Ideas to Restore the Competitive Balance in Baseball

[TheCrew07]

The players the teams build around do stay somewhat but you can't really 'build' a team around a single position in baseball so it is just an apples to oranges comparison. A salary cap wouldn't have kept Sabathia with the Brewers and probably wouldn't have kept Sheets either. Sabathia would have still gone to a team with better endorsement opportunities and Sheets still would have been looking for a longer term deal and we don't seem to want to offer one. Baseball and Football have very different setups so pretty hard to do straight up comparisons of the two. Most good baseball players get one big payday when they hit free agency and sign a long term large contract, players with long careers or players who aren't good enough to get a long deal get more.

You don't build around a single player in football, it doesn't matter how good your QB is when your O-line doesn't make any blocks... The QB has no more influence in a football game than a pitcher in baseball... both are in the driver's seat, and both are good places to start building a franchise. The big difference is in football you have 24 different starters with the kickers, in baseball you only have 9, so in football you actually need a larger "core" group of players. However in both sports the team is built the same way, you start with a core of young players and add to it. In baseball I believe a team should build around it's pitching staff first, I believe all things being equal pitching wins, in football I'm not sure I'd build from the QB, it seems that good QBs can be found later in the draft. You keep going back to NE, but NE is much more like Oakland than the NYY, they've been ahead of the curve getting the most value out of their signings, they sign valuable 2nd and 3rd tier players, like Beane and Money Ball was trying to do back in the day... similar concept, different game. NE doesn't operate like a large market team in baseball, Washington and San Franciso tried to, but it blew up in their face and crippled the franchises for years.

 

Your blatant disregard of the fact that the best players do stay with their teams in the NFL is appalling. Cleveland would have never traded Sabathia in a salary cap system, because in those systems the only major difference between the teams is attendance because major revenue streams like TV revenue are split equally. Favre was a Packer for more than 15 years while arguably the best player in the game... this in a town of 100,000 people... Who was last the MLB icon to stay with his small market team even 10 years? Salary cap systems build in retention so that the team that drafts the player has a legitimate opportunity to keep him for his entire career if they wish. Star players do move around, but it's due more to certain players being malcontent babies like Ocho Cinco and TO or they salary isn't keeping pace with their production than players in Free Agency like Sabathia. Over paid vets used to be cut on June 1 (different date now I know), but that has been slowly tapering away as teams sign players to better contracts. Another excellent point which you glossed over was that small market teams tend to trade the star players before they hit free agency as it's the only way they have to get some immediate return out of losing the player. In what other sport does that happen? In what sport does a team know it has absolutely no chance to sign a player and trade him? The last player I can think of was Shaq in the NBA and that doesn't really fit the example.

 

The NHL was similar to MLB for a long time, all of the best players ended up on the same 6 teams, but that's gone away now that they have instituted a cap. If the system isn't set up so an icon has a realistic chance of staying with his team regardless of who drafts him, then how do the fans ever truly bond with players? I have my favorite Brewer players, but I haven't bought a single item of memoribila for any of them... in fact the only item I have was a Xmas present (very cool framed + autographed Hardy picture). I support the team, I go to games, watch on tv, post here, and buy merchandise, but the items I get are all generic Brewer stuff, nothing player specific. I don't form attachments to any Brewer players because I know eventually they'll be gone, and while that's the reality in any sport that has free agency, the clock ticks that much faster in baseball. We get 6 years with a player, maybe as many as 8 if he signs a deal that buys out a couple of FA years, and then we move on. Maybe that 6 or 8 years seems like a lot, but percentage wise it's not, not when MLB players can realistically player until their late 30s. In more demanding physical sports the athletes wear down quicker and have significantly short careers.

 

No one is saying that MLB should do it the same way that the NLF, NBA, or NHL has done it, but there has to be a better way... like Sam pointed out, the Yankees have been largely incompetent in the front office, yet they remain competitive, that's where the injustice in the system lies. Teams like Milwaukee have to be perfect, and even then their best players will leave for greener pastures, while teams in large markets just reload, acquiring sure things (known quantities in established players) for prospects or having to give up draft picks. Again what do the Yankees care about giving away 3 draft picks when they get Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett? I don't like Burnett, but I'd damn sure trade a 3rd round pick in next year's draft for him... which is essentially what happened.

