This season, the Dodgers didn’t just win games — they won the attention economy.

According to SponsorUnited data, the Dodgers currently have 76 sponsors, including 20 Japanese brands. Six of those partnerships — JJTBCorporation, Hakkaisan Brewery, ITO EN, Nikaido Shuzou, Toei Animation, and Tokyo Electron — are new in 2025. With their World Series appearance, we project the Dodgers will become the first professional sports team in North America to surpass $200 million in annual sponsorship revenue — a $30 million increase year-over-year (roughly 17% growth). Their average sponsorship deal size is five times larger than the MLB average, underscoring their global reach and commercial precision.

For brand marketers, this isn’t just a baseball story — it’s a business case. The Dodgers have achieved what every modern brand is striving for: the ability to convert cultural relevance into measurable growth. Shohei Ohtani may have sparked global attention, but what turned that momentum into money was system design.

You might not have a generational athlete driving your brand narrative, but you can use the same principles to uncover white space, engineer partnerships that perform, and scale success with the discipline of a championship team.

Here’s how.

1. Go Where the Audiences Are

The Dodgers didn’t wait for partners to find them — they went to Japan. They met brands in their own markets, built cultural bridges, and turned geographic relevance into global revenue.

For brand marketers, the play is similar: go where your audience already has emotional equity. Use data to pinpoint where your brand has untapped overlap — by region, culture, or consumer behavior. Then, show up there with intent.

Relevance rarely comes to you. The smartest brands identify where attention is growing — and get there first.

2. Turn Partnerships Into Incubators

The Dodgers’ commercial strategy doesn’t treat sponsorships as static contracts; they’re living experiments. Partners get transparency, testing, and shared learning — and in return, deals deepen.

That same mindset applies to brands. Treat your sponsorships like innovation labs: test messaging, creative, or audience targeting. Measure outcomes in real time and optimize with your partner.

When brands and rights holders build learning velocity together, sponsorships evolve from line items to growth engines.

3. Redefine What Success Looks Like

When Ohtani joined, the Dodgers didn’t just raise prices — they rethought their entire model. They analyzed which assets truly created value and sunset those that didn’t.

Marketers should take a similar inventory. Which activations genuinely move your KPIs — awareness, sentiment, conversion — and which just take up space? Benchmark your sponsorships against industry norms to see where you’re outperforming or underinvesting.

Growth doesn’t come from more deals — it comes from better alignment between what you spend and what truly drives brand lift.

4. Operate at the Speed of Culture

The Dodgers’ internal teams — sales, marketing, and operations — move in sync. When opportunity hits, they respond instantly.

For brands, agility is the differentiator. Align your internal teams — brand, media, legal, analytics — around shared cultural and sponsorship goals. The faster you can turn opportunity into activation, the more value you capture before the moment fades.

Cultural timing is currency. Speed and alignment turn it into ROI.

5. Scale What Works

Every time the Dodgers solve a partner problem, they turn it into a repeatable product — a campaign framework, measurement model, or activation template that can scale across industries.

For brand marketers, that’s the same mindset to adopt. When a partnership delivers outsized impact, document it. Codify the approach. Then scale it across regions or verticals.

Consistency compounds. The more you standardize what works, the faster your sponsorship strategy accelerates.

Final Thought

Shohei Ohtani gave the Dodgers attention. Strategy gave them $200 million.

You don’t need a global icon to achieve exponential growth — you need systems that connect cultural relevance to business outcomes. The Dodgers show that the real edge isn’t access, it’s discipline: meeting audiences where they are, testing boldly, moving fast, and scaling what works.

That’s how modern marketers turn sponsorships into compounding engines of brand growth — one season at a time.

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