As a lifetime Dodger fan, the 2024 offseason felt like a fever dream. Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamato, then Shohei Ohtani. Not only was it a flex that the rest of the league simply couldn’t match, but the defer-contracts star players signed allowed the Dodgers to have unlimited financial capital. However, what broke my inner celebration was the European Super League (ESL) fiasco a few years ago that came to my mind
A quick recap: the biggest European soccer clubs tried to break apart from the traditional league structure and form an exclusive league with no relegation and guaranteed revenue. In baseball terms, they wanted to become the MLB.
Fans revolted, crowding the streets and protesting. The attempt to change soccer forever was quickly shut down.
The cultural divergence between Europe and the US fascinated me as I had always accepted the “Franchise” model for what it was. Everything is a business. Even the players say so when they get traded. “It’s just a business at the end of the day.” If a big market team snatches a franchise star away from their home team, we simply shrug and say “That’s capitalism. That’s business.” We don’t see anyone worried about the Dodgers potentially being relegated to Triple-A because that’s not possible. This protects investment and brings in even more.
But is this a healthy model for sports culture?
While the KBO and European soccer leagues are strongly tied to their local communities with lifelong fans, the American sports model prioritizes profitability over sentiment. Formats that allow relegation and promotion are what allow accountability by the teams, while in the US, it’s mostly about whether the team brings in enough revenue to satisfy the investors.
Researching the Dodgers’ billion-dollar spending spree more carefully made me see it as a double-edged sword. Yes, the Dodgers will perform well (It is normal for Tech/Data Integration to be expensive). But there’s a chance the league becomes a caste system with the majority of the teams becoming an NPC in the Dodgers’ story. If we compare sports to society, it’s like extreme wealth concentration and economic polarization. Maybe we’re just cheering for a “Super League” without an official label.