Since the Dodgers won the NLCS last year, the whole “they’re ruining baseball” talk has really picked up steam. Even manager Dave Roberts leaned into it, joking publicly, “Before the season started, they said the Dodgers are ruining baseball. Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball.” And by going on to win the World Series, the Dodgers essentially backed up their manager’s words and embraced that label.

Well, a lot of this narrative stems from their financial power and aggressive spending, which only grew louder after they signed Kyle Tucker. Now, former Red Sox second baseman Jeff Frye has taken a jab at the Dodgers as well, though he also pointed out what he sees as the real reason behind their continued dominance.

“Not good! They have an unfair advantage over the rest of the MLB with their TV deal!” Frye shared via X.

Well, offering Kyle Tucker a $60 million AAV is obviously outrageous, and realistically, the Dodgers are the only team that could even think about pulling something like that off. The bigger question is why the Dodgers can take those kinds of risks when other big-market teams hesitate. According to Frye, it all comes down to their regional TV deal.

If you flip through MLB history, the Dodgers have usually played second fiddle to the Yankees. Their 23 World Series appearances are impressive but still well behind New York’s 41. However, it was on the financial side that things really changed.

In 2024, the Dodgers became the first MLB team ever to generate $1 billion in gross revenue!

What makes that even more striking is where the franchise was back in 2012. The Dodgers missed the playoffs again that season, hadn’t been to a World Series since 1988, ranked just 11th in attendance in 2011, and hadn’t cracked the top five in payroll in a decade. Their payroll was only 10th in MLB in 2012.

Everything shifted in 2013 when the Dodgers landed the richest TV deal in baseball history, a 25-year, $8.35 billion agreement! The payroll doubled immediately and has remained in the top three ever since, fueling consistent on-field success. As per Frye, the Dodgers’ unfair advantage starts here!

That success then fed into even more money. The Dodgers have gained significant pricing power with tickets and sponsors, and they continue to lead MLB in attendance, thanks in part to Dodger Stadium being the only ballpark that seats more than 50,000 fans. That massive TV deal gave the Dodgers a financial edge most teams simply don’t have.

The looming question now is what happens if MLB’s national TV deal starts to level the playing field.

The proposed National TV rights could take a toll on the Dodgers

Rob Manfred has been clear that MLB wants to package local and national TV rights together and sell a unified national deal by around 2028, as the NFL and NBA are doing. However, this will directly affect the Dodgers’ regional media deal.

Surely, the Dodgers have one of the most lucrative regional TV deals in sports, paying them hundreds of millions per year well into the next decade. So, surrendering that kind of money isn’t something a team does lightly, even if joining a national rights package could grow the sport overall. While it’s true that Manfred promised a win-win scenario for the top teams. This includes possible revenue sharing, league buyouts of existing networks, or other forms of compensation.

However, replacing the kind of media deals the Dodgers enjoy is surely a tough thing to achieve. And it would be interesting to see how the Dodgers maintain their financial dominance once MLB reaches its goal of national media rights by 2028. But till then, buckle up to witness a few more Tucker-like deals in the league.

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