So the Los Angeles Dodgers are champions of baseball once again, and this time without the asterisk of a COVID season as was the case four years ago. There will actually be a parade through downtown Los Angeles tomorrow and given what I know of the many rabid fans who are bleeding blue all over my social media and the internet itself, I suspect this will be a celebration that will extend long into the cooler months ahead and might just drown out any other discussions about the looming mediocrity from the city’s football, basketball and hockey teams. It might even make the results next week go down just a tad easier.
It’s no secret my heart was with the New York teams that the Dodgers conquered one after the other, and I’ll take a bit of perverse pride in the fact that the team I have stronger allegiance to actually did extend them to a sixth game, unlike the one that literally gave away that opportunity in a meltdown of proportions that even I have rarely experienced (or exhibited). ESPN.com’s Aiden Gonzalez was among the many that summed up exactly how stirring and atypical last night’s game was:
(T)he Los Angeles Dodgers — an exorbitant, star-laden team that spent its season ravaged by injury and was hardened because of it — had clinched a World Series championship in the most fitting way possible.
By overcoming a five-run deficit against one of the best pitchers on the planet. By using seven relievers — one of them (Walker) Buehler, a starter making his first relief appearance in six years — to record 23 outs. By scratching and clawing and using every aspect of the roster to solidify a title that seemed inevitable in January and felt impossible at the start of October.
And truth be told, I’m not overly upset by a Dodgers’ triumph. My dad was a passionate fan of the team when it was based in Brooklyn and he continued his allegiance to his dying day even though he rarely set foot in LA. I know way too many natives of multiple generations whose hearts bleed Dodger blue in a manner that would have made the champion of such loyalty, the legendary manager and media darling Tommy Lasorda proud. I happen to know that because for a while we were technically business colleagues, as was everyone else who was employed by the team.
From 1998-2004, which just happened to align with some of my most significant years as a FOX executive, FOX Entertainment Group owned the Dodgers, and I got the chance to attend many games (plenty against the Mets) in corporate suites where we’d often see Lasorda holding court for anyone who noticed him, which was virtually everyone. One of my direct colleagues was married to the team’s head of marketing, and my team was often were invited to weigh in on perceived media value for campaigns they were looking to push. And because the Dodgers were far and away the most popular team being carried on our flagship FOX Sports Net West, I was frequently involved with corporate projects that looked to leverage the balance of our cable networks’ content with their popularity, including some shotgun marriages involving the likes of a Healthnet-branded physical fitness program that someone actually thought Lasorda should be the spokesperson for.
But for the most part, this was not a successful venture on FOX’s part. The team won only one division championship during its ownership tenure, and that at the tail end when the details on the eventual sale to Frank McCourt were already in progress. They began by trading away its most popular and potentially expensive player, Mike Piazza, for a handful of sub-par players and the rights to control what became its second regional sports network in the state of Florida. They hired the manager of the 1986 Mets, the combative Davey Johnson, about a decade too late, and he promptly lead them to a sub-.500 season 23 games out of first place the same year that Piazza led the Mets back to the playoffs for the first time since that storied 1988 Dodger team ousted them in the National League Championship Series.
And I dare say these were failures that many of my theoretically baseball-savvy colleagues contributed to. They’d only listen half-heartedly to the concerns of Dodger management and would be quick to weigh in with their opinions on talent. They assumed that as management it was their right to help steer them toward the proverbial “FOX attitude” that was omnipervasive at the time. I’d hear these rumblings from many who were invited to share the suites, and a lot of them were far less interested in the games than I was. It was a rare time when I said little and opened my ears.
Contrast all of this with the way these Dodgers are being run. Sure, the Guggenheim group has money, lots of it–even more than FOX did. But for the most part they’ve hired savvy and informed management that combines analytical savvy with faith in those who actually have played the game. They value stability and have reenergized the Dodger brand. Dave Roberts has managed the team since 2016 and now has the best winning percentage of any full-time manager in the team’s history. Stan Kasten has served as president since 2012 as the most baseball-savvy of the Guggenheim team. I crossed paths with Kasten during his tenure with Turner Sports and the Atlanta Braves. He’s the real deal.
These are the folks that collectively made the decisions to invest their billions in the free agent market this past winter that drew the consternation of their rivals. But they did far more than just throw money out like water. They creatively worked with Shohei Ohtani to structure a back-loaded deal that minimized the degree of upfront financial commitment. Ohtani’s presence helped secure Yoshinobu Yamamato signing with the team, therefore assuring that the Dodgers effectively became Japan’s team (a fact proven by the record-breaking audiences these post-season games delivered in that country live during morning time slots). And, oh by the way, they sell a boatload of merch overseas as well.
But it’s not just the superstars and the decision-makers that delivered this title. As Gonzales elaborated, this 2024 team needed an exceptionally deep reserve of other talent to pull this off, and they made full use of it:
The Dodgers navigated through October with a three-man rotation after Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Gavin Stone and Emmet Sheehan all suffered season-ending injuries, but they used an array of bullpen games to continually advance. Throughout the summer, the likes of Betts, Max Muncy, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Brusdar Graterol and Blake Treinen all missed extended time, yet the Dodgers finished with a major-league-best 98 wins. On the night they won their second consecutive World Series game, Shohei Ohtani suffered a subluxation on his left shoulder, yet the Dodgers found a way to win two more.
And they apparently know a lot more about how to effectively run media entities than not just my former FOX friends, but also virtually anyone else still in that business. They ankled from the FOX RSN world long before FOX did to start their own, a defacto spin-off of a venture that Charter/Spectrum had launched with the Kobe Bryant era Lakers. They have none of the encumbrances than so many other teams have with the now twice-rebranded networks now known as FanDuel Sports Network and the questionable association that goes along with the name. And their ratings are darn good, too.
Is there a media company that mirrors this degree of teamwork and now success? Few, if any, are top of mind, given the trajectories of ratings and persistent gutting of vital staffs and experienced leadership we regularly see in our timelines.
A kneejerk counterpoint reaction could be to suggest Netflix, and they arguably come close Their most recent report card gave them accolades not unlike what is being bestowed on the Dodgers this morning. But they aren’t exactly a stable working environment–heck, they just brought in yet another head of advertising just yesterday who is still trying to figure out how to make up a gap of nearly 50 million ad-addressable subscribers that they have relative to Prime Video’s already converted base. How do you take full advantage of your considerable resources to build a love and loyalty that transcends time and other arguably more important priorities in life?
Might I suggest that this person make a trip downtown to tomorrow’s parade and both take out her device and open up notes. Maybe ask a few questions of anyone you see cheering loudy rocking anything in blue. And do what I did in those Dodger Stadium suites. Shut up and listen.
Until next time…