COVID-19 impact on MLB season

[JosephC]

When Selig was running baseball there was a balance between profits and the good of the game and it turned out that improving the game was good for business.

 

Wow, just wow.

 

When the owners ganged up, threw out Fay Vincent for siding with the players and gave Selig the commissioner spot, that moment right there is the most defining moment of owners being only interested in profit and having no regard for the good of the game.

[owbc]

When Selig was running baseball there was a balance between profits and the good of the game and it turned out that improving the game was good for business.

 

Wow, just wow.

 

When the owners ganged up, threw out Fay Vincent for siding with the players and gave Selig the commissioner spot, that moment right there is the most defining moment of owners being only interested in profit and having no regard for the good of the game.

 

You'll have to elaborate, I'm too young to remember that and I'm not familiar with the history.

[JosephC]

Basically, there was a lockout in 1990 and Vincent sided with the players. The owners held a grudge and a couple years later they had a no-confidence vote after which Vincent resigned instead of being fired (the writing was on the wall).

 

https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/mlb-history-fay-vincent-forced-out-as-commissioner-090316

 

The two most involved in that were Selig and Reinsdorf, who were considered two peas in the same pod. I've been trying to find the quote online but cannot. At one point Vincent actually made a statement to the media that he didn't blame the players at all for not trusting baseball ownership and said that Reinsdorf and Selig were the two main architects of collusion and could not be trusted. Could you ever imagine a commissioner in any sport saying something like that in 2020? Frankly, when baseball put Selig in the commissioner job it was the end of having a neutral figure that had the good of the game at heart. Selig was given that spot because he was "one of their own" and owners were absolutely certain that he would never break ranks. Now a sports commissioner is really nothing more than the organization's top PR lawyer, only there to put be the owner's lapdog and put the "we do the right thing" face on when dealing with the media.

[3and2Fastball]

When Selig was running baseball there was a balance between profits and the good of the game and it turned out that improving the game was good for business.

 

Wow, just wow.

 

When the owners ganged up, threw out Fay Vincent for siding with the players and gave Selig the commissioner spot, that moment right there is the most defining moment of owners being only interested in profit and having no regard for the good of the game.

 

That and turning a blind eye to Steroids, even though they knew steroids were rampant. McGwire & Sosa gave the owners huge profits in bringing Baseball back to popularity after the 94 strike, and then they turn around and vilify the steroid guys.

 

Selig in the Hall of Fame, but Bonds and McGwire are not. That to me illustrates everything wrong with Baseball.

[tmwiese55]

Off topic of course, but thought of due to your Selig vs Bonds/Mac HOF. I think it's a joke Tony LaRussa is in while the players involved are not.

[Jopal78]

I love how the owners are offering the same salary to the players just in different appearances with % prorate and # of games. Like the players wouldn't see right through that. It really doesn't seem like the owners want baseball this year.

 

They want baseball, but are only comfortable taking a loss up to a certain level. Obviously they got together and agreed as a whole that they can afford to take a XXX loss to put a product on the field this season, and have the numbers worked out for different scenarios with the number of games. These guys aren't idiots. They became billionaires by taking calculated risks that have, for the most part, paid off. Even though they all will be taking a big loss, to bring baseball back the financial risk still needs to be mitigated, or it isn't going to happen. I agree that it sucks, but that's the business side of things. That's reality. The owners aren't holding out on bringing baseball back because they don't want to. They are holding out because it doesn't make financial sense not to.

 

This is exactly the problem with professional sports (as well as college sports). Run purely as a business to make as much money as possible. Every single decision made with the balance sheet in mind. We’ve known this all along but now the rot is out in the open and it is disgusting to see.

 

Most (all?) billionaires are about as smart as the average senior executive, they just got lucky or started their lives on third base. I refuse to hold them on a pedestal. As a billionaire running a sports team I would argue that they have an obligation to bring baseball back and uphold the good of the game that they are entrusted with an ownership stake in. It’s a moral obligation. And a contractural one. They should have written the risk into the contracts if they didn’t want to pay them when a crisis happened. There are a thousand other things they could have bought and profited on instead of a sports team.

