Article: If Owners don't want the best players, then what's the point?

[Jack Parkman]

I agree with the sentiment in this article wholeheartedly. 

Quote

Peter Ueberroth, the sixth MLB commissioner, called the league a public trust. If these owners are not interested in running their teams that way, they should sell them and invest the proceeds in a chain of drugstores. 

Quote

“Anyone who quotes profits of a baseball club is missing the point,” former Blue Jays president Paul Beeston once said. “Under generally accepted accounting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss and get every national accounting firm to agree with me."

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Jack Parkman

[Bob Sacamano]

MLB needs to significantly raise the luxury tax threshold and add a spending floor. If the Yankees want to hand out to spend on star players whose contract will eventually hurt them later, let them. And honestly, it's pathetic that teams like the Indians and Pirates have what, $40 mill payrolls?

[TomPickle]

I was pretty young at the time, but one of the main criticisms I remember against WGN when they owned the Cubs was that they ran it like a business. Every team is run like a business now and it sucks.

Edited January 8, 2021 by TomPickle

[ptatc]

9 minutes ago, manbearpuig said:

MLB needs to significantly raise the luxury tax threshold and add a spending floor. If the Yankees want to hand out to spend on star players whose contract will eventually hurt them later, let them. And honestly, it's pathetic that teams like the Indians and Pirates have what, $40 mill payrolls?

The league won't have all teams be competitive until there is a salary cap and floor along with better revenue sharing formula similar to the other leagues.

[RagahRagah]

2 minutes ago, TomPickle said:

I was pretty young at the time, but one of the main criticisms I remember against WGN when they owned the Cubs was that they ran it like a business. Every team is run like a business now and it sucks.

Pretty much everything in this country is run like a business now.

[Bob Sacamano]

Just now, ptatc said:

The league won't have all teams be competitive until there is a salary cap and floor along with better revenue sharing formula similar to the other leagues.

Agreed. And a salary cap should still be higher than what the luxury tax is now.

[ptatc]

1 hour ago, RagahRagah said:

Pretty much everything in this country is run like a business now.

Hence the capitalism structure. the US has always had. They've always been run like that. Nothing is new except the regulations they keep changing

[ptatc]

1 hour ago, manbearpuig said:

Agreed. And a salary cap should still be higher than what the luxury tax is now.

To have a true cap and revenue sharing it would need to be set by the % of revenue that is agreed upon. With the league not opening the books, who knows where it would be.

[JoeCredeYes]

Maybe players should start demanding less money to play a children's game?  Everything in life is supply and demand.  Owners do not have an obligation to lose money in order to meet a player's demands.  If there is nobody willing to buy your services, you're asking for too much. 

[HOFHurt35]

1 hour ago, manbearpuig said:

Agreed. And a salary cap should still be higher than what the luxury tax is now.

Depends on the "True" revenue.  

[ptatc]

2 minutes ago, HOFHurt35 said:

Depends on the "True" revenue.  

Correct in the NBA it's basically split between the owners and the players at 50% each.

[Dominikk85]

Owning a team will always be a business and you can't expect owners to lose money consistently.

However it is still bad that some teams have 3 times the payroll of others.

That some are at 220 and others at 60 is just bad for the game.

Maybe the league should make sure that every team is between 130 and 180 instead, maybe combined with more revenue sharing. You could grant teams a two to three year rebuild exception per decade but otherwise you have to be at 130+.

No other league has such a big payroll spread as mlb.

[MackowiakYakYak]

The 6th Commissioner has it right. We don’t need every piece of life turned into a commodifiable asset. We let a single man or a boardroom control the prides of our city. I mean all we have to do is look at Cleveland for what bad teams can do to a place. Our own city applauded the death of a man because he held our hockey team hostage. Private individuals owning our sports is questionable but when they do it while concerned about ROI and asset growth it’s ridiculous. 
 

I only want to ever care about how much an athlete is making when they put a salary cap on the league where players get the majority. What has someone like Nutting in Pittsburgh done to deserve any profits from continuously fielding one of the worst teams in the league? Having initial capital shouldn’t be the qualification for getting to run a piece of American history.

[GradMc]

21 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

I agree with the sentiment in this article wholeheartedly. 

 

I hope the next White Sox ownership group are affluent sportsmen - not these egocentric bean-counters. 

