salary cap

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is being sued by 11 former investors in the sustainability firm Aspiration Partners.

Ballmer was added this week as a defendant in an existing civil lawsuit against Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg and several others associated with the now-defunct company. Ballmer and the other defendants are accused of fraud and aiding and abetting fraud, with the plaintiffs seeking at least $50 million in damages.

“This is an action to recover millions of dollars that Plaintiffs were defrauded into investing, directly or indirectly, in CTN Holdings, Inc. (‘Catona’), previously known as Aspiration Partners, Inc,” reads the lawsuit, which was initially filed July 9 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Central District.

Attorney Skip Miller said his firm, Miller Barondess LLP, filed an amended complaint Monday that added the billionaire team owner and his investment company, Ballmer Group, as defendants in light of recent allegations that a $28-million deal between Aspiration and Clippers star Kawhi Leonard helped the team circumvent the NBA’s salary cap.

“Ballmer was the perfect deep-pocket partner to fund Catona’s flagging operations and lend legitimacy to Catona’s carbon credit business,” says the amended complaint, which has been viewed by The Times. “Since Ballmer had publicly promoted himself as an advocate for sustainability, Catona was an ideal vehicle for Ballmer to secretly circumvent the NBA salary cap while purporting to support the company as a legitimate environmentalist investor.”

Although Ballmer did invest millions in Aspiration, it is not known whether he was aware of or played a role in facilitating the company’s deal with Leonard. The Times reached out to the Clippers for a comment from Ballmer or a team representative but did not receive an immediate response.

CTN Holdings filed for bankruptcy in March and, according to the lawsuit, is no longer in operation.

In late August, Sanberg agreed to plead guilty in federal court to a scheme to defraud investors and lenders of more than $248 million. On Sept. 3, investigative journalist Pablo Torre reported on his podcast that after reviewing numerous documents and conducting interviews with former employees of the now-defunct firm, he did not find evidence of any marketing or endorsement work done by Leonard for the company.

That was news to the plaintiffs, according to their amended lawsuit.

“Ballmer’s purported status as a legitimate investor in Catona was material to Plaintiffs’ decision to invest in and/or keep their investments with Catona,” the complaint states.

It also says that “Sanberg and Ballmer never disclosed to Plaintiffs that the millions of dollars Ballmer injected into Catona were meant to allow Ballmer to funnel compensation to Leonard in violation of NBA rules and keep Catona’s failing business afloat financially. Sanberg and Ballmer’s scheme to pay Leonard through Catona to evade the NBA’s salary cap was only later revealed in 2025, by journalist Pablo Torre.”

Miller said in a statement to The Times: “A lot of people including our clients got hurt badly in this case. This lawsuit is being brought to make them whole for their losses. I look forward to our day in court for justice.”

The NBA announced an investigation into the matter in early September. Speaking at a forum that month hosted by the Sports Business Journal, Ballmer said that he felt “quite confident … that we abided [by] the rules. So, I welcome the investigation that the NBA is doing.”

The Clippers said in a statement at the time: “Neither Mr. Ballmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct related to Aspiration. Any contrary assertion is provably false: The team ended its relationship with Aspiration years ago, during the 2022-23 season, when Aspiration defaulted on its obligations.

“Neither the Clippers nor Mr. Ballmer was aware of any improper activity by Aspiration or its co-founder until after the government instituted its investigation.”

Leonard also has denied being involved in any wrongdoing associated with his deal with the now-defunct firm. Asked about the matter Sept. 29 during Clippers media day to open training camp, Leonard said, “I don’t think it’s accurate” that he provided no endorsement services to the company. He added that he hadn’t been paid all the money due to him from the deal.

TORONTO — Beneath his feet, confetti decorated the turf. Behind him, the video boards congratulated his team on its latest championship.

The Dodgers owner who lives and breathes championships smiled broadly. Magic Johnson always does, of course. This time, he had an impish twinkle in his eye.

“They said we ruined baseball,” Johnson said. “Well, I guess we didn’t.”

If you are not in Los Angeles, you might be screaming in frustration. The team with all the gold makes the rules, and the new rule is that the Dodgers win every year, and now their most famous owner is mocking you?

He is not.

He is, however, issuing a subtle warning to all of baseball’s owners: Don’t let your desperation for a salary cap destroy a sport on the rise — in no small part thanks to the Dodgers.