[LouisEly]

Maybe MLB could divide revenue from FOX, ESPN, and Turner in a way to give more revenue to teams with smaller TV/radio contracts. IMO, that's a huge part of the imbalance, and channeling the national media $$ to the poorer clubs would be a start to fixing the problem.

 

I also think teams should split T.V. revenue

 

You guys hit the nail on the head. All TV/radio contracts should be with the league, and divided up equally amongst the teams. At worst, 50% of the TV revenue should be shared because without the league the team would not exist.

 

When a team like the Angels, in the second largest market with an owner who spends a ton, cannot compete financially with the Yankees, then something is wrong.

 

No, the Angels are not in the second largest market. Anaheim is not Los Angeles. Orange County is a whole different market, and is much smaller. Very few people go to Anaheim from Los Angeles, or vice versa, for anything. Just like the A's aren't in the same market as the Giants.

 

The only thing I would add to any salary-cap plan is that the cap should be discontinued after May, just so then any team can move beyond the cap to make mid-season trades.

 

Great idea, but I'd say end of June instead of May. The NBA should do this also. And the NBA should compensate free agent losses with draft picks like MLB, but that is for a whole different thread in a different forum. I'd argue though that with revenue sharing a cap might not be necessary.

 

One last idea - draft picks should not be protected. The idea that the Yankees get a first and second round pick for not signing the players they drafted last year and not having to fork them over to the Brewers and Blue Jays is ridiculous. If they don't have a pick in that round, it should be compensated with additional picks in later rounds. Hey, Corey Hart was a 10th round pick, and Michael Brantley was a 7th round pick, so you never know.

[apirk]

Baseball is competitive without a salary cap. There could be a salary cap and the Pirates and Royals would still stink because they make terrible decisions. The only thing I would love to see capped is draft pick signing bonuses because it is really crappy that the best players slide down to teams just because the teams that need the player won't sign them. Big Free Agent signing rarely win World Series anyways. Really in the past 5 years how many teams have not been in any sort of playoff race?

[razzzorsharp]

Anyone know where to find numbers on the TV deals across MLB.

[kramnoj]

This data is seven years old, but it should give some perspective: http://www.baseballprospe...rticle.php?articleid=1297

[Fear The Chorizo]

I know this would be somewhat complicated, but there are plenty of bean counters to figure it out...

 

Why not share TV revenues between the teams based on who they play - for example, instead of the YES network basically putting all profits back to the Yankees alone, why not split the profits 50/50? 1/2 of the revenue generated (which is still massive) would go to the Yankees, and the other 1/2 would be split up amongst their opponents, based on the number of games they played against them? The same model could be used for every other team and its TV deal.

 

It's the TV money that kills the financial competitive balance in baseball. Also, there has to be a better system to award compensatory draft picks for departing free agents. My proposal would be to get rid of the compensatory rounds entirely, and instead have an independent entity put together a list or system of determining Type A, B "prospects" from each organization's minor leagues. The team that loses a Type A or B free agent would be able to choose a prospect from the other organization's list. This way, a small market team who loses out on resigning a quality player would have a better opportunity to get a quality player in return, someone who could contribute at the major league level much sooner than a draft choice. Also, this would cause the large market teams to think twice about throwing the bank at every free agent out there, because they'd risk gutting their farm system - that could curb escalating player salaries. To prevent big market teams from simply gutting their farm system while pursuing free agents, if the independent entity doesn't feel that a team has any Type A or B prospects in its system, they can't participate in free agency that particular offseason.

[Thurston Fluff]

Pavano, yes, Giambi, no way. Hammonds didn't have one good year for the Brewers. Giambi really only had one really bad year and one year where he missed a lot of time and was below average in the games that he played. I would say that Giambi had 4 good-very good years, and last year was so-so for his salary.

