“If it was easy, it would’ve been done long ago.”
Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten wasn’t describing the goal of winning back-to-back World Series titles, something the club is aiming to do for the first time ever this October.
Rather, he was referencing a different franchise first. In their final home game of the regular season, the Dodgers passed 4 million in season attendance for the first time in team history and became the first Major League Baseball team to reach the mark in 17 years.
And those big crowds will serve the Dodgers well as their postseason journey begins Tuesday in the NL wild-card series against the Reds.
“We talked before the season started. If ever there was a year we had a chance to do it, this would be the year,” Kasten said. “We thought if things fell our way we could get there, and I’m very proud that we did because it’s really hard.”
Coming off a World Series title and another winter of massive spending, and with reigning MVP Shohei Ohtani returning to his two-way duties, the Dodgers became the first team to draw 4 million fans to their stadium since 2008, when the Mets and Yankees both did it in their final seasons at Shea Stadium and the old Yankee Stadium, respectively.
That atmosphere helped them go 52-29 at home this season, tied for the second-best mark in the National League. Since 2021, their .672 winning percentage at home is the best mark in the majors. The Phillies (.622) are the only other team with a home winning percentage above .600 in that time.
With a capacity of 56,000 at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers have an edge over the rest of MLB. But they still have to fill those seats. More often than not, they got close. They had announced crowds of at least 50,000 in more than half of their home games this year, including 25 sellouts, and never drew fewer than 40,000.
(Photo by Kait Devir/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
In total, the Dodgers concluded the 2025 regular season with an attendance of 4,012,470, passing their previous high set in 2019 (3,974,309). They averaged 49,537 fans per game. The Padres, who also set an all-time overall attendance mark, ranked second in both categories at 3,392,129 total and 42,401 per night.
Six teams — the Dodgers, Padres, Yankees, Phillies, Mets and Cubs — reached 3 million in attendance. The Dodgers, who’ve led MLB in attendance every year since 2013 (not including the COVID-shortened 2020 season, when fans were replaced by cardboard cutouts), hit the 3 million mark in their 60th home game of the season.
Still, it came down to the final home game of the year for them to reach the elusive 4 million mark. Kasten said getting there required the right confluence of events — plus some good fortune.
“Anything between 3.8 to 4 million or over, there’s not a lot of difference,” Kasten said. “It could all just be luck of the draw, what kind of opponents we have on what kind of nights. That plays a part in it, and that’s hard to predict a year ahead of time.”
It helped that they didn’t have to surrender any home games when they went to Tokyo to start the season. It helped that they’ve built a consistent winner, reaching the postseason every year since 2013, the first full season under the ownership of Guggenheim Baseball Management.
Ice Cube and Kobe Bryant were among the more unique bobbleheads in 2025. (Getty Images)
Giveaways helped, too, including 23 different bobblehead nights that were offered throughout the year, which ranged from Ohtani (there were four different opportunities to get an Ohtani figurine) to Fernando Valenzuela to Kobe Bryant and Ice Cube.
“We know our prices are on the higher end, we understand that because that’s the kind of demand that we have, but we try to provide added value,” Kasten said. “And without those added value nights, we wouldn’t have gotten [to 4 million]. I’m comfortable saying that.”
Surely, it also helped that their games still mattered down the stretch.
Despite the juggernaut they appeared to build — their tax payments alone this year are more than about half the league spent on their entire payroll — the Dodgers did not clinch the division until the last week of the season, at which point they’d already finished their home slate.
And, in the final week of the season, there was another draw: Clayton Kershaw’s final regular season home start after 18 years with the team.
“Dodger Stadium is a super special place, and the fans are the main reason why,” Kershaw said afterward. “Every night it’s 50,000 people.”
But there’s another factor — perhaps the main one — that can’t be ignored, and that’s the presence of Ohtani, an international icon and draw unlike any in the sport. His jaw-dropping $700 million (heavily deferred) contract will pay for itself, considering the revenue streams he opens for the franchise. The Dodgers have reinvested that windfall back into the product.
They committed more than $1 billion before the 2024 season in the winter when they added Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, then guaranteed around a half-billion more this past offseason, throwing luxury-tax payments to the wind and going where no team had before in their quest to repeat as champions.
When it’s a Shohei Ohtani bobblehead giveaway, expect even bigger crowds.
In that time, Dodger Stadium has grown as a destination for international tourists — especially for their fans in Japan. The Dodgers offer stadium tours every day in four languages, including Japanese. They’ve added Japanese food offerings in their concession stands and Japanese merchandise in their stores.
“Not only is it a good time for baseball domestically, but more and more it’s also a good time internationally,” Kasten said. “And we’re certainly at the forefront of that.”
(Photo by Katelyn Mulcahy/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
Across MLB, attendance numbers were up, a noteworthy accomplishment considering two teams were playing in minor-league ballparks (Rays attendance, for example, was nearly half a million less this year than last year). Half of MLB teams saw their home attendance go up by at least 50,000 compared to a year ago.
It’s the third straight year that MLB attendance has been over 70 million, the first time that has happened since 2015-17. Attendance has gone up year-over-year in each of those three years, the first time that has happened over a three-year period since 2005-07. That’s not a coincidence, as the 2023 season is when the league began to institute a series of changes that have been widely viewed as a success, none bigger than the pitch clock. The average time of game this year was two hours and 38 minutes.
But even as interest in the sport spikes, the Dodgers stand out as a singular force: They led MLB not only in home attendance but also in road attendance this year.
“We have more people in Mexico that support the Dodgers than any other team,” Kasten said. “More people in Japan support the Dodgers than any other team. To the extent we can have exposure and support anywhere in the world, that’s a plus for baseball and for its future business.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on X at @RowanKavner.
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