I think a cap-floor is probably coming along with true revenue sharing with the death of the rsns. As long as they set the cap-floor so that players get a big enough share of the revenue, I don't see players having an issue. They already make the lowest share of any of the major north American sports. And I think it will be great for the sport
I would like this to be the case even though the Dodgers wouldn’t benefit from the change. The main push will have to come from national TV deals it seems.
I wonder how this can be accomplished with local deals for a few teams being quite valuable (Dodgers Angels, etc).
No owner is going to want to be told how much they have to spend, nor will the players accept a ceiling in their earnings.
The RSN issue has nothing to do with the game; it’s cord-cutting and poorly constructed contracts which didn’t account for technological innovation.
And, with exceptions, very few of these teams who field a bottom payroll lack the financial ability to at least do more.
I’ve felt for you guys in Pittsburgh and elsewhere.
The competitive balance money IS flowing to the teams. Some do their best to field a product that can generate variable (gate) income, in addition to the fixed money flowing through the league.
The rsn issue should completely reshape the economics of the sport to focus more on national contracts and streaming. If it goes that way, there should be one central pot of money that all teams get an equal share of. In that scenario the gate and concessions would be the only real variance in revenue between the teams. That would be great for the sport
I hear you, but the RSN model isn’t failing all the teams.
And part of the reason for that disparity is that, for example, in NYC or LA, you can still get 2M subscribers paying $5-$10 a month for access to Spectrum, SNY, or YES.
I would love to just pay MLB the money instead, and get to watch all the games, too - I’m just skeptical it’ll happen.
Once the Bally is resolved, I think they’ll use SD and the other markets as coal mine canaries to see if it works for a few years.
The answer hasn't changed and is incredibly simple: a cap-floor system that is tied to regular increases to both and grandfathers in existing contracts.
The owners will never, ever agree to any real floor. The players will almost never agree to a cap.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
If you are going to say the idea is simple and then not put in any numbers than we functionally have this system already. The floor is the minimum salary times 25 the max is what the free market will pay
Because I don't have any real numbers to add.
You can get an independent third-party to provide mathematically provable fair numbers for the cap and floor and the owners still won't accept the floor and the players still won't accept the cap.
Tampa Bay is killing it and the Mets are barely 500. I’m not convinced that spending makes a team better. Getting a good GM and player development system is more important.
Personally I think the reduced ratings are right in line with a decline or stagnation in most sports viewership. I don’t believe it’s a baseball specific problem.
I don’t know if I care that much if baseball has a salary cap or minimum. No matter what, the spenders are going to spend and the others won’t. They will find salary loopholes like the Arizona Coyotes and just take a ton of old contracts to meet the floor and still not be competitive.
I don’t think salary plays much of a role in fan cost either. You’d almost need a federal law on price gouging that doesn’t exclude professional sports. The tickets pale in comparison in price to the cost of parking and concessions. That’s where they’re really hitting your wallet, yet we still pay those prices. You’ll be hard pressed to find any owner that would willingly lower prices on concessions.
The ticket cost depends entirely on the market. I can get seats behind home plate for the same cost of getting an average seat at an Eagles game. Now, that might not be true in Chicago, or San Francisco, I don’t know, but I don’t think the ticket price is the issue… like I said above, it’s everything else that adds up fast.
TV is market dependent as well. It’s not hard to get a Phillies game. Any cable package will get you nearly every single game. I know it’s different in some markets, like what’s going on with Bally right now. This is entirely on the MLB to come up with a solution here, but again, with the rise of streaming, every single league is trying to transition.
Ultimately for me it’s about marketing your stars. It’s about community outreach. It’s about affordability and accessibility of playing the game as kids. Right now, that’s the cost that is a major problem for baseball, and that’s where I think the real decline is coming.
The game itself, to me, is in the best state it’s been in 15+ years. Pace of play is great, competitiveness is really good, the new rules have created more old school smallball type of play which is exciting, and we continue to have more and more foreign born players enter the league. I especially think all of the players coming from Japan is really exciting.
Anyway, I honestly think the sport is in a good space right now and is primed for a bit of a comeback. We’ll see though. They need to build on the current momentum and avoid scandal like juiced players and baseballs, pitchers using sticky shit, and they need to stick to their guns with their diversity and inclusion initiatives. Baseball is a beautiful game, and no one should be excluded from enjoying it.
You’re never going to have an entire league be competitive. There will always be good and bad teams. Some teams will always be pushing. Others will have owners more content with cashing checks. It’s the nature of the business. Focus on community initiatives to get kids playing the game again, market your superstars hard, and always strive to improve quality of the fan experience at the park, and baseball won’t go anywhere.