 

Granted Giambi did have some decent years but if you add the very large difference in years and overall compensation the Giambi deal was no better than the Hammonds deal. Giambi made more in two years with the Yankees than Hammonds did his entire career.

[nate82]

Someone should tell the Lions fans that they are in the NFL and there is parity. Not to mention that the Lions haven't really been competitive since Barry Sanders was with the Lions. The salary cap in the NFL has very little to do with the parity in the NFL. How many free agents a year are actually super stars? How many free agents in the NFL are as effective as the free agents in MLB?

 

If the free agents were entering free agency 3 years after being drafted then I would say a salary cap would be something that has an effect on the competitive balance in football. The parity in the NFL does not come from the salary cap it has very little effect on the parity in the league. A salary would have more of an effect on MLB than it does in the NFL.

 

The Yankees would still get the top free agents with or without a salary cap. If you are modelling it after the NFL's salary cap then the signing bonuses still wouldn't count towards much of the salary cap and the Yankees and Red Sox and other teams would still be able to get the top free agents. A salary cap is not the answer if you are looking to limit the amount of free agents the bigger market clubs could sign.

 

A better idea is to limit the number of Type A and B free agents a team can sign. A team can only sign 1 Type A free agent rated greter than or equal to 80.00 and 1 Type A free agent rated 80.00 or less. If a team signs 2 Type A free agents in one year they lose their first round this year to the team that has the higher rating the second team gets the teams 1st round pick next year. The team that signed the two Type A free agents can not sign Free Agent Type A's next year they can only sign any of their own Type A free agents that were on the 40 man roster at the beginning of the season. Type B free agents would be limited to 4. Teams would still get compensation picks for Type A free agents lost though.

 

Limiting the number of Type A and B free agents a team can sign still keeps player salaries high so the player union wins and there will be more parity in the league because of it.

[logan82]

I think the NFL and MLB are very different types of sports. I think a good MLB player can have more impact than an NFL player can. The NFL is more about coaching philosophy than the MLB is. The MLB is more about the talent of the players. I know others have said this, but I think it needs repeating. The sports are different and what works(to some extent) for one sport isn't going to work for another sport.

 

I think the solution lies more with making sure teams get fair compensation for losing top free agents and penalizing teams that sign a lot of free agents through the draft. The current system where teams lost approx. 50(Brewers) or 80(Jays) spots in the draft because one team signed 3 top free agents is broken. In addition I think we need a better distribution of TV contract money. I agree with whoever said that the MLB head office should take over negotiations of TV contracts. Teams should have input making sure their team takes priority over other sports shown on that channel and other things.

 

They also have to do something about cheapskate owners pocketing large chunks of money like is apparently happening in Florida. Owners should at least be required to open their books to the MLB head office.

[nate82]

This has probably been mentioned before in this thread but I'll repeat it again. The majority of the free agents in the NFL are either above their prime, have a lot of injury issues, or are spare parts or veterans looking for that last push for a championship. In the MLB you have free agents that are scattered all around from veterans looking for that championship to spare parts. That is not including the many number of superstars in the list that are in their prime and will be in their prime for the majority of their contract that they sign to. There is no comparison to the NFL and MLB and trying to say that MLB should have a salary cap and there would be more parity in the NFL is not true at all.

 

Take this into consideration the Jets this year spent about $100 million in the off season. The Yankees could do that in a salary cap and still have gotten Sabathia and Teixeira and probably even Burnett also.

[Thurston Fluff]

Take this into consideration the Jets this year spent about $100 million in the off season. The Yankees could do that in a salary cap and still have gotten Sabathia and Teixeira and probably even Burnett also.

 

The difference is in the NFL all the other teams could do the same. In baseball only about 5 teams can.

 

The majority of the free agents in the NFL are either above their prime, have a lot of injury issues, or are spare parts or veterans looking for that last push for a championship.