The NBA was not much more than a minor league 45 years ago. This is crazy to imagine now, but the NBA Finals aired on tape delay, on late-night television, most often at 11:30 p.m. The NBA audience was so small that advertisers would not pay prime-time rates for those commercials, so the games were not broadcast in prime time.

Johnson helped change that. The rivalry between his Lakers and Larry Bird’s Celtics revived the NBA, and then Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls became global sporting icons.

From 1980-88, either the Lakers or the Celtics won the NBA title in every year but one. From 1991-98, the Bulls won six titles.

The Celtics and Lakers and Bulls did not ruin the NBA.

“What the Celtics and Lakers were able to do, and Michael Jordan’s Bulls, was to bring in new fans — fans that were, ‘Oh, I don’t know about the NBA,’” Johnson said, “but the play was so good, and the Celtics and Lakers and Bulls were so dominant, people said, ‘Oh man, I want to watch them.’

“It’s the same thing happening here.”

The NBA leadership could not believe its good fortune. Baseball’s leadership appears intent on lighting its good fortune on fire.

“My phone was blowing up with people who hadn’t watched baseball for a long time,” Johnson said. “They were watching this series.

“This was good for baseball around the world.”

The World Baseball Classic is four months away. The World Series most valuable player, the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto, is from Japan.

So is the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, the closest baseball has ever had to its own Jordan. The Dodgers rescued him from purgatory in Anaheim and surrounded him with a star-studded roster, and now he makes more money from pitching products than pitching baseballs. To the Dodgers, he doubles as an All-Star and cash machine.

The league — and all the owners complaining about the Dodgers and their spending — happily profited from this traveling road show. The Dodgers get the same share of international merchandise and broadcast revenue every other team does.

The Dodgers led the major leagues in road attendance, again. The league sent the Dodgers to Seoul last spring and Tokyo this spring, meaning that, for two years running, they were one of the first two teams to report to spring training and one of the last two playing at season’s end. The league’s television partners rushed to book the Dodgers, even for games at times inconvenient to the team.

“MLB put us in every hard situation you can think about,” infielder Miguel Rojas said. “We never complained. We were trying to come through for the fans, for baseball, and everybody should be recognizing what we are doing.”

With the Blue Jays in the World Series, Canadian ratings for the World Series increased tenfold. The Dodgers did not destroy the Jays. They survived them, and barely at that.

The Dodgers have not ruined competition, despite the spotlight.

“They have a great team,” Toronto infielder Ernie Clement said. “There’s no denying it. They’re one of the best teams probably ever put together, and we’ve taken ‘em to seven games, so that’s got to say something about us.”

Toronto manager John Schneider said his team, which won more games than the Dodgers this season, had chances to sweep the World Series.

“People were calling it David versus Goliath,” Schneider said, shaking his head from side to side. “It’s not even… close.”

The Dodgers make a lot of money, pour the money back into the team, and win. They give the people what they want.

“People want the best,” co-owner Todd Boehly said.

Granted, not every team can spend like the Dodgers. Most cannot, and baseball should be able to find ways to share the wealth without risking its tenuous but growing popularity by locking out players in pursuit of a salary cap.

After all, isn’t a compelling product with stars from home and abroad good for baseball?

“You bet,” controlling owner Mark Walter said. “I think they think so, too.”

It was time to go. The parade was 36 hours away, and Johnson had to rest his throat.

“I’m hoarse,” he said. “I’ve never been hoarse.”

So we’ll leave you with one bit of sports trivia, in response to the mistaken notion that a salary cap assures competitive balance: In the Magic, Bird and Jordan years, the ones that lifted the NBA into popular culture, did the NBA have a salary cap?

It did then. It does now. Onto the quest for a three-peat.

Highlights from the Dodgers’ 5-4 win in 11 innings over the Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series.

If this World Series is going to turn into a food fight about the economics of baseball, Dave Roberts tossed the first meatball.

The Dodgers had just been presented with the National League Championship trophy. Roberts, the Dodgers’ manager, had something to say to a sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium, and to an audience watching on national television.

“They said the Dodgers are ruining baseball,” Roberts hollered. “Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball.”

The Dodgers had just vanquished the Milwaukee Brewers, a team that did everything right, with four starting pitchers whose contracts total $1.35 billion.

The Brewers led the major leagues in victories this year. They have made the playoffs seven times in the past eight years, and yet their previous manager and general manager fled for big cities, in the hope of applying small-market smarts to teams with large-market resources.

