Smartmoney.com carves up MLB

[splitterpfj]

There's some pretty good shots in here. "I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss and get every national accounting firm to agree with me."

 

Smartmoney.com

 

Ouch!

 

[Paul77]

Really, what was the point of that article? The title should have been "10 Things Major League Baseball Won't Tell You, and 8 of them are things you probably already know".

 

"So much for the national pastime." Baseball does poorly on national tv. Yep. Been talked about for years. Local viewer ship in many markets is pretty good though isn't it?

 

"Scalping tickets is illegal - unless, of course, we do it." Okay, I concede many people might not know about this.

 

"We're as American as apple pie - and job outsourcing." Latin players? In baseball? Since when and why wasn't I informed? And here I am like a sucker thinking that everyone in MLB just had a really good tan.

 

"We make it tough for you to watch your team play." Yes they do. No doubt about it.

"We still haven't cleaned up our act." Steroids! Thanks smartmoney.com for letting the cat out of the bag.

 

"The players aren't the only ones getting injured." Two words - Jeromey Burnitz. Actually seven more words "Watch out for flying bats and balls"

 

"Our accounting defies the laws of nature..." No doubt, MLB has some special math. But is this really news to anyone? I mean anyone since 1995? Even the "I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss and get every national accounting firm to agree with me" quote is over 10 years old.

 

"...while you're the one picking up the slack." Teams are making an insane amount of profit? And thats why my ticket cost $85? Really? Thanks for clearing that up.

 

"We've got friends in high places." Ok. This might have been the subject of a good article.

 

"The most valuable thing in a pack of baseball cards is the gum." No comment. Yes I will. No I won't.

[splitterpfj]

Fans getting hurt in the stands, and outsourcing were just plain stupid, I thought, but overall I thought this touched on some good points. No, it isn't groundbreaking information to informed baseball fans, but the article wasn't distributed to guys like us either, it went to the masses.

 

Baseball is doing great, with soaring attendance and huge revenues, but they have made things more difficult for fans, which I do think has had a negative impact in some areas. No marketing professional would ever advise the late night playoff games, or the moves that have made it hard to watch your team if you don't live right next door. The reason TV ratings are way down for the post-season is because, unless you're a diehard, you don't watch anymore unless your team is in it. This is because baseball adopted the philosophy of pushing the largest markets...at all costs. They've stopped selling the World Series, and instead they sell the Red Sox, then if the Sox aren't in, the story has been removed, leaving only those who have followed the Indians and Rockies to give a darn. We complain all day about all the New York, Boston, and Chicago coverage on ESPN, etc, but obviously its been done by design. It's lazy, and it's foolish, they're taking the easy viewers, by showing the largest markets, while simultaneously narrowing the scope for all but the most passionate of fans.

 

While the NFL will show any market on Monday Night Football, if they think that particular team is going to be worth watching, MLB keeps feeding the world the same few teams. They've created a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which more people will watch simply because New York is on, which means the casual fan was given almost no opportunity to take interest in the Rockies, the Diamondbacks, the Indians, etc. How about sharing ALL of baseball with the casual viewer, and then giving them games that begin at 7 PM? I think they'd be shocked, people used to watch when the Royals played the Cardinals in the World Series, because they had been engaged enough to know George Brett and Ozzie Smith. Now, if you don't live in Denver, you have to play fantasy baseball, or be a lifer to know who these guys are.

 

It's like a manufacturer who gets 80% of their sales volume from Wal-Mart....what do you do next year if their buyer says no?

 

You get Rockies-Indians, ratings crumble, and guys write articles about how your game clearly isn't what it used to be.

[mothershipconnection]

You're not "exploiting" anyone when you give them a bonus larger than the salary I make with a Master's degree.

[homer]

Yeah, I thought there were a few in there that were really stretching things just so the author could have another bullet point.

[sbrylski]

Yeah, I thought there were a few in there that were really stretching things just so the author could have another bullet point.