 

The “run as a business” crap is reality but it doesn’t have to be reality. It didn’t used to be reality. When Selig was running baseball there was a balance between profits and the good of the game and it turned out that improving the game was good for business. Now the pendulum has swung so far towards profits that it may destroy MLB in the long run. Which might be a good thing.

 

 

Baseball teams (as well as virtually all professional sports teams) are "for profit" businesses, they are not public trusts. They put out a product and ask you to pay to watch, listen or otherwise consume their product. For over 100 years that is the way it has worked, its not going to change and they don't really owe the public anything. Fans certainly don't typically show up en masse and spend money on the product when the team is bad, so why should the shoe somehow be on the other foot.

 

In fact, in the last 20+ years baseball teams have been soaked up by investment bankers (Guggenheim Partners, John W. Henry & Company, the TD Waterhouse folks, even our own Crescent Capital Group founder et al.) who realize the teams are the ultimate investment (teams never depreciate, never go out of business, and provide some revenue to boot). The more revenue owners can generate, the higher the ultimate sale price. That is why you see teams starting their own TV networks, then selling ownership stakes in those networks to media companies like Sinclair Broadcasting, Charter Communications, Amazon etc; teams are buying up real estate around their stadiums and developmental facilities. If it doesn't drive up the ultimate sale price for they can always split it up and sell it off piecemeal. Again, the mythical Steinbrenner-esque tycoon who owns a team as a play thing and could make a benevolent gesture for the public really doesn't exist any more if it ever truly did.

 

It is true, based on market sizes, that some owners are more reliant on the gate receipts than others, I imagine it is those owners who want the season to be played most of all given the chance their could be paying fans later. On the other hand, teams like the Cubs will take a blood bath from a revenue standpoint if the season is played with no fans. They will have to pay their high salaried players, and have no revenue coming in from the gate, the hotel, the rooftops, the bars and restaurants around the stadium they own, etc. Behind closed doors those owners are probably content if the 2020 season never materializes.

 

Make no mistake, neither the players nor the owners give an iota about the fans sitting at home. They had a golden opportunity to get their season on track and be the only entertainment alternative to on-demand video, and they blew it because neither side is going to budge from their position for the good of the game or the fans. The MLBPA is the most powerful players union in professional sports. While the other major leagues have all locked their players out in the last 15 years to force them to accept cuts in pay the owners haven't even tried to lock the baseball players out in 30 years. Understandably, the players union wants its members to make as much money as possible. In their purview they already made a grand gesture when they agreed to accept a prorated salary tied to the number of games played instead of their guaranteed annual salary . To wit, you don't get to be a powerful union like the MLBPA by then establishing a precedent of negotiating against yourself for further cuts in pay. Therefore, any offer from the owners which doesn't include full prorated salaries will be rejected by the union without any real deliberation. To be sure, if the owners suggested a 100 game schedule with all players receiving their full salary prorated to 100 games, 99.9% of players would be packing their bags to report to the team.

 

As fans, the only pro-baseball we are likely to receive is the 50 game season the Commissioner can impose. This is why the owners keep making offers with various number of games and compensation to the Union; they are building their case to argue they negotiated games and salary in good faith with the Union to no avail, and then ask the Commissioner to establish the 50 game season and expanded playoffs. With a 50 game schedule featuring full prorated salaries plus regular playoff pay, the Union will have no real option but to accept. Although, I would imagine some players will decide to skip the season due to "health concerns" and it would set the stage for increased acrimony when they negotiate the new labor contract/CBA.

[owbc]

This is a good discussion and gets into some deeper details about what we imagine professional sports should be vs. what they actually are.

 

The key thing to me is the use of public dollars for stadiums. If the billionaire owners want to run MLB as a business that's fine, but when they use taxpayer dollars then they are renting a public asset and there is an obligation to be more than just a business. We've started to see pushback around public funding of stadiums and with wealth increasingly concentrated at the top it is increasingly clear that the days of public financing for stadiums are coming to an end. In fact there are now instances (such in Seattle) of ownership groups being required to pay into the city's affordable housing fund in exchange for the privilege of operating a sports facility in the city. Obviously not every city has the leverage that Seattle does but with near-guaranteed profits from a sports team it seems like some money is finally flowing in the correct direction.

