Dodgers co-owner responds to 'ruining baseball' with quote rival fans will hate

The noise suggesting that the Los Angeles Dodgers are ruining baseball was already raucous after they miraculously overcame the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 of the 2025 World Series. Now, they've reached a fever pitch after adding Edwin Díaz's and Kyle Tucker's record-breaking contracts to their books this offseason.

Admittedly, amidst crumbling TV deals and revenue uncertainty for a lot of mid- and small-market teams in the league, any flexing the Dodgers do is going to get some blood boiling. No one likes to see the "bad guys" win, and that's what L.A. has positioned itself as over the past few years as baseball's winningest (and richest) team.

But you can only play the cards you're dealt. Blame the Dodgers all you want, but no one was stopping the Blue Jays or Mets from beating the $240 million contract Tucker signed. Sure, this is a case of the rich getting richer, but they're only doing so by aggressively spending and trying to keep their contention window with Shohei Ohtani pried open.

As such, you can be sure that co-owner Todd Boehly didn't mince words when asked about how his team is "ruining baseball."

Dodgers pushing big-market teams back to MLB's forefront

Underdog stories are great. They're the lifeblood of sports. The teams that make Cinderella runs are the ones that get Hollywood movies and long front-page newspaper features written about them.

Do you know what underdog teams don't get? Eyeballs.

From the perspective of league revenue and general fan interest, Boehly is absolutely right. The 2023 World Series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks averaged a record-low 9.1 million viewers per game. The last two featuring the Dodgers and Yankees (2024) and Dodgers and Blue Jays (2025)? They averaged 15.1 million viewers and 15.5 million viewers, respectively.

In fact, television ratings in the Fall Classic were way down before the Dodgers signed Ohtani and started stampeding their way through the rest of the league.

There are a lot of reasons for that, though perhaps none as prevalent as the fact that fans love to hate-watch dyansties. Think of the Tom Brady-era Patriots or the current Patrick Mahomes-era Chiefs. The Yankees held that role in MLB for a long time, but the 27-time champions have only made one World Series since 2009... when they lost to the Dodgers in 2024.

It's clear that Los Angeles is the league's new Evil Empire, and fans will tune in hoping to see their downfall. Unfortunately for said fans, while nothing is guaranteed until the games on the field are played, it's hard to see such a fantasy become reality now that Díaz and Tucker are in tow to support the core of a budding dynasty.