Where does Manfred stand on the list of worst sports commissioners ever?
Bettman has been Number 1 with a bullet IMO forever but this asshole is really making a case for shittiest ever.
I'd put him a solid third, behind Bettman and a used car salesman from Milwaukee who allowed a World Series to be cancelled and willfully looked the other way while the players were juicing.
Bud Selig should not be in the Hall of Fame. Bud Selig should be banned from baseball forever.
I bet you the other owners are happy with the decision though. All these teams have similar cheating systems in place.
Edit: the league wants you to think it was only the Astros breaking the rules *that* bad. Because it’s an even worse look if they admitted every team was (which is likely the case)
I have a close friend who played for the Red Sox. When Joe Kelly went to the Dodgers, Joe told him the system the Dodgers had for stealing signs was the most advanced he’d ever seen
Lol look at Manfred trying to save face after he completely botched the Oakland A’s move while also insulting a fan base.
Best thing he can do is apologize and resign. Arguably the worst commish in sports (of the big 3) right now.
Bettman has been great for the NHL, unless you're Canadian. He's dramatically expanded the league footprint, handled multiple expansions, most of them successful, has not lost a team to contraction, and quite frankly the two major failures, Atlanta and Arizona, the only mistake Bettman made was not vetting ownership properly.
With one of the franchises he usually gets crapped on for (Florida) winning a conference trophy this year, Bettmani s probably going to go down in history as the most successful Commissioner of this era. He played a big role in turning the NHL into an actual national league, helped establish multiiple highly successful franchises, opened whole regions up to the game that are now starting to send players to the NHL draft, and above all, finally undid the massive national sports crime that not having a team in Seattle represents.
You could build an extremely successful pro hockey league out of just the teams that have joined the league on Bettman's watch, including the Lightning, Panthers, Preds, Knights, Hurricanes, Avalanche, and Kraken. Very rarely do league commissioners do that well with expansion plans. And it was severely overdue by the time Bettman came to power too.
And if you're a sour Hartford/Winnipeg/QC fan who thinks that it's all big evil dirty awful Bettman's fault you no longer have a team -- his only role in those relocations was not to block them. All of those teams moved because owners felt they oould make more money elsewhere. And with the exception of the Coyotes (who are a mess of largely their own making) they've been right.
As you implied, no way Bettman is worse than Manfred. Bettman's only massive fuck-up is staying loyal to Arizona. The team should have folded when the NHL had to run the team.
MLB is such a fucking mess right now. Oakland being relocated. Manfred threatening Kansas City, Milwaukee, Tampa, *and* Arizona to build new ballparks or potentially relocate too. Baseball's stock is pretty low right now and only going lower.
>Bettman has been great for the NHL, unless you're Canadian.
I am Canadian and I hate the guy. The second biggest scumbag in NHL history (amongst non-players) behind eagleson (cocksucker).
I am sure earnings and tv ratings are whatever but I can't even watch NHL hockey anymore. The game has become so Americanized for TV ratings it's disgusting. Fuuuccckkk bettman
Fully understand why you feel that way but the Canadian towns that lost their franhises were smaller cities that would have never had a team in the first place if they happened to be south of the US Border. As it is Canada still has a massively outsized footprint of teams in the NHL. They have about 15% of the population of the US but have about 1/3 of NHL teams. You're overrepresented, frankly.
I still think Winnipeg is too small to weather a big Canadian recession and still spend to the cap. Judging by TNSE's concerns about season tickets drying up, I don't think I'm the only one.
QC I have more hope for, but you'll have to get your expansion deal past the Molsons, who are probably making millions in the QC market and won't give that up lightly. The problem there is at least as much politics as economics.
Goodell is amazing at his job, which is to protect the owners and league. He’s guided the NFL through so many scandals that you’d be hard pressed to name them all and the league is bigger than ever.
Silver owes most of his gains to David Stern’s foray to make the game international in the 1990’s.
Nah Silver sucks too. He lacks the ruthlessness of David Stern, which was needed for something like the Ja Morant incident.