 

Getting back to MLB, the big unanswered question is how far they can push this until there is a public revolt. It seems like 1994 has been mostly forgotten, or at least there is the belief that if another 1994 happens the fans will return fairly quickly. That seems like a very dangerous assumption in these days of unlimited entertainment options. And the NBA owners have already expressed an openness to permanently play in the summer, so MLB's monopoly on the summer sports calendar is going to continue to erode.

 

I'm interested to see what happens if MLB tries to impose a 50-game schedule. I can't imagine that anyone will view that as a legitimate season, especially if some players sit out. There won't be much reason for fans to care with the NBA, NFL, and college football going on. Part of me hopes that happens, actually. If some serious pain is felt by both sides it will increase the likelihood of a faster CBA agreement which is better for the long-term health of the sport.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I'm interested to see what happens if MLB tries to impose a 50-game schedule. I can't imagine that anyone will view that as a legitimate season, especially if some players sit out. There won't be much reason for fans to care with the NBA, NFL, and college football going on. Part of me hopes that happens, actually. If some serious pain is felt by both sides it will increase the likelihood of a faster CBA agreement which is better for the long-term health of the sport.

 

Why? Every team will be on an even playing field. A 50-game season would still be a legit season, and the playoffs in October would resemble a typical MLB playoff atmosphere. You aren't going to see statisically excellent counting-number seasons, and there will be some anomalies, but for the most part, 50 games I would think would be a large enough sample to rectify that. If anything, you are going to see guys pressing at the plate, knowing that any sort of slump is going to tank their season numbers.

 

But I think fans would take a 50-game schedule seriously. it is going to be a little difficult to determine that, though, as long as no fans are in the stands.

[pacopete4]

Since sports teams make so much money, why have an owner buy a team? Why doesn’t a state or city government just buy a franchise and use the profits for the people?

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Well, one theory is that they really aren't all that profitable year over year. Billionaires buy them for status, personal interest, or plain old fun, because really, what could be more fun than that for a lot of people? It's probably my #1 fantasy in life. There are quite a few people who've claimed they don't really do anything for the owners financially until they are sold.

 

The Brewers valuation has gone up a ton since purchased, but that really doesn't do anything unless they are sold. I do think it's possible that the annual profits are not this great cash cow. It's very expensive to operate. It's not like people go rags to riches by investing in a team. They do it after they're already loaded beyond belief.

[tmwiese55]

It would work in some situations, see the Packers. But the majority of situations would get very complicated. As just pointed out, if the govt owns it they essentially can't sell it either. So then you get into at what level do accept losses year over year tacked into a state or city budget. You could very easily run into a lot of teams operating like Oakland because they can't float big losses year over year (to go for it) using the public's money.

 

Now if you put in a big time shakeup of all revenue systems to work around that well then maybe something could be devised, but think how complicated that all gets. Man, and then imagine the complaining and such if the team is doing poorly on the field, we can't get the public to agree on anything as it is, and now we'll have entered political bickering into sports too. No thanks.

[Jopal78]

Since sports teams make so much money, why have an owner buy a team? Why doesn’t a state or city government just buy a franchise and use the profits for the people?

 

The last team that was sold (Miami Marlins) obtained a price of 1.2 billion dollars. There isn't a city or State in America that has 1.2 billion dollars laying around to buy a baseball team with.

 

A lot of the value is tied up in equity. A 95% ownership interest in the Cubs was sold to the Ricketts family in 2009 for 900 Million. In March of 2019 the Ricketts moved to purchase the final 5% ownership interest. For purposes of that agreement the Cubs were valued at 2.15 billion dollars and the 5% share was then sold to them for 107 million dollars.

 

So the real "profits" from being an owner is when you unload the team for 2.15 billion when you paid 1 billion to buy it. Not whatever money is left after the season is over between revenue and expenses, that would largely be nickels and dimes by comparison. That is why there are only two owners (CHW and PHI) who have held their teams since before the 90s, and 23 of the teams have had a change in principal owner since the year 2000

[homer]

I think there are rules against public ownership. Packers are grandfathered in.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Packers also have Herculean community support. I can't imagine what would happen if a city owned the Baltimore Orioles. 60% of the tax base would want the team out any given year. Politicians would run on killing teams. No thanks.

