens?<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On their way into the clubhouse Thursday, Dodgers players were greeted by the World Series championship trophies they…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":684371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[211106,591,9958,52484,287337,1266,471,46750,287338,52483,62,3007,6620,15742,67,132,68,287336,287339,1628],"class_list":["post-684370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-bad-guy","tag-baseball","tag-country","tag-dodgers-fan","tag-dodgers-player","tag-mlb","tag-no","tag-owner","tag-revenue-disparity","tag-salary-cap","tag-sports","tag-team","tag-time","tag-union","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-walter","tag-world-series-championship-trophy","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116298413908078331","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}