Dodgers News: Kasten Goes In Depth About Dodgers’ Prospects & the Business of Baseball

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers’ president and CEO, Stan Kasten, went long with CNBC on everything from injuries to RSNs to why seven- and eight-year-olds are the best proof baseball is not too complicated. The tone was steady. Practical. Grateful. He kept returning to the same pillars: fans, health, and adapting as the game and media shift.

“It’s like every year we’re with the Dodgers, so every year is great,” Kasten said to start. “We’re blessed with the passionate and loyal support of an extraordinary fan base in 100 ways, and it’s because of that support that we’re able to continue to put a product on the field and in the community and at the stadium that works for all of our fans.”

“No season ever does” go as expected, he added. “We had more injuries than we ever could have forecast. We also have guys coming back at a time that is convenient, at a time that works, because it seems like we’re going to be in a good place getting into October. You can’t predict anything about sports, certainly not about an entire 162-game season.”

Attendance told its own story. “We’re going to get to four million people for the first time in the history of the Dodgers,” Kasten said. “If that’s any indication of how much our fans are supporting us, we really welcome that.”

On roster construction and the never-ending search for innings, Kasten smiled at the familiar paradox. “It’s a truism in baseball, pitchers break. If you told me at the start of the year I’ve got five starters, I would tell you great. I only need five more, and then I have a chance,” he said. “That’s just the nature of the sport. One hundred sixty-two games is a lot of pitching that has to survive an entire season. The way it worked out, we’re going to get to October with a really good, deep, healthy staff, but it took all of those bodies to get us here.”

He contrasted eras to explain why workloads feel different. “Two generations ago, batters went into the box and swung at the first or second pitch. We had fewer strikeouts,” he said. “The game is different now. We teach batters to grind an at-bat, to wear the pitcher down. Because of that, we now have pitchers come out of the bullpen, all of whom are throwing 98 plus. It’s a new game, and we have new players playing it in that new way. We have evolved the way the game has.”

Health sits at the center of that evolution. “Is it good for the game to have 10 pitchers on the IL at a given time? That’s not good for the game or for the pitchers,” Kasten said. “But the game has never been stronger and healthier, so that’s what’s most important. We’ve never had more attendance throughout our sport. We’ve never had more viewers across all of our platforms. The business of this sport is really good. We have to figure out the health aspect. It’s a concern to teams, to the union and the league, and to our fans. We’re doing a lot of work on that. We have not figured it out yet.”

Are there rule changes that might help? “We’re expanding our research into all of those areas,” he said. “One of the small rule changes, which is not specifically about health, was limiting relief pitchers or requiring three batters. That was a little thing at the fringes. We can do more once we conclude what the problems are, and there’s still a lot of disagreement, even in the medical community, about what can be done or what the problem is.”

He referenced a familiar text on pitcher health to underline the uncertainty. “Jeff Passan wrote a book called The Arm. What I took away is that we don’t know. All that we know, we still don’t know,” Kasten said. “That’s the state of our intelligence on that subject right now.”

Labor talk remained off limits. “No one ever wants the game to be held up,” he said to a generic question about lockouts. “We thrive, everyone, fans, teams, players, by having the games played. That’s what everyone wants to have happen in the future.”

On local media money, Kasten acknowledged the league-wide turbulence but said the Dodgers’ setup is sound. “Every team in every city has its own unique positives and challenges,” he said. “For us, the TV situation is a healthy one going forward. Other cities have a real problem right now. We’re dealing with it the best way we can. Our situation is a good, healthy one. We have other challenges that other teams don’t have.”

He even found a sunny gag. “I’ve been in cities where, when you roll out the tarp, you’ve got a giant sponsor who pays good money,” he said. “We can’t get a sponsor because we don’t have a tarp ever rolled out here because of all the sunshine.” Then the serious part. “We’re a big city with a lot of competition. We have the pressure, self-imposed, of having to deliver for this fan base that has been so loyal for over 60 years. We’re the Dodgers. We should contend every year.”