Actually, they'll have to be affluent to keep this budding star-studded team together. 

Reinsdorf bought the Sox for pennies on the dollars and got a great deal with the state - with the expectation he could then use his resources to turn the Sox into perennial   contenders.

We got played and that's why I loathed him.  (And don't get me started with the way he's ran the Bulls needlessly into the ground).

And unless he was bowled over by some Balmer-like premium, P.T. Barnum 2.0. will never give us the satisfaction of watching him hand over the keys to the White Sox kingdom to a new ownership group.

He has a monopoly on NBA basketball in a tri-state area. That family will never sell the Bulls.

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by GradMc

[Texsox]

Here's a crazy idea. Parity is easy. Make every player an employee of the league and assign them to teams each year. Reset rosters every year and it won't matter who the owners are or their resources. In fact, why should each team have an owner? Merge all the teams into one corporate entity. It's all a travelling road show. 

 

[NWINFan]

On 1/8/2021 at 2:44 PM, JoeCredeYes said:

Maybe players should start demanding less money to play a children's game?  Everything in life is supply and demand.  Owners do not have an obligation to lose money in order to meet a player's demands.  If there is nobody willing to buy your services, you're asking for too much. 

The only trouble with this logic is that it has been the owners who have driven up the salaries. It started with the very beginning of free agency in the late 1970s when some owners tried to buy pennants. Smaller market teams couldn't compete. That is where we are at now.

[ptatc]

2 hours ago, NWINFan said:

The only trouble with this logic is that it has been the owners who have driven up the salaries. It started with the very beginning of free agency in the late 1970s when some owners tried to buy pennants. Smaller market teams couldn't compete. That is where we are at now.

So you're saying that the owners caused this by paying players increasing salaries?

The solution would then be for the owners to voluntarily NOT increase salaries and NOT spend money on players?

[YourWhatHurts]

4 hours ago, Texsox said:

Here's a crazy idea. Parity is easy. Make every player an employee of the league and assign them to teams each year. Reset rosters every year and it won't matter who the owners are or their resources. In fact, why should each team have an owner? Merge all the teams into one corporate entity. It's all a travelling road show. 

 

Just go the next logical step further.

The federal govt owns and operates the sports leagues.  Teams are portioned out such that all areas have 1 team and that 1 team represents a consistent population size.  Players are government employees whose salaries are capped at a minimum and maximum, and bonuses are collected into a central fund and then portioned out at the end of the year equally based upon statistical performance.  Players are well-paid patriots, all monies coming from al aspects of the enterprise including monies from private companies purchasing licensing rights, etc. are re-routed to fund educational structures and other necessary aspects of society such as infrastructure development and repair, etc.  

Why?  Because when the Chicago White Sox play the Cleveland Indians in America before an audience of the people, Chicago and Cleveland, and their populaces and the country as well, are the ones who should "get rich" out of it, or profit out of it, if anyone does at all.  The reality is that it is the reinsdorf White Sox vs. the dolan Indians, and the entire thing is funded by the workforce and predominantly the working class, and yet there's always this finger pointing between a bunch of overpaid players and a bunch of fat fuck owners as to who is broke / can't feed their family and who can.  Etc.

In reality you only need paying viewers and players, and there's no need for owners at all, and they are easily the most useless and unnecessary drains on society overall.  

Edited January 10, 2021 by YourWhatHurts

[YourWhatHurts]

On 1/8/2021 at 2:38 PM, ptatc said:

Hence the capitalism structure. the US has always had. They've always been run like that. Nothing is new except the regulations they keep changing

Yes, that is it.  Capitalism.

[zisk]

Babe Ruth was traded so an owner could fund a broadway play. There is nothing new under the sun.

[oldsox]

On 1/8/2021 at 2:10 PM, manbearpuig said:

MLB needs to significantly raise the luxury tax threshold and add a spending floor. If the Yankees want to hand out to spend on star players whose contract will eventually hurt them later, let them. And honestly, it's pathetic that teams like the Indians and Pirates have what, $40 mill payrolls?

Right out of the Labor Union Handbook.  Of course, under any scenario, some team will still be in last place every year.

[Ducksnort]

12 hours ago, YourWhatHurts said:

Just go the next logical step further.