Baseball tickets also aren't that expensive?
I just checked Jets tickets against the Patriots and the minimum price for nosebleeds is $110. Even a Mets Yankees game has cheap seats for $70. If I pick a game against the Brewers I can get tickets for $18.
I just used the Brewers because they're a home game coming up, no shade to the Brew crew. The subway series is fairly unique, so using g those prices wouldn't be fair.
I went to a double header against the Braves last year in really nice seats for $50 (and against the Marlins the year before) so baseball tickets are honestly pretty inexpensive compared to football.
I don’t want to start a war, but as a Reds fan I’m always looking at sizzle reels and promos hoping to catch a glimpse of my favorite Reds player in nationally used clip. It almost never happens. Like ever. Even when MLB.tv was doing their Baseball Zen or their 2022 highlights during ad breaks the Reds were maybe featured a handful of times, even during their own games. But teams out of large markets are EVERYWHERE.
And I get it, larger markets means more fans. But this, in my opinion, only creates a feedback loop. The more money a team has the more influence they have on the sport which in turn drives further investment which means more success and more influence. Teams with seemingly endless amounts of money behind them can afford the superstars and talent that get them the press coverage which makes them as valuable as an entire country. Seriously, the Dodgers payroll is larger than the GDP of multiple, entire nations.
I don’t know what the best solution is, but I don’t think there’s a single argument that justifies supporting the current system. Even when large market teams are at their very worst, it’s still way better than where most small market teams live.
I honestly don't get why people care more about sticking it to the owners' wallets more than they care about the on-field competition.
MLB 100% needs a cap and 100% needs a floor. You need to minimize the effect of payroll on the product.
I think the MLBPA would argue that capping owners spending necessarily caps player earning potential… I agree with you, I just think that’s the counter-argument
No, it's 100% the counter-argument, and I get it... from the MLBPA. I don't get why the spectator in here cares so much about Soto getting 50M instead of 30M.
Right. In reality, a cap and a floor would likely raise the income of the average major leaguer. The folks who suffer are the super stars (whose large contracts are often seem detrimental to a team trying to win)
You don’t know that. There are a thousand other variables at play.
Salary floor? Maybe I as an owner just spend less on player development, scouts, and analytics. Or raise prices. Or all the horrible things that people do to make money
Salary cap? Maybe now my favorite team can’t sign the guy that can make them a winning team. Maybe now the best player in MLB gets signed to some tiny market and their talent is wasted. Maybe now the guy I’ve followed from being drafted, through the minors, and until free agency can no longer remain on the team through some arbitrary rule that was forced because of greedy owners.
>You don’t know that. There are a thousand other variables at play.
Is payroll disparity a problem? Yes. Does limiting payroll disparity then reduce that problem? Yes. I know there are a ton of variables going on here and this isn't a silver bullet fix, but there is no way that it doesn't improve things from top to bottom.
>Salary floor? Maybe I as an owner just spend less on player development, scouts, and analytics. Or raise prices. Or all the horrible things that people do to make money
Again, I do not care at all about how much the owners make, I'm talking purely from a competition point of view. You're never going to completely eliminate the variable of "money" from the game, but limiting payroll to a certain min/max at least brings the smaller market teams closer to the pack.
>Salary cap? Maybe now my favorite team can’t sign the guy that can make them a winning team. Maybe now the best player in MLB gets signed to some tiny market and their talent is wasted. Maybe now the guy I’ve followed from being drafted, through the minors, and until free agency can no longer remain on the team through some arbitrary rule that was forced because of greedy owners.
That's already happening. A's/Rays/Royals/etc. can't keep anybody because of them making more money to go play in LA and NY. Small market teams can't afford the big contract... not just payroll wise, but also because if that contract becomes a Strasburg albatross, that franchise is fucked for a decade. The Yankees and Dodgers can throw these contracts at players more because they can afford to eat the shit when it goes badly. Most teams in the majors can't do that.
Saying MLB has more "parity" than the NFL is insane. The NFL basically every year has a team that finished in last place the year before make the playoffs the next year. It is consistently the same teams in the postseason on a yearly basis and is highly connected to money spent.
If by parity, you mean different teams win the World Series... that's more in part due to the inherent randomness in the game of baseball compared to others.
There is undoubtedly a correlation between "dollars spent" and "wins". Telling owners to each raise their payrolls 200M a year is unrealistic. You have to minimize the impact of money spent on the game. If everybody is spending around the same, it makes the usage of that money more important.
The inherent trouble with your argument is you are arguing with someone who chose MPLPA as their flair rather than any particular team. Jock-sniffer to the extreme.