The Dodgers will spend half a billion dollars on player payroll and luxury tax payments this year, a figure that the Brewers and other small-market teams might never spend in this lifetime, or the next one.

The Brewers will make about $35 million in local television rights this year. The Dodgers make 10 times that much — and they’ll make more than $500 million per year by the end of their SportsNet LA contract in 2038.

Is revenue disparity a problem for the sport?

The owners say yes. They are expected to push for a salary cap in next year’s collective bargaining negotiations. A cap is anathema to the players’ union. At the All-Star Game, union executive director Tony Clark called a cap “institutionalized collusion.”

The union could say, yes, revenue disparity is the big issue and propose something besides a cap.

But that is not what the union is saying. The union does not agree that revenue disparity is the issue, at least to the extent that the players should participate in solving it. Put another way: Tarik Skubal should not get less than market value in free agency to appease the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

For the most part, the union believes the owners should resolve the issue among themselves.

And the fundamental difference might be this: To most of the owners, the Dodgers’ spending is the big problem, or at least the symptom of a big problem. This was Commissioner Rob Manfred at the owners’ meetings last February: “Do people perceive that the playing field is balanced and fair and/or do people believe that money dictates who wins?”

To the union, the problem is not one of perception. The union believes the problem is that the Dodgers’ spending exposes other owners who would love a salary cap that would give them cover — not to mention cost certainty that could increase profits and franchise values.

“Players across the league show up every day ready to compete and ready to win,” Clark told The Times. “Excuses aren’t tolerated between the lines, and they shouldn’t be accepted outside them either.

“When decision-makers off the field mirror the competitive drive exhibited on it, everybody wins and baseball’s future is limitless. Fans and players alike deserve — and should demand — far more accountability from those to whom much is given.”

Tony Clark, executive director of the MLB Players’ Assn., speaks during a news conference in New York in March 2022.

(Richard Drew / Associated Press)

In its annual estimates, Forbes had the Dodgers’ revenue last season at a league-leading $752 million and the Pirates’ revenue at $326 million. The Pirates turned a profit of $47 million and the Dodgers turned a profit of $21 million, according to those estimates.

The Pirates — and other small-market teams — make more than $100 million each year in their equal split of league revenue (national and international broadcast rights, for instance, and merchandising and licensing) and revenue shared by the Dodgers and other large-market teams. That means the Pirates can cover their player payroll before selling a single ticket, beer, or Primanti sandwich stuffed with meat, cheese and fries.

“The current system is designed so larger markets share massive amounts of revenue with smaller markets to help level the playing field,” Clark said. “Small-market teams have other built-in advantages, and we’ve proposed more in bargaining — and will again.”

The union would be delighted to get a salary floor — that is, a minimum team payroll. The owners would do that if the union agreed to a maximum team payroll — that is, a salary cap.

Whether the owners believe recent and potential future changes — among them a draft lottery, more favorable draft-pick compensation for small-market teams losing free agents, providing additional draft picks for teams that promote prospects sooner and for small-market teams that win — can begin to mitigate revenue disparity is uncertain. Whether the players can condition revenue sharing on team progress also is uncertain.

And, perhaps most critically to owners, the collapse of the cable ecosystem means many teams have lost local television revenue that might not ever bounce completely back, even if Manfred can deliver on his proposed “all teams, all the time, in one place” service.

Whatever the issues might be, fans are not throwing up their hands and walking away. The league sold more tickets this year than in any year since 2017. Almost every week brought an announcement from ESPN, Fox or TNT about a ratings increase, and the league did not complain about the outstanding ratings the Dodgers and New York Yankees attracted in last year’s World Series.

Dodgers fans celebrate after Shohei Ohtani hits the second of his three home runs in Game 4 of the NLCS against the Brewers at Dodger Stadium on Oct. 17.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Payroll is under the control of an owner. Market size is not.

Of the top 15 teams in market size, six made the playoffs. Of the bottom 15 teams in market size, six made the playoffs.

Is that a reasonable exhibition of competitive balance? Would the Dodgers winning the World Series in back-to-back years define competitive imbalance, even if they would become the first team in 25 years to repeat? The only other team currently dedicated to spending like the Dodgers — the New York Mets — has not won the World Series in 39 years.