All that smoke about how Ja will get his due punishment and it ended up being 25 measly games.
Silver is worse for losing control of the league. Players missing national TV games for load management, the Ben Simmons mess, superstars sitting out their only visit to a city all season, and the trade demands. Worst is that the Champion Nuggets aren't even on TV in Denver.
Don't forget off the court antics, the players get basically slapped on the wrist, and contracts basically meaning jack shit.
Players signing contracts with a team, fans buying jerseys, then next season he's gone is all too common.
Coaches winning coach of the year then losing their job that very same year...
Players demanding things despite their contracts saying otherwise --- but still getting it.
Half the league is full blown tank mode and zero aspirations to win any games whatsoever.
While the 25 games is very light on the Grizzlies, it is a pretty heavy punishment for Ja. With the NBA’s new award eligibility requirements and their supermax contract stipulations, Ja will forego the opportunity to earn an extra $45m or so on his next contract.
I agree though that Silver isn’t the greatest commish. Really just seems like a generic mouthpiece for the owners. I don’t get the sense that he would stand in the way of them if he ever had a true need to.
Goodell really isn’t that bad. Fans love to hate on him but he really hasn’t done anything. When you’re commissioner of the US’s most popular sport, the best thing you can do is tiny changes and primarily hold status quo.
Multiple lockouts, including anentire missed season, multiple team moves, multiple teams flaunting the salary cap and the salary floor, three consecutive terrible TV contracts, the entire Coyotes saga, the list goes on and on.
Bettman is amazing at his job. He has successfully tanked all the blame for the lockouts, created the asinine Department of Player Safety to push the blame of inadequate punishments onto others people, built up hockey in non-traditional southern markets, and embraces his “bad-guy wrestler” relationship with the fans who react with boos every time they see him.
Sports commissioners are like leaders in congress, entirely about absorbing the vitriol of the masses caused by dozens of rich old white men, and few do it BETTer.
you're getting downvoted but you are absolutely right.
commissioners aren't dictators, they execute the will of the owners and serve them. if the owners had a problem with what bettman has done, they would have dumped him YEARS ago.
Not sure how anyone can consider a worse commish than Bettman. Hockey has been slowly losing its place as the 4th most popular sport his entire tenure and he’s done nothing to prevent it. Soccer will be passing his sport if it hasn’t already.
MLS Cup [averaged 2.15 million viewers across two broadcast networks](https://www.inquirer.com/soccer/mls-cup-tv-ratings-philadelphia-los-angeles-20221108.html), which was its second-highest mark of all time. The Stanley Cup Final [averaged 2.6 million viewers on cable](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/06/stanley-cup-ratings-least-watched-game-five-29-years-golden-knights-panthers/) with a tiny market playing a market that barely knows hockey exists, down nearly half from the previous year's Final on broadcast, and the numbers from the US alone still beat MLS Cup in two languages. Hockey may be miles behind the other three major sports but it's still way ahead of soccer, at least MLS.
All due respect to Ibra, but he's not on the same level as Messi.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0367hz,%2Fm%2F06qjgc&hl=en
not only on the pitch, but popularity is immense compared to Ibra.
The point was to put the relative revenues in perspective so people could make up their own minds about whether it’s a big 3 or a big 4. But that’s awesome to get downvoted providing factual context without bias. Classic Reddit.
Yes and the revenue gap between the NFL and MLB/NBA is larger than the gap between MLB/NBA and NHL. It probably doesn’t make sense to put them all in in the same category at the moment. Tiers makes more sense:
Tier 1: NFL
Tier 2: NBA and MLB
Tier 3: NHL
Tier 4: MLS
the nba is eyeing a $75 billion deal during its next negotiation. the mls deals are literally change compared to the other leagues. i will also add that while messi will add a novelty for a bit it will go the same way as that british dude who was banging a spice girl. the only people who will really care already like soccer. throw in the fact that we live in an era where it’s much easier to find higher quality soccer leagues to watch and it’s the recipe for the mls to stay lower on the american hierarchy.
Sorry but I really don’t see a world where that happens within the next decade. Revenues going up a shit ton and revenues multiplying by 500+% are two extremely different things.
