Brewers Lead Dodgers 2-0 in NLCS as Dodgers-Less World Series Could Benefit MLB Long-Term The Milwaukee Brewers are the betting favorites to win the World Series after taking a 2-0 NLCS lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers, and some analysts say a Dodgers-less Fall Classic could help baseball in the long run despite lower TV ratings. The Milwaukee Brewers lead the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-0 in the National League Championship Series and are now the betting favorites to win the World Series. Despite the funeral arrangements the demoralized Dodgers are making, Los Angeles is not eliminated yet. The Toronto Blue Jays overcame a 2-0 deficit in the ALCS to defeat the Mariners just last season. Fifteen other teams have done the same. Those are not great odds, but as Dodgers fans kept reminding everyone while assembling their superteam, baseball is inherently random.Teams get hot. Players go cold. Great lineups disappear for a week. Struggling pitchers suddenly look formidable.Small Market Teams Viewership ConcernsWe are not writing off this Dodgers team until someone actually eliminates it. Even so, the prospect of a Dodgers-less World Series feels real for the first time in a while. In the short term, a Brewers-Rays or Brewers-Guardians World Series would hardly be MLB's dream matchup. As pure a form of baseball as those clubs play, they are small-market teams without much national appeal.For comparison, the past two World Series featuring the Dodgers, against the Yankees in 2024 and Blue Jays in 2025, averaged around 15.3 million viewers. In 2023, the Texas Rangers-Arizona Diamondbacks World Series averaged just 9 million. A Brewers-Rays or Brewers-Guardians matchup would probably land much closer to the 2023 number, barring a long, dramatic seven-game series.However, the long-term gains off the Dodgers missing the World Series could prove worth the smaller viewership this season. This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX News may be compensated. This content was created by a team that works independently from the FOX newsroom.The Dodgers have been the betting favorites for nearly the entirety of the past three years, dating back to the signing of Shohei Ohtani in December 2023. There was a brief stretch during Game 7 of last year's World Series when the Dodgers were trailing and the Toronto Blue Jays had shorter live odds. Los Angeles ultimately came back to win, clinching its second straight championship.Dodgers Superteam Star PowerThe Dodgers entered 2026 as even heavier favorites than the past two years after adding Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz in the offseason. Then, in August, they traded for Tarik Skubal, arguably the best pitcher in baseball. ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan likened the 2026 Dodgers to the Avengers, citing their unprecedented collection of star power.The back-to-back champions adding more stars while much of the league declines to spend or trade aggressively has intensified discussion about a potential lockout and demands for a salary cap. Various outlets, including this one and this author, have covered those debates. To be clear, the Dodgers are not at fault for relentlessly trying to improve. They are doing exactly what every fan should want their team to do.The criticism is directed at a system that allows such a competitive imbalance to develop in the first place. Or, at least, the perception of one. The same handful of franchises tend to contend for the Super Bowl every year. But constant roster turnover gives most fanbases enough reason to talk themselves into hope before each season.League Competitive Imbalance IssuesThat becomes harder in baseball when fans suspect their franchise is more likely to trade its homegrown stars to the Dodgers than build around them. The Detroit Tigers' handling of Skubal is an example of that. There's a reason spoiling movies is considered so obnoxious. People do not want to know the ending before the story begins.If the Dodgers erase a 2-0 deficit, advance to the World Series and win a third consecutive championship, still the second-most likely outcome of the postseason according to sportsbooks, MLB will have an increasingly difficult time convincing fans that the rest of the league is not playing for second place. It will also become harder to argue that stricter payroll rules are not necessary.Long Term Health Of The SportTechnically, MLB's scriptwriters would prefer the Dodgers to come back, reach the World Series, and then dramatically lose Game 7. That would deliver the television audience in the short term without reinforcing the idea that baseball's richest superteam is inevitable in the long term. Still, if we are talking strictly about the long-term health of the sport, a Dodgers-less World Series might be exactly what baseball needs.