 

In the last couple years the Packers signed Charles Woodson and Ryan Pickett. Woodson was a probowl player before he got here and played like one while he was here. At this point Woodson's time in green Bay might be enough to put him in the HOF someday. Pickett was a first round draft pick who signed with the Packers at age 26. Hardly past his prime, never really injured and certainly not a spare part.

The Vikings have free agents playing significant roles all over their roster. Bernard Berrian, Ryan Longwell, one of the Williams boys, probowl left Guard Steve Hutchenson and Darren Sharper off the top of my head. They were all either in their prime, coming off a probowl, at the top of their game or some combination of that at the time. That is just two team off the top of my head that certainly do not fit any of the categories you mentioned. They could do that because every one in the NFL has a chance to improve their roster in a fair and competitive way. Of course the teams must manage their cap well and make good decisions or they will end up like the Cowboys, Redskins and the Jets but that only make the point stronger. Can you imagine what the NFL would look like if Jerry Jones or Dan Snyder could buy anyone they wanted without consequence. If they failed with one guy they just dump him and overpay for someone else. No need to make good decisions since they have m ore money than the other teams and can just buy all the players they need. If the NFL was like MLB the Cowboys and the Skins would be the same as the Red Sox and Yankees.

[kramnoj]

Granted Giambi did have some decent years

 

Have you actually looked at what Giambi did? His best years were OPS+ of 172, 161, and two at 148. Two of those years he had 155+ games and the other two he had 139 games. That is far more than "decent". Hammonds, meanwhile had a first season where he only played 49 games and produced a 91 OPS+, his second season he played 128 games for a 93 OPS+ and he was cut in his third season after playing 10 games. For a 3 year contract, the Brewers got barely more than a year of production, and it was at a below average level.

 

You said that the Giambi deal made Hammonds look like a bargain. Just because something is less expensive doesn't make it a bargain. The Brewers didn't get anything close to value out of Hammonds. There were certainly years where the Yankees got value and something close to value out of Giambi.

[nate82]

In the last couple years the Packers signed Charles Woodson and Ryan Pickett. Woodson was a probowl player before he got here and played like one while he was here. At this point Woodson's time in green Bay might be enough to put him in the HOF someday. Pickett was a first round draft pick who signed with the Packers at age 26. Hardly past his prime, never really injured and certainly not a spare part.

Woodson was injured in the final year in Oakland and was battling some nagging injuries and was a question mark coming into that years free agency pool. Ryan Pickett is a spare part player. If you are going by Pro Bowlers as being a gauge to judge how good a player is in the NFL you are using the wrong indicator to come to your conclusion.

 

I also said the majority of the free agents in the NFL. That means there are some players who are not like I described but the majority are what I described. The NFL wouldn't look any different than what it is now. The salary doesn't really inhibit Jones or anyone else from getting the top free agents. The Cowboys had enough cap space to add Randy Moss to their team if Moss decided to leave the Patriots he could have signed with the Cowboys.

 

The salary cap in the NFL is not the reason why there is so much parity in the NFL.

[Thurston Fluff]

You said that the Giambi deal made Hammonds look like a bargain.

 

You are right I did overstate this point. There is no way the Hammonds deal is a bargain.

 

Just because something is less expensive doesn't make it a bargain.

 

But it does mean it won't hamper the team as long. It was the years that made the Giambi deal so bad and the Hammonds one not as dismal.

 

The Brewers didn't get anything close to value out of Hammonds. There were certainly years where the Yankees got value and something close to value out of Giambi.

 

The Yankees got something resembling value for their money three of the seven years. I don't know if he was worth his average salary over the life of the contract in any of those seven years but they did get more out of him/$ than we did Hammonds. That means the Yankees suffered with 4 years of sub par performance whereas the Brewers suffered with three from Hammonds. It is the length of the contract that made the Giambi signing so bad. Talyor was, at the very least, smart enough not to mortage the better part of a decade on what essentially is a gamble. Granted I overstated my case but I still stand by my statement that Taylor is as capable as Cashman if he was given the chance Cashman had.

