The Dodgers have become baseball's most hated team. And that's good news for MLB because it needs a strong heel for TV ratings.
By Victor Corona
The Los Angeles Dodgers are the perfect heel for baseball, a sport in desperate need of attention with the younger generations of fans. Every good story needs a good villain, otherwise there’s no reason to care about the good guy, or the sport in this case.
You could say the Houston Astros were a recent heel for MLB after they were caught cheating. But they failed to embrace the scandal, passing on an opportunity to become a highly-watched heel. The Dodgers, on the other hand, have proven this offseason to be the mainstay antagonist the sport of baseball needs.
To take a page from WWE, the role of a heel is to get heat. The Dodgers not only brought the heat, they supplied the fuel that lit the offseason on fire by going out and spending over $1.21 billion on contracts to Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernández, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow.
Going out and spending a billion dollars on the best players isn’t enough to become a great heel. The star-studded Dodgers need to consistently be electric on the mic. Mookie Betts got it started with this memorable line from DodgerFest: “Every game against the Dodgers is going to be the other team's World Series.” Now that’s embracing the heel!
With the money spent and the comments made by Betts, teams and players have made it clear that they’re gunning for the Dodgers this season. For example, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Miles Mikolas said, “We’re not exactly a low payroll team, but you got the Dodgers playing checkbook baseball.” Mikolas’ comment came days before being named the Opening Day starter vs. the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium.
MLB should want the Dodgers to embrace the heel because it’s needed to gain the attention of the younger generations. Putting more eyeballs on the diamond and less on basketball, football and combat sports. Having a prestigious organization like the Dodgers turn heel could be baseball’s version of Hulk Hogan and The Rock turning cheers into boos. Baseball needs the Dodgers to gain boos and viewers.