Photo Credit: David Sucsy
Since moving to Los Angeles in 1958, the Dodgers have been a staple of the community that has become a major pastime for Southern California residents. Sunny summer days filled with laughs, Dodger Dogs and beer has had tens of thousands of people showing up to Dodger stadium in herds for decades. High fiving the stranger next to you after a game changing play or heckling the stranger next to you in a fun manner, all have made Dodger games a Southern Californian tradition. With the recent high profile signings, a question has begun to be asked, will the raise in ticket prices, parking and concessions hurt the average Angeleno?
The Dodgers saw success in the late 1950’s, early 1960’s and even in the 80’s after they won five championships from 1958 until 1988. The team began to see a dry streak of championship success and in 2013 the team was sold from Frank McCourt to the Guggenheim Baseball Management Group for a record price at the time of $2.15 billion.
The Guggenheim team has not been shy about shelling out large contracts to the best available talent in an effort to put the best product on the field. With this amount of money spent on players, the management has therefore raised prices on tickets, parking and concessions due to the product being stronger and the market at an all time high when it comes to the love of Dodger baseball.
Baseball is a sport loved by many worldwide, as it is now almost a completely global game that is seeing more and more international players join each season. It is called America’s pastime for a reason as it is such a common thing to talk about with the person next to you on the train or even the stranger at the coffee shop. Given the inflated prices of tickets, attending a game raises the ethical question of whether the Dodgers’ actions are truly benefiting Angelenos.
On one hand it is great to see Angelenos get to see a great product on the field, whether that be in person or on the television screen, but on the other hand it is hard for diehard fans who have been struggling to afford tickets to see something they love. Tickets are reaching prices to where the average family is struggling to attend games like they used to.
Before the Guggenheim Management team purchased the team in 2012 ticket prices were vastly lower. In 2015, the average ticket was $29 and in 2025 the average ticket price is $181. Parking has also increased as it is now $40 for general parking.
Laura Estrada, a lifelong Angeleno and Southern California resident, has grown up attending Dodger games for decades and remembers the days of going to Dodger games with her family as a young child. Whether it be Steve Garvey, Fernando Venezuela or Mike Piazza, Estrada still remembers those sunny California days filled with joy.
Estrada who works in the biomedical field, now has a financially secure life in the suburbs of LA but grew up just outside of Glendale and Burbank attending cheaper Dodger games with her family.
Estrada compared the accessibility for an Angeleno wanting to attend a game “when they were not a winning team or early on in the 80’s, for example you could take a family of four to Dodger heaven and get Dodger Dogs and food for about 100 bucks. Now it’s raised exponentially where ticket prices just to get into the stadium are $125 a person.”
Photo from Apple Maps
When asked if Estrada sees the prices ever lowering anytime soon to help the average Angeleno she does not see it happening for a long time unless something drastic were to change.
“Well the demand is there. The games are sold out, not to mention another factor of that is the resale value of the ticket. So mechanisms such as Stubhub and Ticketmaster resales can create higher prices based on the demand and what people are willing to pay for it,” said Estrada.
A Few Key Signings
A major reason for the raising in prices to attend a game comes from the Dodgers payroll being $379 million in 2025. The Dodgers made one of the biggest signings of all time two years ago when they signed two-way player Shohei Ohtani who is known amongst the league to be the best talent in the league.
Ohtani, 30, is simply the best player in baseball at the moment and is currently playing a style of baseball we have never seen in the modern era. Ohtani signed with the Dodgers for at the time a record amount of money as he signed the dotted line for 10 years and $700 million. Other than the historic annual salary of $70 million the deal also had another historic clause. The contract would be deferred to the backend so that Ohtani would only earn $2 million per season for the first ten years but after the contract ran up he would still continue to make $68 million.
The Dodgers also made another huge splash that offseason signing his World Baseball Classic Japanese teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a large deferred contract for 12 years and $325 million that was a huge move that helped the Dodgers save money in the current state which would later help them save money to sign other star players in future offseason.
Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman was on fire once again this winter as he signed numerous star players using the deferred money “loophole” and the almost unlimited amount of money that the Guggenheim Baseball Management group who owns the Dodgers will allow him to spend. The Dodgers went out and signed stars like Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Tanner Scott while also retaining key players to their World Series run the year prior in guys like Kiké Hernández and Blake Treinen.
How Are The Dodgers Affording This Superteam?
Earlier the Dodgers unlimited spending was mentioned briefly but to truly know how deep the pockets of the Dodgers run you must understand what a salary cap is and how it works. In simple terms a salary cap is a rule that limits the amount of spending a club can use on its roster. Major American sports leagues such as the NFL and NBA both have salary caps in place but the MLB is different as it does not have a salary cap and allows the teams and owners to spend as much money as they desire to put their best product on the field to win as many games as possible.