[owbc]

My issue is that a significant portion of that equity is a result of publicly-funded infrastructure to support the sports team. Mark Attanasio doesn't own Miller Park, but it's not like it has much value if there isn't a baseball team in Milwaukee. It would be better for everyone if he did own Miller Park and assumed the risk associated with owning the facility. As Boras noted, a big reason owners do not want to pay more in salary dollars is because they are getting crushed by debt obligations associated with stadium-related projects. The Brewers are surely in that situation with whatever they owe for Maryvale. The situation would be even worse if the MLB owned the stadiums, but instead the local governments are stuck with that problem. In Seattle, T-Mobile Park gets $4.5 million/year in maintenance money from hotel taxes. There isn't any hotel tax revenue this year. Where is that money going to come from?

[sveumrules]

Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr says the baseball industry isn't very profitable, should probably just shut the whole thing down in that case. I mean what's the point of even carrying on for the meager profits these owners have to scrape by on?

[dlk9s]

Purely from a sports fan perspective, I couldn't care less anymore. Just try to get the country (and Canada) as healthy as possible and see where things sit in 2021.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Purely from a sports fan perspective, I couldn't care less anymore. Just try to get the country (and Canada) as healthy as possible and see where things sit in 2021.

 

I agree that I don't necessarily care if they get their act together or not, but the more things that can start trucking again, gets us back to normal faster.

[TURBO]

I find it hard to believe that people on a hardcore brewer fan site like this truly don't care if they play a season or not.

 

For me personally, I'm fine with whatever they do, as long as they play. 50, 80, 100 games, just give me Brewers baseball in 2020.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I find it hard to believe that people on a hardcore brewer fan site like this truly don't care if they play a season or not.

 

For me personally, I'm fine with whatever they do, as long as they play. 50, 80, 100 games, just give me Brewers baseball in 2020.

 

AMEN! I've seen so many people, both here and on other social media platforms, implying that they don't care if baseball comes back because they have moved on, or that a 50-game season would somehow be invalid or illegitimate. That holier than thou traditionalist crap needs to stop. Yeah, it's gonna be a much different season this year. Well guess what, this whole year has been different. You find a way to make it work. Every team is going to be in the same boat.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I find it hard to believe that people on a hardcore brewer fan site like this truly don't care if they play a season or not.

 

For me personally, I'm fine with whatever they do, as long as they play. 50, 80, 100 games, just give me Brewers baseball in 2020.

 

I'll take what we get, but 90% of my involvement is attending games. I just don't sit around and watch many on TV, I just can't do that. For most of the season I'm getting phone updates, and I'll maybe see 10 games on TV unless they make the playoffs. If it's 2-2 in the 8th I might flip it on. Once I can't go to the games, it's kills a lot of it for me.

 

I don't think it has anything at all to do with holier-than-thou traditionalist stuff. It's simply filling a gap with something else and realizing you're just fine. Lawn looks better than it has in years.

[JackNicholson1974]

50 games is better than 0 games. However, anything less than 82 just sort of feels forced and I would defintely not be in to it as much. A 50 game season could theoretically start on August 1 and finish by September 30 I suppose. No reason to have 50 game season start on July 15 and end it earlier than normal, right? So I can only assume that a 50 game season means an August 1 start at the earliest.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The 50 game season actually sounds fun to me, just to see how different it is. That's like 2 good weeks from the Orioles and they have a real chance to do something. Nobody will respect it like a normal season but that doesn't mean it can't be interesting.

[young guns]

Even on top of the health questions, what about the fairness of allowing some teams to have fans and others cant.

 

Is it a huge advantage? Possibly a dumb question since it's not measurable. Also almost wondering with things like regional schedules and seasons as low as 50 games being proposed if it's high on the list of imbalanced things.

It's not easily measured but it does exist. Theres home field advantage for a reason. And this goes beyond having thousands of fans to cheering. Without knowing how they might slip up those funds, from ticket sales to parking to food sales to merch sales, any part of that the team gets to keep would be a financial advantage as well, especially vs a team like the brewers if they dont get fans.

[TURBO]

A 50 game season would be a blast! Every game would count, it would almost seem like the playoffs from day 1.

 

If a 50 game season gets us Brewers baseball, count me in BIG time!