Pronouncing DOGE

Coby L. wrote to ask why DOGE is pronounced with a final /ʒ/ rather than a final /dʒ/.

The Department Of Government Efficiency is clearly a backronym of the Doge meme, which references a Shiba Inu dog, and (according to Wikipedia) can be pronounced /doʊʒ/ or /doʊdʒ/ or /doʊɡ/, though all I've heard from the media is /doʊʒ/. I guess Coby's experience is similar, hence the question. Wikipedia says that the memetic cryptocurrency Dogecoin is pronounced either /doʊʒkɔɪn/ or /doʊdʒkɔɪn/, but apparently not /doʊgkɔɪn/.

I've heard pronunciations evoking the words "doggie" and "dodgey", suggested for DOGE as jokes.

Anyhow, the /doʊʒ/ or /doʊdʒ/ pronunciations are presumably influenced by the title "Doge", glossed by the OED as

The title given to the holder of the highest civil office of the republic of Venice from the 7th cent. until the Napoleonic conquest of 1797, and to an analogous magistrate in the republic of Genoa from the 14th cent. till 1797.

The OED's pronunciation field suggests that the U.S. version is what Coby and I have been hearing, while the British version could also end in /dʒ/:

Here are the corresponding audio files:

British EnglishU.S. EnglishYour browser does not support the audio element.Your browser does not support the audio element.