[danzig6767]

Woodson was injured in the final year in Oakland and was battling some nagging injuries and was a question mark coming into that years free agency pool. Ryan Pickett is a spare part player. If you are going by Pro Bowlers as being a gauge to judge how good a player is in the NFL you are using the wrong indicator to come to your conclusion.

 

I also said the majority of the free agents in the NFL. That means there are some players who are not like I described but the majority are what I described. The NFL wouldn't look any different than what it is now. The salary doesn't really inhibit Jones or anyone else from getting the top free agents. The Cowboys had enough cap space to add Randy Moss to their team if Moss decided to leave the Patriots he could have signed with the Cowboys.

 

The salary cap in the NFL is not the reason why there is so much parity in the NFL.

Oh come on, of course the NFL would look quite a bit different without their salary cap and it does inhibit guys like Jerry Jones from adding talent to his team. Yea NFL teams can get around the cap for awhile by using the big signing bonus route, but eventually that will catch up to a team given how bonus money is prorated and dead money builds up. Then once that happens, the team can find itself not only being unable to sign free agents, they might not have the cap room to keep some of their own players either. Every single signing of any significance by an NFL team has to be evaluated by that team from both a talent/fit perspective, but also the state of their cap situation. For rich teams in baseball though, all they have to consider with outside free agents or their own soon to be free agents is, does my owner want to spend this much money? That's a sizable difference. The Yankees can simply brush off trainwreck signings like Pavano because they have the cash to pay for mistakes, in NFL, a few bad mistakes will get a team in cap hell. Obviously the much higher levels of revenue sharing in the NFL compared to baseball also plays a key factor in allowing small market teams like the Packers/Vikings to compete financially reasonably well with the big market teams.

 

As i said before though, the sports are so different on multiple levels that it's hard to compare things. Baseball is such a simple game compared to football which is far more complex and team based, baseball is largely an individual sport wrapped into a team game. A good pitcher is a good pitcher for the most part, regardless of how any manager likes to play things, just get hitters out. Manny or Teixeira don't need to be in the right scheme to hit to their fullest. In the NFL, a quality player often leaves his team in free agency and doesn't do as well with his new team because the different system doesn't fit as well. Look at Corey Williams with the Packers. He excelled at rushing the passer as a DT and after the Browns traded for him and played Corey at DE in a 3-4 scheme, he was miscast and struggled. Football is also a much much more dangerous game to it's players, so when offered good money in an extension by their original team, the younger players are more inclined to take it vs waiting to be a free agent because suffering a bad injury in football can happen so easily. Boras can advise clients like say Teixeira to not sign extensions and wait the six years until free agency because odds are he'll stay pretty healthy. In the NFL, that's a far more risky plan to take given how violent the sport is.

[Roderick]

Slot the salaries in the baseball draft so the KC Royals are not skipping a player because they know they will not be able to sign them.

 

I would say share the local media revenue, but a team that owns the media would just adjust the contract to have the media outlet make more money and pay the team less. It would take a host of accountants and lawyers to filter through that arrangement.

 

I would be tempting to allow the trading of draft picks. That would allow teams to make 'runs' where they built up quite a few high picks over just a couple of years. However, you would get an owner (GM) like the old Cleveland Cavaliers owner, Ted Stepien, who was soooo bad that the NBA had to adjust the rules on trading away draft picks.

 

If the players ever accepted a salary cap, I'm sure it would be designed with a very high floor. One of the reasons the NFL was able to make the salary cap work, it forced the Cincinnati Bengals to actually spend a minimum amount of money annually. Making a few MLB teams at the bottom pay more to players would make up for the lost earnings from the Yankees being restricted on what they spend on player salaries. Yes, that may force a young (cheap) team to add an expensive veteran they don't really need to get to that floor, but that would be the cost to get a cap, imo.

 

The biggest thing to me is keeping the internet 100% shared and trying to expand that definition. So that in 15 years when the internet is the medium for even local baseball viewing, and the YES network is on the internet the Brewers will be participating in the Yankees media dollars.

