{"id":422999,"date":"2026-01-22T14:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T14:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/422999\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T14:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T14:04:08","slug":"dodgers-co-owner-todd-boehly-defends-team-spending-in-davos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/422999\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers Co-Owner Todd Boehly Defends Team Spending in Davos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDAVOS, Switzerland \u2014 Global inequality was a central theme<\/a> at the World Economic Forum this week in Davos, as some of the world\u2019s most powerful people gathered in the Swiss mountain enclave for the annual week-long discussion of global politics, money and technology.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt provided a fitting\u2014if not also ironic\u2014location for Todd Boehly<\/a>, the co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>, to defend his team\u2019s superlative spending. The MLB team ignited baseball fans<\/a> again last week after it signed Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million deal. Tucker was among the priciest free agents of the offseason, and he joined a franchise that has won the last two World Series and currently has both the sport\u2019s highest revenue<\/a> and its largest payroll<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt an event hosted by Sportico adjacent to the forum in Davos, Boehly was asked whether the current economics of baseball were fair, and what it might mean for the sport\u2019s looming labor fight. He started his answer by referencing the free-spending Yankees teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the team\u2019s 27 World Series titles.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe facts are that ultimately you want really big teams that are pulling the league forward,\u201d Boehly said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Dodgers have become a Rorschach test of sorts<\/a> for baseball fans who are growing increasingly frustrated with the sport\u2019s slanted economy. Some see the club\u2019s owners as blowing the top off the sport, flexing their deep pockets to price out all but just a few other rivals. Others believe they are doing what all 29 other owners should\u2014spending to win.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaseball\u2019s growing inequality has also become a central discussion in the sport\u2019s looming labor fight<\/a>. MLB\u2019s current labor accord is up at the end of the upcoming season, and many in management have used the dominance of the sport\u2019s elite as an argument for a salary cap. The MLB players union has unsurprisingly positioned that as an existential red line.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tBoehly, who is the chairman of Eldridge Industries, said baseball was heading into what he called a \u201chealthy\u201d evolution. He also cited \u201cmark-to-market\u201d accounting, an economics principle in which assets and liabilities are re-priced as market conditions change.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDemand for the sport continues to grow, and I think that there\u2019s just going to have to be a little bit of teeth-gnashing about how it moves forward,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I also think that there\u2019s a mark-to-market that\u2019s going to occur. And when those types of situations occur, there\u2019s always a little bit of volatility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBoehly wasn\u2019t the only person at the event to reference the Yankees, baseball\u2019s most valuable team<\/a>, in defense of the Dodgers. Former MLB star Alex Rodriguez<\/a>, now the owner of the NBA\u2019s Timberwolves and WNBA\u2019s Lynx, threw his support behind the baseball team\u2019s owners.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt would be so hypocritical for me to dog the Los Angeles Dodgers when I played for the New York Yankees<\/a>, and we were spending more money than anybody,\u201d Rodriguez said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Boehly and Rodriguez are correct about those dominant Yankees teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the scale has changed slightly. In 2000, when the Yankees won their fourth World Series in five years, the team\u2019s opening day payroll was $92.9 million<\/a>. That was about 65% more than the median salary ($56.2 million) and nearly 6x the sport\u2019s lowest payroll. The Dodgers last season opened the season at about $321 million, roughly equal with the New York Mets. That was more than double the median salary ($152 million) and nearly 5x the lowest-spending team.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Dodgers last year became the first MLB team\u2014and just the fourth sports team around the globe\u2014to earn $1 billion in revenue<\/a>. That number directly informs the team\u2019s spending.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoehly was asked what he considers to be the Dodgers\u2019 budget. His answer: 40% of team revenue.<\/p>\n

\n\t(Boehly\u2019s Eldridge Industries is an investor in Penske Media Corporation, Sportico\u2019s parent company).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAVOS, Switzerland \u2014 Global inequality was a central theme at the World Economic Forum this week in Davos,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[12306,2323,363,369,3956,99,57816],"class_list":["post-422999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-sports","tag-todd-boehly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}