Out of this world Contracts $ and this -

[Rog]

Did I miss something?

Kevin Appier gets $ 42 Million
Mike Hampton gets $ 121 Million
AlexRodriguez gets $ 252 Million

THEN this:
http://www.sportsbusinessnews.com/to...trikedec12.htm

and, to think that people got mad over the umpire's union re-organization and minor league umpire's unionizing; when, all these members want is reasonable compensation for life's efforts! Go figure...... $^$^$^$^$^$^$

[Warren Willson]

These greedy players are killing the golden goose, here. These salaries will inevitably come back to bite the fans as higher ticket and concession prices. TV and advertising rights might forstall that for a very short while, but it will STILL happen UNLESS both the players union and the owners can come together and work out what remuneration levels will allow the game to keep its fans.

We are heading for SALARY CAPS enforced by the leagues, with loss of games the obvious penalty for breaches. Fines simply won't cut it with any club that can afford $252 million for one player over 10 years. MLB simply MUST limit the size of the salary pie to prevent greedy players and wealthy owners from effectively killing off their own source of income.

Just my $AUD0.05c worth.

Cheers,

Warren Willson

[oregonblue]

This is capitalism at its best, or worst??????

[Warren Willson]

Originally posted by oregonblue
This is capitalism at its best, or worst??????

At its worst, I'd say OB. With everyday Capitalism in business, when one company goes broke, and its shareholders suffer, that's tough. There will be new companies to take its place, and the shareholders are unlikely to be keeping all of their golden eggs in the one basket.

In the case of baseball, however, what happens if the MLB clubs go broke? And what happens if the fans can't afford tickets any more? There may be other clubs willing to enter the MLB, but where does the new breed of wealthier fans come from? Nope. This situation MUST be rectified if the "show" is to survive. Otherwise the fans will content themselves with the Minor Leagues and the cycle will simply start all over again! AAA will become the "show" and those players will start to clamour for a bigger share of the pie.

Limit the size of the pie. That's the only answer.

Cheers,

Warren Willson

[Rich Ives]

Only one culprit - the person signing the checks.

Really, would YOU turn down a HUGE salary increase? Hey, if the boss is willing to pay it, I'll take it.

[Warren Willson]

Originally posted by Rich Ives
Only one culprit - the person signing the checks.

Really, would YOU turn down a HUGE salary increase? Hey, if the boss is willing to pay it, I'll take it.

I seem to remember at least ONE occasion when a player declined a MUCH better offer to stay where he was content. I believe the player was Ken Griffey Jr and the team was the Mariners. I know that he has since moved, but I don't believe money was the main motivation.

Put yourself in the owners position. I know that these are usually privileged individuals, but they DO put their money on the line when they own a franchise. To get a return on their investment they have to have a drawcard for the fans. That usually means a name player (or two or three), so the fans feel their team has a chance of winning its fair share of games. Otherwise the fans stay home. Of course some of them are downright greedy about it, too.

I'm not saying we blame the players - they have a limited career life, and they're entitled to sell to the highest bidder.

I'm not saying we blame the owners - they have to provide an attraction to get a return on their investment.

I'm not saying we blame the fans - they want to watch good baseball played by the best players their team can afford.

Blame no-one. It is not productive. Fix the problem instead. That's the challenge. I say bring on mandatory salary caps with loss of points as the penalty for breaches. If the salary spiral in baseball has taken the players salaries BEYOND the game's capacity to support them, limit the salaries on a team basis to a level that CAN be supported for the good of the game.

Cheers,

Warren Willson

[Drifter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Warren Willson
[B]These greedy players are killing the golden goose, here. Just my $AUD0.05c worth.

This is exactly the kind of talk that surfaced when Nolan Ryan broke the million dollar barrier. It probably has come up since the first player got the first dollar for playing baseball. This big paycheck wont hurt baseball in the least. That's because in the final analysis, no one has a gun to his head when he attends a ball game. He goes only if he wants to pay the price of a ticket.

Hell, if I could wait on a curve ball, I might be cashing some of those checks myself instead of calling pitches.

Vern

[rex]

Carl,

Help me out here. In following this thread it makes me wonder. By chance do you recall what the top Dogs, in baseball, where making income wise in 1950? I remember you could buy a gallon of gas for 8 to 12 cents. I’m sure when I’d make a run to the Ma & Pa market on the corner my mom would give me a quarter for a loaf of bread and I was able to buy a big hunk candy bar with the change.

Wasn’t it about that time people complained about ball players making to much money for what they did? Again I remember my Pop complaining about the 7 thousand dollars he paid for our 4-bedroom house because that’s all he could afford.

Carl you’ve seen the changes (or the sameness) in the game what are your thoughts?

rex

[Patrick Szalapski]

I agree that something must be done. I highly recommend all of you read "Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball" by Bob Costas. It should be at your library, or is readily available at any bookstore. It is a short one, to the point. His analysis of what should/could/must be done far eclipses anything else I have seen.

