Don Fehr stepping down as union chief

[splitterpfj]

I don't have a link yet, but it is confirmed. Mike Wiener is the replacement.

 

(Edited to add ESPN link - hawing)

[Patrick425]

Now if only Scott Boras would step down as a player's agent.

[bullox]

Now if only Scott Boras would step down as a player's agent.

I imagine that there are some, many perhaps, who would want someone with the same initials (reversed) to step down as well. Deserved or not.

[AJAY]

Don Fehr is a complete disgrace to humanity. He and his stupid union have done so much damage to the game of baseball. I hope I never see his disgusting face again.

[PaulRigdon]

Now if only Scott Boras would step down as a player's agent.

Bullox wrote:

I imagine that there are some, many perhaps, who would want someone with the same initials (reversed) to step down as well. Deserved or not.

 

 

Why do people want Scott Bartell to resign?

[Invader3K]

Mike Wiener is the replacement.

What a great name. In all seriousness, do we know anything about him? Is he just a Fehr crony who will have similar policies, etc?

[hawing]

The ESPN link in the lead post describes Wiener as "the No. 3 official and his longtime heir apparent." So his being Fehr-esque doesn't sound implausible.

[phxMILWfan]

Enabling steroid use and driving player contracts to ridiculous heights causing familes to have difficulty affording tickets... That's how I will always remember Don Fehr. He also had a huge hand in pushing larger markets abilities to sign the best players leaving the smaller markets behind.

[AJAY]

Enabling steroid use and driving player contracts to ridiculous heights causing familes to have difficulty affording tickets

 

Ticket prices are actually determined by supply and demand. Player expenses have no effect on pricing.

[MkeSouthSide]

Enabling steroid use and driving player contracts to ridiculous heights causing familes to have difficulty affording tickets....

If the players didn't receive high salaries, the owners would take in that money as profits. The price of tickets is a result of people being willing to pay the money. I'd rather my ticket price money go to the players that I want to see play rather than the owners' pockets.

[owbc]

And of course, if player salaries and ticket prices were both cut, the large profits would go to scalpers.

[snyttri]

I think the legacies of both Fehr and Selig will be PEDs first, but cheating seems to be inherent in sports.

 

I think it's a myth that ticket prices are determined solely by the invisible forces of supply and demand (like the recently disproven myth that derivatives would find their true value in the market). When the MLBPA forced the owners to compete against each other to pay higher salaries to the better players instead of colluding to keep salaries down (as all owners did before the reserve clause was challenged) it forced owners to come up with ways to pay the salaries, including high ticket prices. Without the high salaries it may not have been possible for owners to extort stadiums from cities. The new stadiums were excuses to raise ticket prices. The salaries of players involve more than supply and demand. The legal system and the butcher's thumb have made ticket prices high too. Fans would not buy $50 tickets to watch teams of $50,000 baseball players.

[phxMILWfan]

I'm sorry but I refuse to believe that player salaries play no role in ticket prices. Where are the owners getting the money to pay the players from (I know sponsors also generate revenue but money at the gates is huge)? If the ticket price was determined solely by supply and demand they would fluctuate more. The home team is tanking in July and fans lose interest, ticket prices would come down. The home team is in a pennant race, ticket prices sky rocket. You really don't see any corelation between player contracts increasing and ticket prices increasing over the last 25 years? If you want to say that player contracts aren't the ONLY factor in ticket prices, that is fair. But they aren't completely unrelated. What is the signifigance of ticket sales then?