The federal govt owns and operates the sports leagues.  Teams are portioned out such that all areas have 1 team and that 1 team represents a consistent population size.  Players are government employees whose salaries are capped at a minimum and maximum, and bonuses are collected into a central fund and then portioned out at the end of the year equally based upon statistical performance.  Players are well-paid patriots, all monies coming from al aspects of the enterprise including monies from private companies purchasing licensing rights, etc. are re-routed to fund educational structures and other necessary aspects of society such as infrastructure development and repair, etc.  

Why?  Because when the Chicago White Sox play the Cleveland Indians in America before an audience of the people, Chicago and Cleveland, and their populaces and the country as well, are the ones who should "get rich" out of it, or profit out of it, if anyone does at all.  The reality is that it is the reinsdorf White Sox vs. the dolan Indians, and the entire thing is funded by the workforce and predominantly the working class, and yet there's always this finger pointing between a bunch of overpaid players and a bunch of fat fuck owners as to who is broke / can't feed their family and who can.  Etc.

In reality you only need paying viewers and players, and there's no need for owners at all, and they are easily the most useless and unnecessary drains on society overall.  

I'm all for new ideas, and this sounds intriguing to me, believe me it does. But...the government has its fair share of problems too.

Let's say baseball currently works under the system you just described. You could rearrange that last statement and say "In reality you only need paying viewers and players, and there's no need for the government (instead of owners) at all, and it is easily the most useless and unnecessary drain on society overall."

Not many would disagree with that adjusted sentence, just like many would not disagree with your original thought.

Grass isn't always greener.

But...something does need to change.

Edited January 10, 2021 by ScooterMcGee

[ptatc]

25 minutes ago, ScooterMcGee said:

I'm all for new ideas, and this sounds intriguing to me, believe me it does. But...the government has its fair share of problems too.

Let's say baseball currently works under the system you just described. You could rearrange that last statement and say "In reality you only need paying viewers and players, and there's no need for the government (instead of owners) at all, and it is easily the most useless and unnecessary drain on society overall."

Not many would disagree with that adjusted sentence, just like many would not disagree with your original thought.

Grass isn't always greener.

But...something does need to change.

They could always go the the model of the minor pro sports like lacrosse or soccer. In the Premier Lacrosse League the league has an owner and it is all by one group. Thats the only other model really. 

The only answer I've heard to make each team competitive is the salary Cap and floor and increase the revenue sharing similar to the NFL. However neither the owners or the players really want it so it won't happen. 

[shago]

On 1/8/2021 at 12:30 PM, Jack Parkman said:

Peter Ueberroth, the sixth MLB commissioner, called the league a public trust. If these owners are not interested in running their teams that way, they should sell them and invest the proceeds in a chain of drugstores. 

I guess Peter and Jerry Reinsdorf never spent much time together. Btw, when fans return to the stadium, parking will be +20%...

[YourWhatHurts]

2 hours ago, ScooterMcGee said:

I'm all for new ideas, and this sounds intriguing to me, believe me it does. But...the government has its fair share of problems too.

Let's say baseball currently works under the system you just described. You could rearrange that last statement and say "In reality you only need paying viewers and players, and there's no need for the government (instead of owners) at all, and it is easily the most useless and unnecessary drain on society overall."

Not many would disagree with that adjusted sentence, just like many would not disagree with your original thought.

Grass isn't always greener.

But...something does need to change.

It's a fundamental argument.

We always need government, because we always need a higher entity with the authority to make and keep law, complete work projects, etc.  One could always say we should have and deserve to have a government that works better, but you can't say we don't actually need a government.

OTOH nobody ever needs a pyramid cap to sit in an office above them, just basically collecting profits from the process and acting as an unnecessary "overseer" of the lower operation, shooting down this or that proposal without even needing to make a case to any other person as to why, or even state a reason beyond "because I want to."  There really is no special ability that the dorf has, for instance, that qualifies him to do any legitimate work inside in the Sox overall organization.  He's a stubborn old rich guy lawyer, and even when you find that it is necessary to have a lawyer do some kind of work for you, you don't bring in someone like him. 

In terms of what is actually necessary in baseball, probably the highest necessary baseball operations office is the GM.  It's debatable you even need a VP as the GM role could always be pared down in responsibility by adding extra executive positions.  And that position could be appointed by some member of government, elected by the people, or appointed or elected by some larger body which governs the league, the members of which are either elected officials or appointed by the government.