[Nader Raider Tim]

I hate the concept of a salary cap. While a high payroll doesn't guarantee a playoff spot it does increase the margin of error for management. I do think there should be something done to attempt to create a situation where there are consequences for going over the luxury tax threshold, other than the owner spending more money.

 

The first thing I would like to see is having any team over the luxury tax threshold be unable to receive supplemental picks from losing players to free agency. The would still be able to get the pick from the signing team but the team losing the player would not receive a supplemental pick from the league. For example if the Cubs sign Bobby Abreu they would still have to give the Yankee's their second round pick, but the Yankees would not receive the supplemental draft pick from the league.

 

Also I would like to see there to be draft pick penalties for going over the salary cap. Have it set up where every $10 million over the luxury tax threshold you lose a draft pick have it start at round 10 and work it's way down.

 

I don't want a salary cap but I do want consequences for spending absurd amounts of money. Draft pick compensation seems to be, to me, one of the most logical ways to attempt to even the playing field. If you spend tons of money on free agents then you are going to have a hard time developing your own prospects, and therefor trading away prospects for lower market stars. So a $200m+ payroll would provide a higher probability of short term success with some longterm penalties.

[Thurston Fluff]

Woodson was injured in the final year in Oakland and was battling some nagging injuries and was a question mark coming into that years free agency pool. Ryan Pickett is a spare part player.

 

You're rihgt about Woodson but Pickett is a spare part? When oyu can get an above average player at his postion entering his prime via free agnecy it is hardly a spare part. If Pickett is a spare part then so is getting an above average 26 year old 3rd baseman.

 

If you are going by Pro Bowlers as being a gauge to judge how good a player is in the NFL you are using the wrong indicator to come to your conclusion.

 

If they play at that level I'm not. Woodson has clearly played at that level. Do you really think we would have been able to get him if anyone could take a chance on him with no worry about salary cap ramifications? Do you really think guys who collect big names like Jerry Jones or Daniel Schneider wouldn't have just taken him because of the name if they didn't have to worry about salary cap ramifications? The Woodson signing was the equivalent of the Yankees signing AJ Burnett. An often injured great talent. The only difference is the Yankees only long term risk is financial which is to say irrelevant. The same signing in football would also have a competitive risk even after the player is gone. That makes guys like Woodson more affordable if football than guys like Burnett in baseball.

[sveumrules]

The Yankees got something resembling value for their money three of the seven years. I don't know if he was worth his average salary over the life of the contract in any of those seven years but they did get more out of him/$ than we did Hammonds.

thats the beauty of the new value stats at fangraphs. giambi works perfectly since they have the win values starting in 2002, his first year in pinstripes. he was worth 73 million dollars over the life of his 115 million contract. in only three of the seven seasons did he earn his actual salary.

[Thurston Fluff]

thats the beauty of the new value stats at fangraphs. giambi works perfectly since they have the win values starting in 2002, his first year in pinstripes. he was worth 73 million dollars over the life of his 115 million contract. in only three of the seven seasons did he earn his actual salary.

 

Which is why I don't think the Hammonds singing was any worse than the Giambi one. Giambi was below his value for more years than Hammonds entire contract. His overall value deficit was more than Hammonds entire contract as well. The only difference is the Giambi contract didn't really hurt the Yankees because they could afford to eat that loss better than the Brewers circa 2002 could the much smaller Hammonds deal. If the Brewers made the same level mistake today they might not be harmed as much since they have internal options and better financial footing than they did then but all thing considered Hammonds is no bigger a mistake than Giambi. Even if he was a much poorer player over life of the contract.

[MJLiverock]

But that it was drive people crazy about the Yankees... it doesn't matter if a guy truly "earns" is salary from them, they can afford to pay it and it doesn't cripple them. Giambi could be the worst signing of all time and it wouldn't have hampered their ability to sign Arod, Damon, Rivera, Jeter, etc. People still complain about the crippling effect of Hammonds on the Brewers or say we can't take the risk of a 3 year deal with Sheets because he might miss a year or something.

