Dodgers owner Mark Walter: ‘We’ve got to have some parity’

Entering the clubhouse Thursday, Dodgers players were greeted by trophies from the World Series championships they won in 2024 and 2025. In center field, Dodgers fans were greeted by oversized replicas of those trophies, best for taking a selfie.

On social media, the Dodgers released their opening day hype video. Those were the first words: “What’s wrong with being the bad guy?” » At Dodger Stadium, the trending video was a movie trailer with this tagline: “Great sequels build legendary trilogies.” »

To the rest of the country, all this winning and spending makes the Dodgers the bad guys. For more than a year, owners of other major league teams have announced their desire to restrict all such spending, preferably through a salary cap.

How does the Dodgers owner feel?

Does baseball really have a problem?

Sit down, Dodgers fans. One might expect the owner of the Colorado Rockies to say that the revenue disparity between the teams is so great that the competitive balance has been destroyed, and he did.

You might not expect Dodgers owner Mark Walter to say this:

“Here’s what the problem is: Money helps us win. We can’t win all the time. We have to have some parity,” Walter told me.

“So we need to find something that will give us some parity.”

Don’t take this the wrong way: Walter will always want to win. But owners, including Walter, are increasingly united in the belief that income disparity is the primary explanation why a small-market team hasn’t won the World Series in 11 years.

The Dodgers are making more money from Uniqlo naming rights this season than some teams are making from local TV rights and the Dodgers are also making 10 times more from their SportsNet LA deal.

The Dodgers generated an estimated $850 million in revenue last season, according to Forbes. Their opening day opponent, the Arizona Diamondbacks, generated approximately $324 million.

If Walter supported the continuation of a salary cap, owners might be unanimously in favor of it. For the moment, negotiations with the players’ union have not started and the owners have not taken into account the text of the negotiation proposal that they could make. Walter therefore has nothing to approve or reject.

“We’ll have to see what it is,” Walter said.

The players’ union does not dispute the income disparity. The union believes owners should resolve this issue among themselves, sharing more revenue and adding incentives for low-income teams that win. The union also believes that “competitive balance” is a fig leaf for “cost control that increases owners’ profits.”

In the NFL, which has a salary cap, the Kansas City Chiefs or New England Patriots have won the AFC championship in each of the last 15 years.

And even though the Dodgers are the bad guys, they’re not bad for business. The Dodgers occupy five of the top 12 spots on the list of baseball’s best-selling jerseys: Shohei Ohtani at No. 1, Yoshinobu Yamamoto at No. 2, Mookie Betts at No. 5, Freddie Freeman at No. 7 and Kiké Hernandez at No. 12.

The last two World Series, in which the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays, boosted television ratings across the country and around the world. The World Baseball Classic has dominated headlines and social media content in what is usually a sleepy time for baseball.

All that momentum would be in jeopardy if owners shut down the sport in “salary cap or bust” collective bargaining, crossing their fingers that players surrender as soon as they start missing paychecks next spring.

It’s against this backdrop that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts encouraged fans to enjoy this season opener. While a possible armageddon looms in the negotiations for a new collective agreement, who knows when the next season could actually begin?

“I understand that,” Roberts said Thursday, “in the sense that this is where the CBA is at, as far as expiration. And I agree: Enjoy it, because nothing is guaranteed. It’s going to be a great year and I hope everyone puts their morale and their joy into this season, because it’s going to be great. We’ll just see where it takes us after this.”

And if things go south after that, the Dodgers will inevitably be blamed.

“That,” Roberts said with a laugh, “seems like that’s always been the case recently.”

What would Walter say to Dodgers fans concerned that what might be in the best interest of baseball might not be in the best interest of the Dodgers?

“I don’t want to hurt us,” Walter said. “Everything will be fine.”

With whatever happens?

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll be good.”