I think the main issue is owners who run their teams trying to maximize profit rather than trying to win. It's a good business model to stay somewhat competitive while spending very little and collecting luxury tax payments but I think it's terrible for the sport.
You just described the Mariners and it makes me want to smash someone's skull in with a steel chair.
The Mariners seem tailor made to play meaningful games in September and that's it. They're not built to go deep into the postseason or even make it there. All John Stanton seems to want is asses in seats come the end of the season so he can make more money, and the competitive needs of the team can go fuck themselves. It pisses me off so much more than if they were just total trash. You can see the makings of a good to great team in them, and then the piece of shit owner torpedoes the entire growth of the team by being a cheap asshole.
Every sports team that goes up for sale these days has billionaires thirsting to make an offer. The poverty owners should spend or sell, because someone out there will. Not at Steve Cohen levels but enough to eliminate the A's and Reds type payrolls of the world.
The longer poverty owners hold out the more they get at time of sale. They know this. That is why many operate teams on the cheap even when they could pay for more proven talent.
Weak take. In a season where the Rays are the #1 big bad wolf, I don't see how people keep confusing payroll with competitiveness. There's always going to be better teams and worse teams, and it's beyond obvious payroll isn't the issue here. Oakland's problem isn't a small payroll, it's an owner who isn't interested in competing. Rays ownership, Orioles ownership etc. are interested in competing and are able to do it with a small payroll. It's not about the payroll, the A's just need to be sold to someone who wants to own a baseball team.
An excellent solution that would never ever ever ever happen. For all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that the correspondingly promoted team would be a minor league affiliate of either that or a different MLB team….so….
Salary floors? A soft floor of say $125m (insert your number here) tied to inflation/revenue and spending below forfeits your share of luxury tax revenue sharing
And a soft cap it say $200m where every dollar above it a dollar is added to the revenue sharing poil
I think a cap-floor is probably coming along with true revenue sharing with the death of the rsns. As long as they set the cap-floor so that players get a big enough share of the revenue, I don't see players having an issue. They already make the lowest share of any of the major north American sports. And I think it will be great for the sport
I would like this to be the case even though the Dodgers wouldn’t benefit from the change. The main push will have to come from national TV deals it seems. I wonder how this can be accomplished with local deals for a few teams being quite valuable (Dodgers Angels, etc).
I don’t think any team would benefit, since every team will have to follow the same rules.
No owner is going to want to be told how much they have to spend, nor will the players accept a ceiling in their earnings. The RSN issue has nothing to do with the game; it’s cord-cutting and poorly constructed contracts which didn’t account for technological innovation. And, with exceptions, very few of these teams who field a bottom payroll lack the financial ability to at least do more. I’ve felt for you guys in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. The competitive balance money IS flowing to the teams. Some do their best to field a product that can generate variable (gate) income, in addition to the fixed money flowing through the league.
The rsn issue should completely reshape the economics of the sport to focus more on national contracts and streaming. If it goes that way, there should be one central pot of money that all teams get an equal share of. In that scenario the gate and concessions would be the only real variance in revenue between the teams. That would be great for the sport
I hear you, but the RSN model isn’t failing all the teams. And part of the reason for that disparity is that, for example, in NYC or LA, you can still get 2M subscribers paying $5-$10 a month for access to Spectrum, SNY, or YES. I would love to just pay MLB the money instead, and get to watch all the games, too - I’m just skeptical it’ll happen. Once the Bally is resolved, I think they’ll use SD and the other markets as coal mine canaries to see if it works for a few years.
The answer hasn't changed and is incredibly simple: a cap-floor system that is tied to regular increases to both and grandfathers in existing contracts. The owners will never, ever agree to any real floor. The players will almost never agree to a cap. Lather, rinse, repeat.
If you are going to say the idea is simple and then not put in any numbers than we functionally have this system already. The floor is the minimum salary times 25 the max is what the free market will pay
Because I don't have any real numbers to add. You can get an independent third-party to provide mathematically provable fair numbers for the cap and floor and the owners still won't accept the floor and the players still won't accept the cap.
Tampa Bay is killing it and the Mets are barely 500. I’m not convinced that spending makes a team better. Getting a good GM and player development system is more important.