Looking toward 2028 and possible nationalized local rights, Kasten said the principle is clear even if the model is not. “Those ideas are really good ideas and could spell a terrific new era when the day comes that there aren’t blackouts, when everyone can see every game they want,” he said. “I don’t know exactly how it’s going to play out for every individual team, including ours, but we endorse those goals.”

As for streaming flexibility like the Yankees’ Amazon deal, he explained the Dodgers’ guardrails. “We would not be able to do that because we have a great partnership with Charter and with Major League Baseball,” he said. “Both of them have rules and rights. We’ll work alongside both to get the best thing for our customers and our fans.”

Media shifts never stop, so the club will keep adjusting. “Delivery modes change every 25 years,” Kasten said, relaying an old Ted Turner line. “First telegraph, then newspaper, then radio, then TV and cable, and now streaming. We have the content, and whoever’s controlling the content will find the best way to maximize its value in delivering it to fans, whatever the next platform is.”

He credits recent rules for lifting pace and ratings. “The pitch clock was really just returning to an era when players didn’t always step out of the box for 30 seconds between pitches,” he said. “By cutting 30 minutes or more off the average game time, it’s been great for everyone. Great for broadcasts, great for teams, and really great for fans.”

Shohei Ohtani came up, of course. “There are many numbers, none of which I will share,” Kasten said when asked to quantify the business impact. “All I can say is it exceeded everything we anticipated, and we anticipated a lot. It has increased our revenues, ticketing, sponsorships. We have a lot of new sponsors that weren’t candidates a few years ago because we have a lot of international sponsors.”

The halo extends well beyond Los Angeles. “The impact it has had for Major League Baseball, the combination of the Dodgers’ legacy and the popularity of the most global player right now, has really propelled interest in our game domestically and around the world,” he said. “We’ve had our eye on greater internationalization for a decade or two. This gives us a leg up on the next thing we can do.”

Kasten said the club learned even more about Ohtani after the translator scandal. “Once that wall came down, we realized what a funny guy he is, what a fun guy he is, what a cooperative guy he is, what a great teammate he is,” he said. “There’s not a player on our team who doesn’t love him as a teammate. No one works harder. We were going to sign him anyway because of what he does on the field, but we’ve learned all of that since, and it’s been fantastic.”

International scouting will only grow. “It’s more reinforcement that there’s quality in Asian countries, particularly in Japan and Korea, also in Taiwan,” Kasten said. “We’re spending more time and resources because all of us in baseball are looking for the next best thing.”

He expects the pipeline to widen globally. “That day is coming,” he said of major leaguers emerging from Europe or even the Indian subcontinent. “I don’t know when. With increasing globalization and exposure of our game around the world will come the next wave of players. That’ll be a great day.”

Baseball’s rules are not the barrier some think, he argued. “Seven- and eight-year-olds seem to do just fine in this country,” he said. “Our game is three outs, three strikes, four balls, nine innings. We need to make sure every seven- and eight-year-old is exposed to baseball, and that’s why it’s so important we get even more exposure across every platform.”

On in-park experience, the mission is steady improvement. “We’re never going to be a new stadium. We’re 60 plus years old,” he said. “But we can make it a 21st-century, amenity-filled experience, and that’s what we have tried to do. We’re going to have more fans this year than we’ve ever had before. That is a vote of confidence that our fans continue to express in us.”

And yes, the Dodgers can learn from a viral barnstorming act. “We can learn from everyone,” Kasten said when asked about the Savannah Bananas. “We would agree with their bedrock proposition of let’s always keep the interests of the fans in mind. We try to do it in our own way, but we’re very excited to watch the Bananas experience. We can always learn from competitors how to do things better.”

One last league-wide topic drew a simple appraisal. “Rob [Manfred] has had a lot of challenges,” Kasten said. “COVID could have erased our entire season, and yet we came through that. We’ve had labor things. We’ve had the dislocation of the TV thing. He led us through all of those.”

From start to finish, Kasten kept the focus on the same north star. “Fans first,” he said in so many words, again and again. “Put a product on the field, in the community, and in the stadium that works for all of our fans.”

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