In short, he advocates a hard salary cap (say 80 million). a salary FLOOR (say 40 million), a single-player salary cap (say 1/8 of the team cap), a higher minumum salary, and tons more revenue sharing (say an average of 30 million per team). Such a system would WORK. I won't go into more detail here, for Bob Costas should speak for himself.

I honestly think if they made Costas commissioner, the game would greatly improve.

P-Sz

[Dakota]

The fundamental problem here is that MLB is not viewed legally nor is it managed like any normal capitalist business in the USA.

Most capitalist business have as an objective to take business away from their competitors. Who are the competitors of the NY Yankees? The Boston Red Sox? Baloney. The competitors of the NY Yankess are other entertainment and sports enterprises (movies, cable TV, the NFL, the NBA, etc.) The NY Yankees need other healthy, competitive MLB teams in order to stay in business. The individual teams are not independent capitalist businesses. MLB overall is the business enterprise. Yet, the US courts (e.g. free agency) coupled with the anti-trust exemption makes MLB this odd duck where teams act like competitors in player salaries, but act in collusion in other aspects of their business.

The rich teams (Yankees, Braves, Rangers, etc.) spend freely on salaries while depending on MLB to protect their ultimate business success by providing teams for them to compete with. The solution in my opinion is to either recognize that MLB is ONE business, and that players work for MLB, not individual teams, OR to cut each team loose from much of the business control of MLB.

The first is very messy, with all of the existing contracts in place.

The second, is very workable, however. Just give any team the right to locate anywhere they please, and the problem will largely go away over time. The Yankess & Mets would not be able to command such high local revenue if they also had to complete with relocated Twins, Royals, and Marlins suddenly located in various buroughs of NYC. If NYC could support 3 teams in the 40's, it can surely support 5 or 6 teams today. Do the same in the other large metro areas, and suddenly "small market team" has a whole new meaning.

[Patrick Szalapski]

I agree with your analysis but not with your conclusions. Yes, the franchises in MLB are not directly competing with each other. However, the solution is not to have more competition between them, but less. It would never work to turn the clubs loose and have no "league" to speak of.

As for teams moving around, this is heresy. Teams moving is BAD for baseball. I repeat: When teams move, baseball SUFFERS. The location of teams in MLB is OPTIMAL. There is nowhere for anybody to move! This is what the owners of the Twins and the Expos have found out; they WILL make more money in their crappy domed multi-purpose stadia in the Twin Cities and Montreal, both 4 million+ metro areas, than they would five years after a move to Charlotte, San Antonio, Austin, or Salt Lake City. (If MLB were to expand again, the only logical places to go are Monterrey, Mexico City, or a third New York team. Thus, MLB will NOT expand for a very long time.) So, the poor fans in Minnesota like me keep their poor team, and we're much happier for it.

I shudder to think of the results of MLB dissoving into the clubs, with teams moving at the rate of a few per season,
with teams folding and starting up. I just imagine and dream what my Twins could do with a new CEO/GM, an infusion of shared revenue, and a $40 million spending quota.

Maybe we could afford to give Ron Coomer $2 million. As it stands, he'll be playing elsewhere and we'll be starting gold medalist Doug Mientkiewicz every day. Oh, he's a good prospect, but pardon me if I don't think he'll hit 10 homers this year. 9 should be enough to lead the team.

P-Sz

[Dakota]

It would never work to turn the clubs loose and have no "league" to speak of.

You are overstating my case. My ideal solution would be to have one business enterprise, MLB, with each team treated as a divisional office. Employee salary and benefits would be set by the corporate HQ (MLB). Employee location would be jointly determined by the company (MLB), the divisions (teams), and the employees (players), just like in a “real” business.

However, I cannot see this ever coming to pass. In my alternative, I did not suggest there would be no league to speak of, only that the league could not veto team location.

As for teams moving around, this is heresy. Teams moving is BAD for baseball. I repeat: When teams move, baseball SUFFERS. The location of teams in MLB is OPTIMAL. There is nowhere for anybody to move! This is what the owners of the Twins and the Expos have found out; they WILL make more money in their crappy domed multi-purpose stadia in the Twin Cities and Montreal, both 4 million+ metro areas, than they would five years after a move to Charlotte, San Antonio, Austin, or Salt Lake City. (If MLB were to expand again, the only logical places to go are Monterrey, Mexico City, or a third New York team. Thus, MLB will NOT expand for a very long time.) So, the poor fans in Minnesota like me keep their poor team, and we're much happier for it.

I shudder to think of the results of MLB dissolving into the clubs, with teams moving at the rate of a few per season, with teams folding and starting up. I just imagine and dream what my Twins could do with a new CEO/GM, an infusion of shared revenue, and a $40 million spending quota.

Maybe we could afford to give Ron Coomer $2 million. As it stands, he'll be playing elsewhere and we'll be starting gold medalist Doug Mientkiewicz every day. Oh, he's a good prospect, but pardon me if I don't think he'll hit 10 homers this year. 9 should be enough to lead the team.