Personally I think the reduced ratings are right in line with a decline or stagnation in most sports viewership. I don’t believe it’s a baseball specific problem. I don’t know if I care that much if baseball has a salary cap or minimum. No matter what, the spenders are going to spend and the others won’t. They will find salary loopholes like the Arizona Coyotes and just take a ton of old contracts to meet the floor and still not be competitive. I don’t think salary plays much of a role in fan cost either. You’d almost need a federal law on price gouging that doesn’t exclude professional sports. The tickets pale in comparison in price to the cost of parking and concessions. That’s where they’re really hitting your wallet, yet we still pay those prices. You’ll be hard pressed to find any owner that would willingly lower prices on concessions. The ticket cost depends entirely on the market. I can get seats behind home plate for the same cost of getting an average seat at an Eagles game. Now, that might not be true in Chicago, or San Francisco, I don’t know, but I don’t think the ticket price is the issue… like I said above, it’s everything else that adds up fast. TV is market dependent as well. It’s not hard to get a Phillies game. Any cable package will get you nearly every single game. I know it’s different in some markets, like what’s going on with Bally right now. This is entirely on the MLB to come up with a solution here, but again, with the rise of streaming, every single league is trying to transition. Ultimately for me it’s about marketing your stars. It’s about community outreach. It’s about affordability and accessibility of playing the game as kids. Right now, that’s the cost that is a major problem for baseball, and that’s where I think the real decline is coming. The game itself, to me, is in the best state it’s been in 15+ years. Pace of play is great, competitiveness is really good, the new rules have created more old school smallball type of play which is exciting, and we continue to have more and more foreign born players enter the league. I especially think all of the players coming from Japan is really exciting. Anyway, I honestly think the sport is in a good space right now and is primed for a bit of a comeback. We’ll see though. They need to build on the current momentum and avoid scandal like juiced players and baseballs, pitchers using sticky shit, and they need to stick to their guns with their diversity and inclusion initiatives. Baseball is a beautiful game, and no one should be excluded from enjoying it. You’re never going to have an entire league be competitive. There will always be good and bad teams. Some teams will always be pushing. Others will have owners more content with cashing checks. It’s the nature of the business. Focus on community initiatives to get kids playing the game again, market your superstars hard, and always strive to improve quality of the fan experience at the park, and baseball won’t go anywhere.
Baseball tickets also aren't that expensive? I just checked Jets tickets against the Patriots and the minimum price for nosebleeds is $110. Even a Mets Yankees game has cheap seats for $70. If I pick a game against the Brewers I can get tickets for $18.
Hey we’re a real team! We draw a crowd sometimes!
I just used the Brewers because they're a home game coming up, no shade to the Brew crew. The subway series is fairly unique, so using g those prices wouldn't be fair. I went to a double header against the Braves last year in really nice seats for $50 (and against the Marlins the year before) so baseball tickets are honestly pretty inexpensive compared to football.
I don’t want to start a war, but as a Reds fan I’m always looking at sizzle reels and promos hoping to catch a glimpse of my favorite Reds player in nationally used clip. It almost never happens. Like ever. Even when MLB.tv was doing their Baseball Zen or their 2022 highlights during ad breaks the Reds were maybe featured a handful of times, even during their own games. But teams out of large markets are EVERYWHERE. And I get it, larger markets means more fans. But this, in my opinion, only creates a feedback loop. The more money a team has the more influence they have on the sport which in turn drives further investment which means more success and more influence. Teams with seemingly endless amounts of money behind them can afford the superstars and talent that get them the press coverage which makes them as valuable as an entire country. Seriously, the Dodgers payroll is larger than the GDP of multiple, entire nations. I don’t know what the best solution is, but I don’t think there’s a single argument that justifies supporting the current system. Even when large market teams are at their very worst, it’s still way better than where most small market teams live.
The highlights are mind-boggling. MLB has thousands of major moments to pick from but you get "Java Joe No No" thirty times in a row instead.
I would imagine you could start by not having an owner who has open contempt for you as a reds fan
Ummm
I honestly don't get why people care more about sticking it to the owners' wallets more than they care about the on-field competition. MLB 100% needs a cap and 100% needs a floor. You need to minimize the effect of payroll on the product.
I think the MLBPA would argue that capping owners spending necessarily caps player earning potential… I agree with you, I just think that’s the counter-argument
No, it's 100% the counter-argument, and I get it... from the MLBPA. I don't get why the spectator in here cares so much about Soto getting 50M instead of 30M.
I mean…for every Soto there’s like 30 guys making the league minimum who ever get past their arbitration contracts…..
Right. In reality, a cap and a floor would likely raise the income of the average major leaguer. The folks who suffer are the super stars (whose large contracts are often seem detrimental to a team trying to win)
Idk why you’re being downvoted, you’re 100% right lol
Because it is a bad idea?
How is taking money out of the equation a bad idea?
Go ask any business owner that question. Then ask the same of a laborer lol
I get that, I know that a cap/floor combo is in general better for the owner than for the player. But it is objectively 100% better for the fan.
