Why the Dodgers Are Good for Baseball — And Why the Red Sox Should Follow Their Lead — With A Solution to MLB’s Cap Problem
By: Chris Felico
As a Red Sox fan, it pains me to admit this: the Los Angeles Dodgers are good for baseball — and the Boston Red Sox are currently bad for it.
The Dodgers operate exactly how a major sports franchise should. They invest in stars, drive national excitement, draw revenue, and continually reinvest that revenue back into the product on the field. They’ve provided the league with a clear model for success: Spend boldly. Win consistently. Grow the sport. Repeat.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox — one of the most iconic brands in American sports — are actively moving in the opposite direction.
The Dodgers: A Competitive Standard
In recent seasons, the Dodgers have had one of the highest payrolls in baseball while also ranking near the top in revenue-to-payroll spent. They use their financial power for baseball. They sign the best players. They keep their fan base engaged. They compete for a championship every single year.
They are living proof that investment drives success and economic growth across the league. That isn’t a problem. That’s a solution.
Yet many people point to teams like the Dodgers as justification for imposing a hard salary cap. That completely misdiagnoses what’s actually wrong with MLB.
The Real Issue: Owners Who Don’t Spend
Baseball doesn’t have a spending problem — it has a not-spending problem.
Too many owners treat their teams like hedge funds rather than sports franchises:
Collect revenue-sharing dollars
Slash payroll
Pocket the profit
Offer fans nothing in return
Teams like the Pirates, A’s, and others have embraced this model for decades, with zero accountability from the league office.
The result? Large portions of the league are non-competitive by design.
The Embarrassing Example in Boston
The Red Sox are one of baseball’s wealthiest organizations, operating in a top-five market with enormous revenue potential. Yet last season they ranked 23rd in revenue-to-payroll spent.
This is not market inequality. This is ownership refusing to reinvest in the product.
Red Sox ownership — who have happily leveraged the team’s brand into a global sports conglomerate — have begun prioritizing profit margins over championships. That hurts not only the fan base, but the sport itself.
A franchise of this magnitude should be pushing the game forward, not sitting out the fight.
MLB Has the System Backwards
In any other franchise business — McDonald’s, Dunkin’, you name it — the parent company enforces floors, not caps. Owners are required to invest in:
Brand upkeep
Product standards
Marketing
Local operations
Why should billion-dollar MLB franchises operate with no minimum investment requirement?
Baseball should introduce:
✅ A spending floor — to ensure every owner funds a competitive product
✅ A soft cap — to prevent reckless imbalance
✅ Penalties for teams below the floor and above soft cap — redistributed to teams investing at the top of the ceiling under the soft cap
This structure rewards ambition and punishes apathy.
Fans Deserve Better
Every fan base — Kansas City to Los Angeles to Boston — deserves to believe their team is trying to win. Small-market excuses are outdated when nearly every MLB owner is a billionaire.
MLB franchises are not private equity holdings. They are public trust brands that depend on consumer passion.
The Dodgers understand that. Too many others — including my Red Sox — do not.
The Bottom Line
If MLB wants sustainable growth and widespread competition, it should stop penalizing the teams that invest — and start penalizing those that don’t.
The Dodgers are building the sport. The Red Sox should be leading that movement. Right now, they are holding it back.
As a Red Sox fan, that’s the most painful part