This is not a sad day for baseball. This is a great day for baseball.
Roki Sasaki, arguably the best young pitcher in the world, is a Dodger. Sasaki announced his decision in an Instagram post Friday.
Fifteen years ago, LeBron James announced his big decision on live television, with these memorable words: “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach.”
This would be the ruin of the NBA, or so the critics whined.
James and Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade? A super team? How would the rest of the league survive, let alone prosper?
Just fine, thank you.
Read more: Dodgers to sign Japanese star Roki Sasaki in yet another free-agency victory for L.A.
Baseball will do just fine too, even with the Dodgers boasting Sasaki and Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández and Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
James did indeed anchor a super team in Miami. In his four years with the Heat, the team made the NBA Finals every year and won two NBA championships.
That’s the goal, but that’s not our point here. Professional teams are in the entertainment business. Success in the entertainment business is simple: Give the people what they want.
In James’ four seasons in Miami, the Heat led the NBA in road attendance every season. When the biggest stars came to town, people wanted to see them.
This season, the Heat rank 20th in road attendance.
The Dodgers are popular every year, but their road attendance last year speaks to the power of Ohtani. In the five non-pandemic seasons preceding last year, the difference in average road attendance between the top-ranked and second-ranked MLB team was no more than 3%.
In 2024, the Dodgers’ average road attendance was 36,253 — 11% more than the runner-up New York Yankees, and all the more impressive since the Dodgers are the only team that does not play road games in Dodger Stadium — the league’s largest stadium.
The last team to draw so well on the road: the 2008 Boston Red Sox — in a year MLB sold 78.6 million tickets, as opposed to 71.3 million last year.
In their first year without Ohtani, the Angels dropped from fifth to dead last in MLB in road attendance.
The Dodgers could rest on their championship laurels (and Ohtani!), but Snell and Sasaki are new attractions. Disneyland regularly entices repeat business…