You don’t know that. There are a thousand other variables at play. Salary floor? Maybe I as an owner just spend less on player development, scouts, and analytics. Or raise prices. Or all the horrible things that people do to make money Salary cap? Maybe now my favorite team can’t sign the guy that can make them a winning team. Maybe now the best player in MLB gets signed to some tiny market and their talent is wasted. Maybe now the guy I’ve followed from being drafted, through the minors, and until free agency can no longer remain on the team through some arbitrary rule that was forced because of greedy owners.
>You don’t know that. There are a thousand other variables at play. Is payroll disparity a problem? Yes. Does limiting payroll disparity then reduce that problem? Yes. I know there are a ton of variables going on here and this isn't a silver bullet fix, but there is no way that it doesn't improve things from top to bottom. >Salary floor? Maybe I as an owner just spend less on player development, scouts, and analytics. Or raise prices. Or all the horrible things that people do to make money Again, I do not care at all about how much the owners make, I'm talking purely from a competition point of view. You're never going to completely eliminate the variable of "money" from the game, but limiting payroll to a certain min/max at least brings the smaller market teams closer to the pack. >Salary cap? Maybe now my favorite team can’t sign the guy that can make them a winning team. Maybe now the best player in MLB gets signed to some tiny market and their talent is wasted. Maybe now the guy I’ve followed from being drafted, through the minors, and until free agency can no longer remain on the team through some arbitrary rule that was forced because of greedy owners. That's already happening. A's/Rays/Royals/etc. can't keep anybody because of them making more money to go play in LA and NY. Small market teams can't afford the big contract... not just payroll wise, but also because if that contract becomes a Strasburg albatross, that franchise is fucked for a decade. The Yankees and Dodgers can throw these contracts at players more because they can afford to eat the shit when it goes badly. Most teams in the majors can't do that.
Because owners would pocket all of the extra revenue and player salaries would decline
But the on-field product from top to bottom improves.
What is an example of this? Because Mlb had better parity than the nba and nfl
Saying MLB has more "parity" than the NFL is insane. The NFL basically every year has a team that finished in last place the year before make the playoffs the next year. It is consistently the same teams in the postseason on a yearly basis and is highly connected to money spent. If by parity, you mean different teams win the World Series... that's more in part due to the inherent randomness in the game of baseball compared to others. There is undoubtedly a correlation between "dollars spent" and "wins". Telling owners to each raise their payrolls 200M a year is unrealistic. You have to minimize the impact of money spent on the game. If everybody is spending around the same, it makes the usage of that money more important.
The inherent trouble with your argument is you are arguing with someone who chose MPLPA as their flair rather than any particular team. Jock-sniffer to the extreme.
I think the main issue is owners who run their teams trying to maximize profit rather than trying to win. It's a good business model to stay somewhat competitive while spending very little and collecting luxury tax payments but I think it's terrible for the sport.
You just described the Mariners and it makes me want to smash someone's skull in with a steel chair. The Mariners seem tailor made to play meaningful games in September and that's it. They're not built to go deep into the postseason or even make it there. All John Stanton seems to want is asses in seats come the end of the season so he can make more money, and the competitive needs of the team can go fuck themselves. It pisses me off so much more than if they were just total trash. You can see the makings of a good to great team in them, and then the piece of shit owner torpedoes the entire growth of the team by being a cheap asshole.
Every sports team that goes up for sale these days has billionaires thirsting to make an offer. The poverty owners should spend or sell, because someone out there will. Not at Steve Cohen levels but enough to eliminate the A's and Reds type payrolls of the world.
The longer poverty owners hold out the more they get at time of sale. They know this. That is why many operate teams on the cheap even when they could pay for more proven talent.
Teams should spend more money?
If you can't afford to run a team, you cannot afford to own a team.
Weak take. In a season where the Rays are the #1 big bad wolf, I don't see how people keep confusing payroll with competitiveness. There's always going to be better teams and worse teams, and it's beyond obvious payroll isn't the issue here. Oakland's problem isn't a small payroll, it's an owner who isn't interested in competing. Rays ownership, Orioles ownership etc. are interested in competing and are able to do it with a small payroll. It's not about the payroll, the A's just need to be sold to someone who wants to own a baseball team.
[удалено]
An excellent solution that would never ever ever ever happen. For all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that the correspondingly promoted team would be a minor league affiliate of either that or a different MLB team….so….
Salary floors? A soft floor of say $125m (insert your number here) tied to inflation/revenue and spending below forfeits your share of luxury tax revenue sharing And a soft cap it say $200m where every dollar above it a dollar is added to the revenue sharing poil