An outstanding member of the California Senate urges the owner of the Dodgers, Mark Walter, to end the team sponsorship agreements with oil and gas companies, telling him that “continuing to associate these corporations with our dear children in blue is not in our community or the best interest of the planet.”
In a letter on Tuesday, the leader of the majority of the Senate, Lena González (D-Long Beach), wrote that Angelenos “breathes some of the most polluted air in the country, with demonstrated links with negative health results.”
The recent forest fires of Los Angeles County, he said, have drawn attention to the fact that “fossil fuel pollution is responsible not only for the climatic crisis, but also for the quality of persistently harmful air in the region.”
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One of the most visible advertisers of the Dodgers is the Houillips 66 oil giant, owner of the 76th service station chain. The Orange-And-Blue 76 logo are shown in the entire Dodger Stadium, including above both markers, a climate red flag that stood out in a column last year.
My column led the climatic activists to meet outside the Dodger Stadium and start a Moveon.org request, which until Tuesday afternoon had obtained almost 23,000 signatures, asking Walter to leave Phillips 66. Activists and academic expert Good and
González said that California is demanding the main oil and gas companies, including Phillips 66, for climatic damages, with state officials accusing the industry of a “campaign of deception of decades” to hide the truth about global warming and delay the transition to clean power. The United States Supreme Court allowed the demand to advance.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors accused Phillips 66 last year for violating the US Clean Water Law. Folding the oil and fat of their Carson refinery, on the outskirts of the district of González, to the sewerage system of the Los Angeles County.
Eliminate the 66 Phillips ads from Dodger Stadium “would send the message that it is time to end our hug of contaminating fossil fuels and working together towards a cleaner and green future,” González wrote.
The Dodgers did not respond to a request for comments.
The leader of the majority of the Senate, Lena González (D-Long Beach), shown in 2019, presented the legislation.
(Robert Gourley / Los Angeles Times)
The 2024 World Series champions are not the only professional sports team that takes fossil fuel money. A recent survey of the Emmett Institute of UCLA Law scored at least 59 American franchises that accept dollars of sponsorship of oil giants or public service companies whose energy sources are mainly fossil fuels. The list included another five California teams: LAFC, the Sacramento Kings, The Athletics (previously from Oakland), the San Francisco and the San Francisco 49ers.
However, Dodgers occupy a unique place in the history of American sport.
As González wrote, the team has been ahead of the curve. The Dodgers broke the baseball color barrier when they signed Jackie Robinson in the 1940s, and when they prohibited the cigarette ads of the Dodger Stadium in the 1960s. More recently, the team has encouraged fans to take public transport to the games and launch sustainability efforts.
These efforts “make the continuous association of Dodgers with Big Oil even more anachronistic,” González wrote.
González wrote to Walter after listening to Zan Dubin, the climate activist who led the impulse for the Dodgers to drop to Phillips 66. Dubin, who has worked with the local chapter of the Sierra Club in the campaign, praised González for showing “true leadership and an inhalable courage as the first elected officer to support our campaign.”
“Green washing must end so that we can accelerate the adoption of renewable energy,” Dubin said.
A Phillips 66 spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comments. Nor a Marathon Petroleum spokesman, based in OHIO, whose arc service stations have published advertisements at the Dodger Stadium in recent years.
In an interview, González described herself as a “great baseball lover” who grew up encouraging the Dodgers. She said you want team players to start talking about fossil fuels as well.
“I'd love to [Shohei] Ohtani o [Freddie] Freeman or someone to say: 'This is also important for us,' “he told me.
The Dodgers travel to Tokyo this week, where they will open the season with two games against the Chicago puppies. They will return to Los Angeles for the first game at the Dodger Stadium on March 27.
The 76 logos will be large. Only a few months retired from Eaton and Palisades fires, Dodgers fans who take photos and publish them on social networks, in many cases, will provide free advertising to Phillips 66.
The 76 logo is above the left field score at Dodger Stadium.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
