It's Showtime in L.A., at Dodger Stadium LOS ANGELES - It is so loud inside Dodger Stadium these days that Tommy Lasorda cannot listen to himself talk and Magic Johnson can hardly hear his own hyperbole. Not coincidently, it is N.B.A. arena loud - quite a feat for a venue with the sky as its ceiling and a palliative outfield backdrop of rolling hills and mountains. Fans are pestered and prodded by on-field M.C.'s, clattering music and continuous marketing that almost make Yankee Stadium sound like a morgue. With their relatively new lineups of eager spenders and heavy hitters, the Dodgers seem bent on emphatically announcing themselves, over and over. "It's not a market that you could come into and just wait for a long rebuilding plan," said Stan Kasten, the Dodgers" president and part of the group that purchased - no, rescued - the famous brand from the disastrous ownership of Frank McCourt in March 2012. Yes, we have a plan to focus on scouting and development. But we said we were also going to try to do what we can do now. Hence, like magic, they delivered a $235 million (in payroll) postseason team, their first appearance since Joe Torre last managed here, in 2009. It took Kasten about 20 years, but he finally forged a working alliance with Johnson, whom he tried to hire as coach of the Atlanta Hawks after Johnson's H.I.V.-related retirement from the Los Angeles Lakers in 1991. Kasten, a career-long sports executive, now knows what it is like to play on a team fronted by America's happiest warrior. "This is the most fun I've had in my life," Kasten said before enjoying the Dodgers" 13-6 pasting of the Atlanta Braves on Sunday night to take a two-games-to-one lead in their National League division series. Kasten's home address is still in Atlanta, but he has learned that "out here, if you're having anything to do with the Dodgers, all doors in town are open." He added: "If you're the president of the Dodgers, it's even more so. If you're walking around with Magic Johnson, it's a whole different thing. I can't even describe what it's like. But he could not deny that it is audacious and loud. In putting up about $50 million to join the ownership group of the billionaire investor Mark Walter, Johnson & Co. have reinvigorated the Dodgers while his favorite basketball team, the Lakers, has begun what looks to be a certain decline. Unless LeBron James decides on a change of winter beach locations next summer, it would appear that the Lakers" unchallenged status for years as Los Angeles's chosen team is ending. Forgetting the Clippers for a moment, Showtime is now an outdoor sport. "L.A. is a real Dodger town right now," Johnson told reporters in Atlanta a few days ago. You should see all of the blue and white in town. He caught himself and added that a greater metropolitan area of more than 16 million just might be able to support a handful of professional sports teams. But we get it. Johnson has forever been the coolest kid in school. Whatever he puts his money and face on had better in his mind be the product that people cannot wait to buy. The aging Kobe Bryant, who made an appearance on the outfield video screens Sunday night to exhort the fans, may soon be less of a luminary than Clayton Kershaw and Yasiel Puig. But Los Angeles's intracity popularity contests are not really the most significant aspect of the Dodgers" swift revival. Much of it has been purchased with the kind premium dollars that made the Yankees pariahs to so many for so long. But George Steinbrenner's spending was good for baseball. It provided the sport with a national team brand for when its most famous individuals became tainted by drug scandal and the game was becoming more regionally provincial than ever. Those nose-diving World Series ratings are not just about late-night games and competing movie channels. It has been awhile since the Series was must-see television no matter who played. Oakland and Pittsburgh are heartwarming stories, but baseball, much like pro basketball, needs sexy matchups. In the current environment, only the N.F.L. can produce desirable ratings with numbing parity. Forget the Lakers; it is the Yankees" apparent slide toward mediocrity that enhances the rise of the Dodgers, who did not lead the majors in home and road attendance this season by accident. When Kasten was asked about the staggering sum his group paid for the team, he said: "As Mark Walter likes to say, "Look, why did we pay $2 billion? Because we thought it was worth a lot more. It's the brand, it's the history. To emphasize his point, he dropped a few names - the Dodgers icons instantly recognized by one name - with whom he gets to trade phone calls: Tommy (Lasorda), Vin (Scully), Fernando (Valenzuela) and Sandy (Koufax). It is no secret that basketball has dominated the one-name national celebrity mart since Magic and Larry (Bird) carried the Boston-L.A. rivalry in the 1980s. What a coincidence that the Dodgers took three high-priced players off the Red Sox" hands late last season, a trade that helped both teams storm into this season. One of the Dodgers" acquisitions, Carl Crawford, hit a three-run homer off the Braves starter Julio Teheran in the second inning Sunday night to launch the rout. Another former Red Sox player, Adrian Gonzalez, scoffed at the delicious thought of a Dodgers-Red Sox showdown later this month. "Just being in the World Series is all we care about," he said. We don't care who we play. They still have much work to do, starting with Game 4 against the Braves on Monday night. But sitting next to Lasorda - the beloved former manager and folk hero - and watching the Dodgers tie a team record for most runs in a postseason game Sunday, it was impossible to believe that Magic's brain was not already fast-breaking ahead. If only he could get his good friend Larry to buy into the Sox.