The Kansas City Chiefs have played in the Super Bowl five times in six years, winning three times. That is because they have Patrick Mahomes, not because the NFL has a salary cap.

In the past three years, the Dodgers are the only team to appear in the final four twice — more diversity than in the final four in the NFL, NBA or NHL, each of which has a salary cap.

The league used to happily distribute information like that. After the winter chants about the Dodgers ruining baseball, the league started talking about how no small-market team had won the World Series in 10 years.

Payroll itself should not define competitive balance, but that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if an owner decides competing with the Dodgers would be no less futile by spending another $25 million on players.

It is premature to count heads now. However, at this point, you wonder whether any team besides the Dodgers and Mets would lobby against the league pursuing a salary cap in negotiations. If the owners really want a salary cap, they need to be prepared to do what the NHL did to get one: shut down the league for an entire season.

We should be talking about the magic of Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts. Instead, on its grandest stage, the talk around baseball will be all about whether its most popular team is ruining the game to the point of depriving us of it come 2027. Well done, everyone.

If you want to watch every Dodgers game in 2026, you’ll likely need access to all of these outlets: SportsNet LA, Fox, ESPN, NBC, Peacock and Apple TV.

That is not, shall we say, fan-friendly.

Baseball’s holy grail is this: One place to watch your team, and every team, wherever you are. One price. No blackouts. No need to decide whether to pay up for a subscription to an outlet you may never watch after the game ends.

Rob Manfred, baseball’s commissioner, does not need to persuade fans about this. He does need to persuade the owners of all 30 teams about this.

Since Manfred would like to have this “All the Teams, All The Time” outlet up and running in 2029, he needs to start lining up votes among the owners. Manfred has talked about this goal for years, and I asked him if he can say this is really going to happen.

“I think that there is a lot of acceptance within the industry that, given what’s happened within the media environment, we need to be more national,” Manfred told me before the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies met Monday at Citizens Bank Park.

“The idea of centralizing, and getting more games available on national platforms, is really appealing to people. Now, we’ve got some cards to play, still. But I remain optimistic that it can happen.”

So does Stan Kasten, the president of the Dodgers.

“We are supportive of the notion of all fans anywhere being able to watch any game, and doing away with blackouts,” Kasten said. “That takes a lot of steps, and every team has a different situation.

“We have a long way to go, but the goal is an admirable one, one I think all fans will benefit from, and that is what is most important.”

This all sounds lovely so far. But the Dodgers are not about to unconditionally surrender what fans outside Los Angeles consider their greatest competitive advantage: money, and lots of it.

The Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers are on course to meet in the National League Championship Series. The Brewers make about $35 million in local television revenue this year, according to Sports Business Journal.

The Dodgers make about 10 times that much in rights fees this year from Charter Communications, the parent company of Spectrum — and that annual rights fee will top $500 million by the end of the Charter contract in 2038. And there’s more: the Dodgers also own SportsNet LA.

If the 30 teams pooled their broadcast rights, Manfred believes they could generate interest not only from traditional outlets but from streamers such as Apple, Peacock, Paramount and Netflix. League officials believe the exclusivity of one package would generate more collective revenue than the combination of 30 individual team deals.

In theory, then, the Brewers would get significantly more than $35 million per year if the teams split the pot evenly. The Dodgers would get less, and probably much less. So would Manfred just lean on the Dodgers to go along for the good of the game?

“I don’t think you can make a change like this based on people saying this is for the good of the game,” Manfred said. “I think you make a change like this by people realizing who the buyers are, what they want to buy, and by packaging up a set of changes that make it kind of closer to an economic wash.”

Meaning cash-neutral for teams like the Dodgers — and the New York teams, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs — still reeling in big bucks amid the collapse of regional sports networks outside large markets?

“Yeah, and there are a whole lot of ways to get there,” Manfred said.

He did not lay out his menu of options, but the first one is clear. Collective bargaining negotiations are scheduled to start next year, with the growing likelihood of a lockout after the 2026 season.

If owners can push through a salary cap — a cap that the players’ union insists will remain — then small-market owners could be guaranteed players would receive a guaranteed but limited percentage of league revenue. That cost certainty, coupled with the potential of increased revenue from a 30-team broadcast package, probably would win over small-market owners.

And that could be critical, because those owners currently make a fair amount of money from revenue sharing, under which teams are assessed a percentage of such money as ticket sales, concession sales and local media revenue. That money is pooled and shared equally for now, but Manfred could offer the Dodgers and other financial behemoths a chance to keep more of — or all of — that money for themselves.

