Another Dodgers executive joins Lakers office as crossover continues

The Dodgers have spent the last decade turning “good at baseball” into something bigger: a full-blown Los Angeles machine that prints momentum. Now that machine is bleeding into the Lakers’ building — and if you’re a Dodgers fan, it’s hard not to feel a little proud … and a tiny bit protective.

Lon Rosen, the Dodgers’ executive vice president and chief marketing officer since 2012, is leaving Chavez Ravine to become the Lakers’ president of business operations, replacing longtime Lakers executive Tim Harris, who’s stepping down after 35 years, as the Lakers also lean on Dodgers leaders Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi for guidance in aligning their front office with the Dodgers’ blueprint.

Lon Rosen takes Dodgers polish to the Lakers as another crossover hits

On paper, it’s a business move. Really, it’s another reminder that the Dodgers’ modern era isn’t only about star signings and October drama. It’s about the machine behind it all. 

Rosen’s time with the Dodgers lines up perfectly with the Mark Walter era, when the organization got sharper across the board and turned the brand into something bigger. Partnerships got stronger, the ballpark experience got smoother, the reach got wider, and Dodger Stadium started feeling like the place to be even on a random Tuesday.

Under that Walter/Rosen business umbrella, the Dodgers scaled. They’ve led MLB in attendance every season since 2013, and that kind of rise doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design.

This development confirms what Dodgers fans already suspected. The Walter group doesn’t operate like normal ownership. It’s a portfolio, and Los Angeles is the shared ecosystem. Rosen moving across town is synergy with a capital S. The Lakers and Dodgers are both under the Mark Walter umbrella, and we’re watching the “Dodgers way” get copy-pasted into another iconic franchise that’s clearly gearing up for a new chapter. 

It’s also a quiet compliment to the Dodgers. People don’t poach executives from mediocre operations — unless you’re the Colorado Rockies (hired Paul DePodesta from the Cleveland Browns). They poach from winners. Rosen wasn’t just around for the glow-up; he helped architect it. And the Lakers are hiring him because they want that same modern polish on their side of the street.

There is a small “hey, can we not?” feeling here for Dodgers fans. You can’t love losing any key piece of the adult supervision that helped build this era. But the bigger takeaway is encouraging: the Dodgers have become the kind of organization that exports leadership. That’s what stability looks like.