Sounds like my college essays.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

Yeah, i'd say 90% of that article is garbage. The one point where I always get suckered in though is the topic of publicly funded professional stadiums.

 

In the yesterday, when baseball was more about sport than a business, I guess it probably would have been alright to stomach the cost (especially since the local county/city owned the parks), but in an era where baseball players make 100x what the average worker makes, i think its absurd that the taxpayer pays for stadiums.

 

You'd think with that huge TV deal that the league could invest a sizable chunk in their own stadiums. That 0.10% tax equals about $90 a year to me, and thats enough for 5-6 more ball games http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

End rant

[danzig6767]

Yeah, i'd say 90% of that article is garbage. The one point where I always get suckered in though is the topic of publicly funded professional stadiums.

 

In the yesterday, when baseball was more about sport than a business, I guess it probably would have been alright to stomach the cost (especially since the local county/city owned the parks), but in an era where baseball players make 100x what the average worker makes, i think its absurd that the taxpayer pays for stadiums.

 

You'd think with that huge TV deal that the league could invest a sizable chunk in their own stadiums. That 0.10% tax equals about $90 a year to me, and thats enough for 5-6 more ball games http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

End rant

 

Yea the stadium shakedowns made the mafia look like chump change street panhandlers.All these cities though didn't do what could have been done,call the owners/the leagues bluff.There simply aren't many markets left that could support a baseball team,yet you had 3/4 of the league basically putting a gun to the head of taxpayers and threatening to move the team if a stadium wasn't built for them.If the cities all said no,what was baseball going to do,move 1/2 or 1/3 of long established franchises to smaller market cities with no long standing ties to baseball?

Say Milwaukee,Cincinnati,Minnesota,Kansas City,Houston,Florida,Seattle,Philly,Pittsburgh,and San Diego all said screw you MLB,build your own damn stadiums and stop asking taxpayers to build them?What was baseball going to do,bail on all these cities and move to places like Des Moines and Nashville?On top of that,you had NFL and NBA teams also with their hands out threatening cities.Not enough had the balls to say no to what in most cases was just a bluff.

Gotta hand it to these leagues.Looking back at how it all went down,i still can't believe they pulled it off.The timing was perfect though for it.Those were the Clinton years where the economy was bursting at the seams both locally and nationally,plus no wars going on.If the leagues tried pulling that now with mass amounts of pro teams wanting a new park/arena,they would get alot more build it yourself answers.

 

 

 

 

 

[Thurston Fluff]

 

Signing bonuses for Latino players are comparable - rarely more than five figures - to those of American players taken in the seventh round of the amateur draft, says Alan Klein, author of "Growing the Game: The Globalization of Major League Baseball." Compared with the routine seven figures given to top American players, it's no wonder several hundred are signed each year from the Dominican Republic alone. "Teams are looking for a competitive advantage," says Burgos, "sometimes at the expense of exploiting workers." (An MLB spokesperson declined to comment.

Foreign-born players now account for almost half of minor league rosters - though 98% will never make the majors, says Jose Luis Villegas, author of "Away Games: The Life and Times of a Latin Ballplayer."

The first part seems to insinuate that baseball exploits foreign players. The second seems to show the real reason. Most players won't make it to the majors yet get a 7th round bonus. They sort of overlooked the fact that Cuban born refugee's routinely go to Latin American countries instead of the US so they are free agents and not subject to the draft. I guess they like being exploited. Since almost half of the players in the minors are foreign born it stands to reason the average bonuses would be lower. All the marginal players who get squat for a bonus is inevitably going to drag down the average bonus for the really talented players who actually get the big bonuses.
If this is the type of analysis smart money does I guess I'll look for someone else's financial advice.

[homer]

Not to mention a lot of Latin players are signed when they are 16 and 17 years old. Most American players are over 18. So imagine giving the same bonus a Latin player gets to a sophomore in high school.