The league also could offer to buy out SportsNet LA and other such channels, meaning more money for the Dodgers. And, although the Dodgers under current ownership do not appear interested in a salary cap, a cap would decrease player spending and thus increase team profits.

A wild card: With Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki and Hyeseong Kim on their roster, the Dodgers could ask for greater revenue from international broadcast rights, which are now shared equally among teams.

Those are a lot of balls for Manfred to juggle. Kasten adamantly declined to say what might work for the Dodgers.

“You’re delving into areas that are way too premature for me to discuss, other than for me to tell you we agree with the goal,” he said. “The goal is a good one, and we hope baseball can get there.”

More details are emerging about a company that allegedly paid Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard millions to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap, including that the team came close in 2021 to granting naming rights for its Inglewood arena to Aspiration Partners.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer nearly granted naming rights to the company, but ended up choosing financial services firm Intuit to grace the $2-billion venue, a source familiar with the matter said. Intuit, which has a $186-billion net worth and developed TurboTax, Credit Karma and QuickBooks, ended up paying a reported $500 million over 23 years for the naming rights.

Four years later, Aspiration, a sustainability firm that also generated and sold carbon credits, is out of business. Co-founder Joseph Sanberg has agreed to plead guilty to defrauding multiple investors and lenders. Listed among creditors in Aspiration’s bankruptcy documents is Leonard, raising questions about whether his $28-million endorsement deal with the company skirted NBA salary cap rules.

One of the investors Sanberg defrauded was Ballmer, listed by Fortune magazine as the sixth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $157 billion. The Clippers owner invested $50 million in Aspiration, which in turn entered into a $330-million sponsorship agreement with the team.

This week, the Athletic reported allegations that Aspiration agreed to pay Leonard $28 million for a job with no responsibilities, in an effort to circumvent the NBA salary cap. Ballmer was interviewed Thursday night by ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and denied involvement in Leonard’s deal with Aspiration, but the NBA has launched an investigation.

Ballmer said he was “conned” by the company and that the Clippers did not circumvent NBA salary cap rules, which the team was accused of doing in a podcast report by Pablo Torre of the Athletic.

A plane flies over the Intuit Dome in Inglewood.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Ballmer told Shelburne that Aspiration offered more than Intuit for dome naming rights, and a Clippers spokesman confirmed that account. However, Ballmer insisted that the Clippers did not violate NBA rules against skirting the salary cap, and the team had agreed to a contract extension with Leonard and the sponsorship deal with Aspiration before the player and the company met.

“We were done with Kawhi, we were done with Aspiration,” Ballmer said. “The deals were all locked and loaded. Then, they did request to be introduced to Kawhi, and under the rules, we can introduce our sponsors to our athletes. We just can’t be involved.”

The Clippers signed Leonard to a four-year, $176-million contract in August 2021 even though he was recovering from a partially torn ACL in his right knee that kept him sidelined the entire 2021-22 season. Ballmer said the sponsorship deal with Aspiration was completed in September 2021 and that the Clippers introduced Leonard to Aspiration two months later.

“As part of our cooperation with the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission, we produced texts and emails,” Ballmer said. “It was part of the document production in their investigation. We even found the email that made the first introduction [between Aspiration and Leonard]. It was early in November.

“Where could any of this circumvention happened? It couldn’t have, it didn’t. The introduction got made and they were off to the races on their own. We weren’t involved.”

The Boston Sports Journal reported that Leonard did not appear in promotional material as other endorsers did because Aspiration executives “saw no brand synergy with Leonard and chose not to use his services. They instead preferred to partner with climate-focused influencers.”

Ballmer couldn’t explain why Leonard did no marketing or endorsement work for Aspiration, telling Shelburne that he never spoke with the player about his deal with the company.

“I don’t know why they did what they did and I don’t know how different it is, I really don’t,” he said. “And, frankly, any speculation would be crazy. These were guys who committed fraud. Look, they conned me. I made an investment in these guys thinking it was on the up-and-up and they conned me. At this stage, I have no ability to predict why they did anything they did.”

The salary cap is a dollar amount that limits what teams can spend on player payroll. The purpose of the cap is to ensure parity, preventing the wealthiest teams from outspending smaller markets to acquire the best players.