This is a strange argument for a Twins fan to make. The Twins were the last team to move in MLB. Enforce your rule 30 years ago, and we would have no Twins; we would still have the Senators. Do you have an example where a team moving was bad for baseball? Twins? Dodgers? Giants? Athletics? Braves? I agree that Charlotte is no better financially than the Twin Cities for a MLB team, but if all of the fetters were removed, do you really think Carl Pohlad would move the team to Charlotte? No, he would move the team where he could make some real money (either directly or by sale).

I wasn’t talking about expansion, only relocation. If 4 million is all it takes to financially support a MLB team, then the NY metro area should have 6-8 teams. The Twins have no local income to speak of; they survive on their share of the national TV contract and the paltry revenue sharing. They are a league team, supported by the league, in existence in order to provide a team for other members of the league to play, kind of like the DC Nationals to the Harlem Globetrotters. The Yankees, by contrast, have a local revenue stream that rivals the MLB national TV contract in total. They only need the league in order to have teams to play.

Your $40 million spending quota would only delay the inevitable without some approach to break up the local revenue streams for the top teams. IMO, it is not likely such a revenue sharing / salary floor-cap system will be put into place. Much more likely is for the league to decide that it has too many “DC Nationals”, and to dissolve the Twins & the Expos (and maybe a couple of others).

[Patrick Szalapski]

"...only that the league could not veto team location."

Well, I'm really glad the league vetoed the Giants move in 1994 (?).

Another side point: The team that became the Twins were not the last team to move, but you were right about the Senators; they became the Texas Rangers in 1972.

And a prologue: a market does not become inviable due only to bad ownership or a lack of a modern, retro ballpark. Owners can change, and the system I propose should get rid of the need for everyone to have a new park.

Since were discussing the future in regard to team moves, let's look at the past.

The teams in 1905:

New York (3)
Boston (2)
Philadelphia (2)
St. Louis (2)
Chicago
Detroit
Cleveland
Washington
Pittsburgh
Chicago
Cincinatti

There have been fourteen expansion teams in MLB history, and no teams have folded. I will concede that teams moving from a city with multiple teams is not bad for baseball. We'll keep two teams in NY and one in the other cities. This gives us eighteen teams to give to new markets. These teams go to those cities that currently have teams. Therefore, the only city we neglect is Baltimore, because there is already a team in Washington.

Therefore, with only four, "good", affordable moves, the leagues are in their exact same state; the only exception being that the Senators exist and the Orioles don't.

My point is, markets like Kansas City, Dallas, and, yes, the Twin Cities, should have been expanded into rather than moved to--had baseball a powerful, extremely wise governmental system. Now of course to consider that for the past is ridiculous, but I submit that we learn from it for the future. Any cities that baseball "can" move into and be viable (psssst, there aren't any more) should instead be expanded into. WHY? With the possible exception of Tampa Bay (we can discuss them in another thread, if you like), all of the markets that baseball is in are VIABLE. Baseball can be profitable again in Montreal, in Miami, and, yes, the Twin Cities.

With revenue sharing and a cap, that is. You say that this is simply the Yankees and the Braves supporting the Twins and the Expos. I agree, because having the current 30 teams is better for the Yankees and the Braves than having 22, or six in NYC, or one each in Charlotte and Portland.

One more random thought--would you apply your same logic to the NFL, which is florishing economically because of a salary cap and comprehensive revenue sharing? Are the Giants and Falcons supporting the Vikings and the Rams? No, of course not, but the only difference between football and the potential baseball scenario here is MLB's lack of a national TV contract.

P-Sz

[Dakota]

The original Washington Senators date back to 1901. They were the Washington Senators from 1901 until 1960, when they became the Minnesota Twins beginning in the 1961 season. The league approved an expansion franchise for Washington, which began play in the 1961 season as the Washington Senators. This second Senators team subsequently moved to Arlington, TX in 1972. This was the last move by a MLB team.

The MLB team moves are (years are the year the team began plan in the new city):

1972 Washington (expansion) Senators to Texas Rangers
1970 Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee Brewers
1968 Kansas City Athletics to Oakland Athletics
1966 Milwaukee Braves to Atlanta Braves
1961 Washington Senators to Minnesota Twins
1958 Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles Dodgers
1958 New York Giants to San Francisco Giants
1955 Philadelphia Athletics to Kansas City Athletics
1954 St. Louis Browns to Baltimore Orioles
1953 Boston Braves to Milwaukee Braves
1901 Milwaukee Brewers to St. Louis Browns

Show me a single move that was unequivocally bad for baseball. I’m not talking about local Twin Cities or San Francisco fans being bummed, but bad for baseball as a whole. Many of the premiere money-making franchises today are the result of moves from less profitable circumstances (e.g. Braves, Rangers) & the others are no worse off than they were before.

The problem of economic viability of the lower half of the teams is an ever-changing equation, driven by the amount of money being made by the top 5 or 6 teams. Until this issue is addressed, the Twins, and teams like them, will remain league basket cases.

If the NY, Atlanta, Dallas-Ft Worth, etc. mega metro teams actually had local competition from another MLB team or teams, they would no longer be able to afford the mega-salaries. I say remove the anti-trust exemption from MLB, prohibit cities/states/localities from pouring taxpayer money into stadiums, allow teams to move, and let the marketplace work it out.