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A key member of the California Senator has urged Dodgers owner Mark Walter to end the team’s sponsorship agreement with oil and gas companies, saying “Continuing to associate these companies with our beloved boys and blue boys is not the biggest concern of our community or the planet.”
In a letter Tuesday, Senate majority leader Lena Gonzalez (D. Long Beach) wrote that Angelenos “breaths some of the country’s most polluted air and shows a connection to negative health outcomes.”
She said the recent LA County wildfires brought attention to the fact that “fossil fuel pollution is not only involved in the climate crisis, but also the region’s permanently harmful air quality.”
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One of the Dodgers’ most visible advertisers is the Houston-based Oil Giant Phillips 66, which owns a 76 gas station chain. The orange and blue 76 logos are displayed throughout Dodger Stadium, including both scoreboards.
My column urged climate activists to rally outside Dodger Stadium and launch a Moveon.org petition that had won nearly 23,000 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.
Gonzalez said California is suing major oil and gas companies, including Phillips 66, for climate damages, and state officials have denounced the industry in a “decades of deception campaign,” hiding the truth about global warming and delaying the transition to clean up cleaning rights. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the case to move forward.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors accused Phillips 66 of violating U.S. clean-up laws last year by dumping oil and grease into the LA County sewer system from the Carson refinery just outside the Gonzalez district.
Removed Phillips 66 ads from Dodger Stadium “sends a message that it’s time to end the embrace of polluting fossil fuels and work together towards a cleaner, greener future,” writes Gonzalez.
The Dodgers did not respond to requests for comment.
Senate Majority Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), which screened in 2019, introduced the law.
(Robert Gurley/Los Angeles Times)
The 2024 World Series champions aren’t just professional sports teams receiving fossil fuel money. A recent survey from UCLA Law’s Emmett Institute tallyed at least 59 US franchises from sponsorship dollars from oil giants, or utility companies whose energy sources are primarily fossil fuels. The list included five teams from five California teams: LAFC, Sacramento Kings, Athletics (formerly Oakland), the San Francisco Giants and the San Francisco 49ers.
However, the Dodgers have a unique place in American sports history.
As Gonzalez wrote, the team has long been ahead of the curve. The Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson in the 1940s and smashed the coloured walls of baseball when they banned cigarette ads from Dodger Stadium in the 1960s. Recently, the team has encouraged fans to use public transport to the game and launch sustainability initiatives.
These efforts “make the Dodgers’ continued partnership with Big Oil even more anachronistic,” Gonzalez wrote.
Gonzalez wrote to Walter after hearing from Zan Dubin, who had worked with the local Sierra Club branch of the campaign, pushing the Dodgers to drop the Phillips 66.
“Greenwashing must end in such a way that it can accelerate the adoption of renewable energy,” Dubin said.
A Phillips 66 spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Ohio-based Marathon Oil has also been running advertisements at Dodger Stadium in recent years by the ARCO Gas Bureau.
In an interview, Gonzalez described himself as a “giant baseball enthusiast” who grew up cheering on the Dodgers. She said she hopes that players on the team will also start talking about fossil fuel ads.
“I love it [Shohei] Otani or [Freddie] Someone says, “This is important to us too,” she told me.
The Dodgers travel to Tokyo this week to open the season with two games against the Chicago Cubs. They will return to Los Angeles on March 27th for the Dodger Stadium home opener.
The 76 logo will be larger. Removed in just a few months from the Eton and Palisade fire, Dodgers fans taking photos and posting on social media often offers free promotions to Phillips 66.
The 76 logo is located above the left field scoreboard at Dodger Stadium.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
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