Circumventing the cap by paying a player outside of his contract is strictly prohibited. Teams that exceed the cap must pay luxury tax penalties that grow increasingly severe. Revenues from the tax penalties are then distributed in part to smaller-market teams and in part to teams that do not exceed the salary cap.

The NBA said it will investigate the allegations laid out by Torre. Ballmer said he welcomes the probe. If allegations were made against a team other than the Clippers, “I’d want the league to investigate, to take it seriously,” he said.

“We know the rules, and if anything is not clear, we remind ourselves what the rules are. And we make it absolutely clear we will abide by those rules.”

The cap was implemented before the 1984-85 season at a mere $3.6 million. Ten years later, it was $15.9 million, and 10 years after that it had risen to $43.9 million. By the 2014-15 season it was $63.1 million.

The biggest spike came before the 2016-2017 season when it jumped to $94 million because of an influx of revenue from a new nine-year, $24-billion media rights deal with ESPN and TNT.

Salary cap rules negotiated between the NBA and the players’ union are spelled out in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Proven incidents of teams circumventing the cap are few, with a violation by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2000 serving as the most egregious.

The Timberwolves made a secret agreement with free agent and former No. 1 overall draft pick Joe Smith, signing him to a succession of below-market one-year deals in order to enable the team to go over the cap with a huge contract ahead of the 2001-02 season.

The NBA voided his contract, fined the Timberwolves $3.5 million, and stripped them of five first-round draft picks — two of which were later returned. Also, owner Glen Taylor and general manager Kevin McHale were suspended.

Then-NBA commissioner David Stern told the Minnesota Star Tribune at the time: “What was done here was a fraud of major proportions. There were no fewer than five undisclosed contracts tightly tucked away, in the hope that they would never see the light of day. … The magnitude of this offense was shocking.”

According to Article 13 of the CBA, if the Clippers were found to have circumvented the cap, it would be a first offense punishable by a $4.5-million fine, the loss of one first-round draft pick, and voiding of Leonard’s contract. However, the Clippers don’t have a first-round pick until 2027.

A day after Green Bay’s blockbuster acquisition of edge rusher Micah Parsons, a legendary NFL executive was riding an emotional high.

“I feel so good. I’m so excited about it,” said Carmen Policy, who built championship teams with the San Francisco 49ers and is pulling for his son to do the same with the Packers. “I think it’s great that the group up there is willing to think outside the box. I have a lot of faith in what they’re assembling.”

The Packers, with Ed Policy as president, made a stunning move Thursday in acquiring Parsons from the Dallas Cowboys in exchange for first round picks in 2026 and ’27 and three-time Pro Bowler Kenny Clark.

For the elder Policy, the aggressive transaction was reminiscent of the buy-now-pay-later philosophy in 1994 of the 49ers, who went on a big-money shopping spree to collect top-shelf free agents to build their Super Bowl-winning roster. That included plucking star linebacker Ken Norton Jr. from the Cowboys, who had beaten San Francisco in the previous two NFC championships.

In luring talent with lots of guaranteed money on the front end, Carmen Policy and Hall of Fame owner Eddie DeBartolo found a loophole in the salary cap which the NFL had just implemented.

“The salary cap was designed to actually disrupt the 49ers — and the Washington Redskins — but primarily us,” Policy said by phone Friday. “They devised the rules with, ‘How do we change this so the 49ers can’t do it.’ Which, in a way, was a compliment. But what we did was salvage our veteran team and then load up, because we couldn’t tolerate losing to Dallas three times in a row. We knew if we got to the Super Bowl we’d win. It was inexcusable and insufferable.”

The situation isn’t precisely parallel, but Policy sees similar risk taking in the Packers’ move. And not surprisingly, he’s proud of his son who worked his way up from Arena League executive to general counsel of the Packers to team president and chief executive.

“I see him as a much better executive than me,” Carmen Policy said. “I think Ed is really capable of running a public company. He’s smart, he’s disciplined, he’s focused. I would say he’s less inclined to take risks than I was. He’s good with people and he’s patient.

“He’s going to work with his people and give them the leeway they deserve. But ultimately, it has to pencil out in the end. Now we’re hoping, fingers crossed, that this pencils out in the end, meaning a Super Bowl.”

The elder Policy, who later was president and part-owner of the Cleveland Browns, said this transaction is not only good for the Packers but for the NFL as a whole.