 

The Yankees have sooo much more money than most teams in baseball that they really can't make a mistake because they can just buy their way out of it.

 

People keep trying to point out wins per dollar and getting value out of players and using that as justification that the Yankees are failing but I just think that is completely wrong. They have so much more money that it doesn't matter what the incremental win costs them because they want it and have the resources to "overpay" for it because to them it isn't overpaying it is just money they have around the only other option for them is to put the money in the bank. But why do that when they can spend it on the best players available and still have more money left over than anyone else, still improve their brand image, have a good shot at the World Series, create more interest in their team, etc.

 

Even overpaying they are probably still generating more dollars of profit than the Brewers and their likes. No amount of great managing will change it because their target market is so vastly bigger than Milwaukee's.

 

Virtually guaranteeing a playoff spot year in and year out it very much worth it to them versus banking the money. I keep seeing the rationale of Colorado or Tampa as reason there is balance in baseball but these are one hit wonders who don't compete year in and year out. Colorado has already been dismantled, how long before Tampa is selling?

[bjkrautk]

There is only one tool with which MLB will ever push forward towards greater competitive balance: revenue sharing. Prior to Selig's tenure as Commish, there was no revenue sharing in MLB. It is only by shifting funds away from the top markets and towards the bottom that the league can approach parity.

 

This kind of sharing is far easier in the NFL, where the TV rights are sold as a bundle (whereas MLB, and even the NBA, have to rely on local TV deals in addition to the national packages). One of the best (and least heralded) things I think Selig has done was to bundle MLB online rights; as that positions the league to have greater shared revenue in the long run.

 

Will things ever be perfectly even? No. They aren't that way in the NFL either; teams are increasingly looking for non-shared revenue streams as a means to circumvent revenue sharing. The Cowboys are practically building a mall around the periphery of the new Texas Stadium, and the Packers have started buying up real estate surrounding Lambeau should they need to do likewise. (That doesn't even begin to mention the Lambeau Field Atrium, and its year-round revenue.) I'd also be curious as to the disparity in revenue generated from pre-season football games (which are handled locally).

 

You're never going to see 1/30th of all revenue split equally in the next CBA; incremental change is the way these things work.

[Playing Catch]

1- First of all, I don't share everybody's antipathy for competitive imbalance. Every year Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Chelsea dominate England's soccer league, and the folks supporting the other clubs in the top division still love their teams and cherish every opportunity to knock off the big boys... it's just a different mind set with the fans. This year gave me the thrill of my Brewers-lifetime. If we were competitive every couple of years I don't know that I would live and die with every Cubs series.

 

2- If the goal is to even the playing field, their needs to be "socialist" measures taken to redistribute the wealth.

 

3- The most radical idea I have is to cast off the minor leagues from major league control. If each year the worst teams got to pick from that year's top prospects that have already spent time in the minors instead of from high school and college kids, their would be a "rebuilding" mechanism that would help teams a lot more than the crapshoot that is the current MLB amateur draft. I think this is an idea that the player's union would actually endorse, and teams would be forced to pick from players that were "ready" for the show, because teams wouldn't have anywhere to put them if they weren't able to perform at the big league level.

[Thurston Fluff]

#3 is a radical idea but it's at least interesting to think about. Don't know how it would work since teams fund the developmental leagues and supply them with coaches.

[GAME05]

i think to a good degree, people would lose interest in baseball if the Yankees didn't exist (as big spenders, that is). there is definitely something exciting to seasons when we get to watch Darth Steinbrenner get knocked out. heck, we've got a four-page discussion going about how to basically slow the Yankees down. if there were a total balance of power, who would we have left to hate but the Cubs?

 

if there's to be any movement on a measure to add more competitive balance, i think it's going to have to start with the Players Union first, as odd as that may seem. First it would take the Yankees winning three or four in a row and everyone getting sick of that. Then we could hope that players from other teams get sick of it, too, and become more responsive to that sort of talk. for that reason, if the Brewers can't win it, I always strangely hope that the Yankees do.