This does lead to one major problem though as some MLB owners are not willing to spend as much as the others and it leads to a major divide in the payroll on rosters across the league. This can be seen evidently in the 2025 season between the Dodgers and the Athletics. This upcoming season the Dodgers projected payroll is $379 million while the Athletics are projected to spend $74 million.
Sports Agent Brendan Sanders believes that the Dodgers spending is pushing the competitive nature of the game as every other team in the league can do so since there is no current salary cap.
Sanders, who is a Red Sox fan, is far from a Dodgers supporter but believes what the team is doing with its payroll is good for the sport. Oftentimes great teams are held back by cheap ownership and it kills any potential chance of that team creating a dynasty or even winning one championship alone. An example of this can be seen with teams like the Athletics or Mariners who often farm great prospects from their minor league systems but when it is time to pay them for them to be a part of the team long term they trade them for younger prospects and the cycle goes on and on.
Sanders would know this more than many, as even though the Boston Red Sox are far from a small market team in 2020 they traded their former MVP and the face of their franchise Mookie Betts away due to financial reasons and to keep their salary lower. The Red Sox got one big leaguer in Alex Verdugo who stuck around for four years and two other prospects with Connor Wong being the one that has made an impact on the roster. The Red Sox have not done much winning since the trade but on the other hand Mookie Betts has helped the Dodgers win 2 championships, one in 2020 and one in 2024.
Baseball Diamond Image from Suncatcherstudio.com
All player photos from ESPN
“I think the narrative around the allure of the Dodgers and the team’s financial commitment to maximize itself is misguided. Whether the heavily deferred contracts they’ve been signing players to should be allowed is a different conversation, but the team has done nothing in violation of the CBA, and by most metrics gauging interest and participation in baseball, they seem to be good for the sport,” said Sanders.
Sanders has a point as the 2024 World Series that saw two household teams go head to head, the Dodgers and the Yankees, had an average of 15.8 million U.S viewers across all of its Fox platforms. This was a big 67% jump from the 2023 World Series. The big fan bases of Los Angeles and New York showed out on the biggest stage.
Is Deferred Money Fair?
A major factor in the Dodgers building this Avengers like team is by using deferred money in their contracts. Deferred money allows the players to take a pay cut while they are playing for the team they signed the contract with but will get paid a bigger portion of their contract when it is up. This allows teams to sign other players and create great teams as instead of paying someone $20 million this year you can pay them $10 million now and $10 million after the contract.
Sports Journalist William Osborne believes that a minimum payroll amount would help force teams to put out a better product and limit owners from being cheap at times.
“Major League Baseball doesn’t have an overspending problem, it has an underspending problem. What the Miami Marlins are doing with their roster spending is much worse for baseball than what the Dodgers are doing. The Houston Astros are paying more in dead cap than the Marlins are paying their active roster this season. Baseball should make teams pay a higher minimum on their rosters,” said Osborne
HD Sports Podcast w/ William Osborne
How Do MLB Fans Feel About This?
Many still support the league having no salary cap and deferred money being an option. Fans across the league want their team’s owners to spend the money to put a good product on the field so that they can be competitive. Recently in 2020, Steve Cohen bought the Mets and has made numerous moves to try and strengthen their roster including most recently spending the most on one single player ever when he signed Juan Soto for 15 years and $765 million this past offseason.
From the other perspective many fans dislike the approach the Dodgers are taking as they believe it is bringing an unbalance to the league. Fans across the country are scared that big market teams will take over and not allow smaller market teams to compete if this trend continues.
Passionate baseball fan Kobe Mariscal thinks it is bad for baseball that only some of the owners are willing to spend money to help their teams compete.
“I think that it is bad for baseball because most owners don’t invest as much money as the Dodgers do and this isn’t changing anything. Most owners view their team as a way to make money and they don’t care about the product on the field. This isn’t the Dodgers fault, but it has been hurting the competition when one player on the Dodgers makes more than an entire roster,” said Mariscal.
Will Baseball Ever See Change?
It is highly unlikely that a salary cap will ever be implemented into the MLB but some progress has been made of late as the Athletics, who formerly called Oakland home, made the big move to Las Vegas and is currently building a new state of the art stadium near the downtown strip. This is a big move for a franchise who has been known to be historically cheap. Currently two teams not known to spend loads of money are leading the AL west as the Mariners are in first and the Athletics trail them by 3 games and are currently in second.
Angelenos may not have the same cheap Dodger escape that they may have had in the past but steps by the city are being made to try and help with the costly event of attending a game. Union station is currently offering a $8 shuttle to Dodger stadium to limit traffic and also save fans money on the $40 parking. As the years go on it will be interesting to see if the interest is still there for the Dodgers as they keep putting a great product on the field and if the attendance numbers will ever dip due to the average fan not being able to afford to take their families to a day at the park. The Dodgers will continue to chase pennants and championship rings but will they still make room for the average fan who wants to see a game?