“This is a blessing for the league,” he said. “They can point to the smallest market and say this community-owned team without a billionaire owner can still compete with New York, L.A. and Dallas. It speaks so well for competitive balance and how far the league has come.

“And suddenly, you’re not hearing players complain about going to Wisconsin in the winter, as opposed to Manhattan or Manhattan Beach. It puts competitive balance on display.”

If you’re a Dodgers fan, of course, you would love to see the Dodgers win the World Series again. If you’re a baseball fan above all, though, you ought to be pulling for the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Dodgers served as a convenient bogeyman for owners of many other major league teams last winter. To fans pointing a collective finger at the owner of their local team, all too many of those owners pointed a finger in our direction: It’s not us. It’s them.

“The Dodgers are the greatest poster children we could’ve had for how something has to change,” Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort told the Denver Gazette last March.

How, those owners shrugged, can we compete against a team playing in a major market and spending half a billion dollars on a star-studded roster?

The Dodgers are 58-40.

The Brewers play in the smallest market in the major leagues — Sacramento included, Denver definitely included.

The Brewers are 57-40.

This is not about a sprinkling of fairy dust. The Brewers have made the playoffs six times in the past seven years, prospering even beyond the financially motivated departures of star shortstop Willy Adames, Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes and two-time National League reliever of the year Devin Williams, and even after manager Craig Counsell and president of baseball operations David Stearns left for teams in major markets.

“It’s not really an abnormal year,” said designated hitter Christian Yelich, the Brewers’ franchise anchor. “Each year, we’re picked to finish last or second-to-last in our division, regardless of what happened the year before.”

The Brewers cannot pay the going rate for power, so they do not try. Of the free agents signed by Milwaukee last winter, the most expensive one in the lineup for Friday’s victory at Dodger Stadium: outfielder Jake Bauers, signed for $1.4 million. Shortstop Joey Ortiz was obtained in the trade of Burnes; third baseman Caleb Durbin was acquired in the trade of Williams.

The Brewers rank in the bottom 10 in the majors in home runs, but they rank in the top 10 in walks, stolen bases, sacrifice bunts and fewest strikeouts.

Milwaukee’s Caleb Durbin celebrates after hitting a solo home run in the seventh inning of a 2-0 win over the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

“We know what we are,” Yelich said. “We know we’re not going to have a lineup full of guys that hit 30 homers. You’ve got to force stuff to happen sometimes and try to put pressure on the other team and try to manufacture runs any way you can.”

They are one of two teams — the Detroit Tigers are the other — to rank among the top 10 in runs scored and in earned-run average. No NL team has given up fewer runs than the Brewers.

The Dodgers lead the majors in runs scored. In four games against Milwaukee, the Dodgers have scored a total of four runs.

“They can really pitch,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “The ’pen is lights out. They catch it. They play good defense. In totality, they do a good job of preventing runs.”

Whether they can do a good job of deterring a lockout, well, that might be a whole other ballgame.

The collective bargaining agreement expires after next season. The owners have not explicitly stated a salary cap is their goal but, at least the way the players’ union sees it, why else would commissioner Rob Manfred already be talking about a lockout as a means to an end?

At the All-Star Game, union chief Tony Clark blasted the concept of a salary cap.

“This is not about competitive balance,” Clark said. “This is institutionalized collusion.”

A salary cap would provide owners with cost certainty and potential increases in franchise values, not that fans would care much about either. So, to the extent that owners might settle on a talking point in negotiations, what Manfred said at the All-Star Game would be it: “There are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”

If you’re the union, you’ll say MLB has not had a repeat champion in 25 years. If you’re an owner, you’ll say no small-market team has won the World Series in 10 years.

If you’re the union, you’ll say expanded playoffs offer every team the chance to win a wild-card spot and get hot in October, as the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks did two years ago. But, should the Brewers win the World Series this year, owners certainly would call it the exception that proves the rule.

Over the past seven years, the Brewers have made the playoffs as many times as the Yankees have. Yet, for all their success in the regular season, the Brewers have not won a postseason series since 2018.

Baseball has not lost a regular season game to a work stoppage since 1995, the last time the owners pushed hard for a salary cap. They might do so again next year, which would jeopardize the 2027 season, but to argue small markets need a salary cap to win after the team in the smallest market won the World Series might ring hollow.

If the Brewers’ success could derail the potential disaster that would be a work stoppage, America ought to be rooting on The Miz.