By any modern measure, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Manchester City are the perfect villains. Billionaires back both. Both spend like no one else dares to. Both win a lot. And both are accused of “buying” their success and ruining their respective sport.

But the idea that spending big guarantees glory has been quietly falling apart.

The LA Dodgers’ winter of 2023 was baseball’s ultimate shopping spree. Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal headlined a $1.4 billion offseason, the most expensive in MLB history. On Saturday, they won their second straight World Series – validation, right?

Manchester City completed a treble in 2023 and went on to four-peat the Premier League the next season – another proof, right?

Their success stories are readily apparent. The Dodgers, backed by the richest ow

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