{"id":729660,"date":"2026-04-15T12:15:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/729660\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T12:15:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:15:23","slug":"how-popular-are-the-dodgers-even-the-lakers-look-up-at-them-way-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/729660\/","title":{"rendered":"How popular are the Dodgers? Even the Lakers look up at them. Way up."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Dodgers<\/a> are too good, and too rich. If the owners of other major league teams ultimately deem that combination so objectionable that they shut down the sport this winter<\/a> because of it, they will risk a rupture in one of the greatest fan bases in American sports history.<\/p>\n

The four million tickets<\/a> the Dodgers sold last season tells one part of the story. Here is an arguably better one: For decades, the Dodgers and Lakers<\/a> have dominated Los Angeles sports and left every other team far behind in popularity.<\/p>\n

For now, after back-to-back World Series championships<\/a>, the Dodgers have left even the Lakers far behind in popularity, and every other team in town even further behind.<\/p>\n

In a Loyola Marymount survey<\/a> asking Los Angeles County residents to identify their favorite among the 12 pro sports teams within the local media market, nearly half picked the Dodgers.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers\u2019 lead over the Lakers \u2014 43% to 28% \u2014 represented the largest gap between the teams in the nine editions of the survey, first conducted in 2014 by the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The Rams<\/a> ranked third, at 7%, followed by the Kings<\/a> at 5% and the Angels<\/a> at 4%.<\/p>\n

The two women\u2019s teams \u2014 Angel City FC<\/a> and the Sparks<\/a> \u2014 tied for last, each with less than 1% of the vote. Even when the study separated votes by gender, the two women\u2019s teams got less than 1% of the vote from women.<\/p>\n

As recently as 2018, five teams beyond the Dodgers and Lakers \u2014 the Angels, Clippers<\/a>, Galaxy<\/a>, Kings and Rams \u2014 attracted at least 4% of the vote. In this year\u2019s survey, only the Rams did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a big Rams fan,\u201d said Fernando Guerra, the center\u2019s director, \u201cand I still put the Dodgers first.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love all these teams. But, when you have to choose one, it\u2019s the Dodgers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dodgers president Stan Kasten<\/a> pointed to the popularity and excellence of the players, the cherished ballpark and the generational fan support as factors contributing to the top ranking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a lot of good elements but you don\u2019t win, you\u2019re not going to be as high,\u201d Kasten said. \u201cAnd, if you win but you don\u2019t have the other elements, you\u2019re not going to be as high.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, right now, we\u2019re as close as you can be to clicking on all cylinders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the winning, Guerra cited Shohei Ohtani as a driving force behind the Dodgers\u2019 popularity, and not just as a tourist attraction<\/a>, merchandise driver<\/a>, and the foremost product endorser in sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2018, Ohtani\u2019s debut season with the Angels, 8% of fans that identified themselves as Asian picked the Angels as their favorite team and 34% picked the Dodgers \u2014 a terrific showing for the Angels, since the study polls residents in L.A. County, not Orange County.<\/p>\n

That demographic this year: 4% picked the Angels, 47% picked the Dodgers.<\/p>\n

In their 10 years since returning to Los Angeles, the Rams have made seven playoff appearances and two Super Bowl appearances, winning one. All that, and a half-century in their previous run in L.A., and their membership in the most popular sports league in America, and the best they could do was 7%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just tough to break the Lakers\u2019 and Dodgers\u2019 hold,\u201d Guerra said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like we don\u2019t love the Rams or the others. It\u2019s just not your top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers and Dodgers have combined to win 20 championships in Los Angeles. The other 10 teams that call this market home have combined to win 16.<\/p>\n

In the 13 seasons since Mark Walter and Co. bought the Dodgers, the team has won 12 division titles, made five World Series appearances, and won three championships. In the same time, the Lakers have won three division titles, advanced past the first round of the playoffs twice, and won one championship.<\/p>\n

Walter bought a controlling interest in the Lakers last year. He has installed Lon Rosen<\/a>, formerly the Dodgers\u2019 executive vice president and chief marketing officer, as the Lakers\u2019 president of business operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Lakers are winning a lot of championships, they\u2019re No. 1,\u201d Rosen said. \u201cWhen the Dodgers are, they\u2019re No. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good position to be in, since we control both teams, and both teams are highly successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this moment, the Dodgers are highly successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lakers and Dodgers are going to be neck and neck very soon,\u201d Rosen said. \u201cThe Lakers will 100% be champions again soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers do not concede the days of neck and neck will return. Kasten, remember, said the Dodgers were as close as they could be to clicking on all cylinders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t take that for granted,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know we can do even better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dodgers are too good, and too rich. If the owners of other major league teams ultimately deem…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":729661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[2379,1582,276,1441,2442,122137,2961,8604,224,2444,5337,135507,301964,247049,7138,7572,3007,13235,11459,1628],"class_list":["post-729660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-angels","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-championship","tag-dodgers","tag-fernando-guerra","tag-la","tag-lakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-losangeles","tag-neck","tag-other-major-league-team","tag-popularity","tag-rams","tag-study","tag-team","tag-vote","tag-woman","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116408675888300805","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729660","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=729660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}