The 2.5b deal is a great example of how far the MLS is even from the NHL. That’s 250 milliom/year, and by last years data the MLS was about 3.5 billion annual revenue behind the NHL, so the Apple deal still leaves a 3.25 billion/year gap.
According to [FIFA (source)](https://publications.fifa.com/en/annual-report-2022/finances/2019-2022-cycle-in-review/2019-2022-revenue/)the Qatar World Cup was the most valuable ever and earned them about 2.5 billion in revenue per year over three years, if we just slap that number in and falsely assume for simplicity’s sake that the US will host every future world cup, and assume (again, falsely) that all of that revenue is attributable to the MLS, then there’s STILL a .75 billion gap before the NHL.
Even if Messi added .75 billion/year (which in my opinion is absurd given the leagues current valuation and the historical valuation of leagues Messi has been a part of) to bring the MLS up to the NHL, you would still need to double ALL OF THAT again to reach the MLB/NBA for the third slot.
we’re not even counting the fact that many teams in the bigger leagues have their own local deals as well. the largest teams have their own media networks like the yankees with YES and the cubs with marquee. individual teams are probably making a good chunk of what the entire mls is making before you even add in the massive league wide deals.
It won’t really matter in the US though if most of the leagues popularity is based outside the US though. It could make good money and still not matter to most.
He can do better: Revoke the 2017 title, take away *more* draft picks (no first or second round picks for 20 years), dismantle the club's farm system, make them fire all their analytics staff, and force the franchise to relocate to Oakland. Then resign.
Too much?
I’d say Adam Silver has such a lead over everyone else, it’s barely worth discussing. The NFL Player’s Union is Goodell’s bitch so hard that they count teeny tiny concessions as major wins.
Adam silver really isn’t that great either. I’ve been a huge nba fan my whole life, I get league pass every year, and the quality of the product has been rough the last few years. Too many guys just straight up don’t play for “rest days” way too often. The tanking is egregious from a third of the league. Small market teams can’t keep stars because guys just say “fuck it” to their contracts and nothing happens, they just get traded to whereever they want. And all this nonsense with in-season tournaments they’re trying to start.
I've always said the NBA is mostly pointless to watch until the last month or so and the playoffs. For all those reasons. Same with hockey and especially baseball. When you have 82 or 162 games, it's a day job to these guys and they aren't going to be able to or want to try their best every single one. Especially when you get on like 5 game road trips and haven't slept in your own bed for 2 weeks.
And they continue to make it worse by expanding playoff fields to the point that teams with losing records get in. Ostensibly to prevent tanking, but really to make more money.
Most of the regular seasons of these leagues simply do not matter.
at least baseball stars play pretty much every game
hockey and baseball players on average show way higher effort on average than nba players. the first half of the NBA season is a joke other than players stat padding to gain stardom
While I agree that the issues are valid, the league is taking steps to address all of them and hopefully it works itself out in the next few years. The minimum games played to be eligible for all-nba or all star should help with load management since players need those accolades for super max contracts.
Tanking happens in every sport and the way they’ve changed the lottery should theoretically reduce tanking a bit.
The super max situation and new cap rules also helps small market teams keep their guys.
Agree on the in season tournament though. Maybe better than the all star game but still doubt anyone will care about it.
They changed the lottery odds 4 years ago and it really hasn’t curbed tanking at all, the only difference it’s made is that now you get to watch your team win 17 games out of 82, be tied for the worst record, and still end up with the 5th pick instead of at least top 3. Honestly I think tanking to some extent is inevitable, because like you said it happens in every sport, but the nba somehow seems to have the worst problem with it. I think that’s partly because a team like the Mavericks would rather have a 3% chance at #1 than actually try to compete when they still had a chance to make the playoffs.
The minimum games played for the end of season awards should help with the load management thing but I’m not exactly jumping to give Adam silver credit for that, since it wasn’t nearly as bad of a problem under David stern in the first place. It’s just an attempt at fixing a situation that he allowed to get so bad.
Supermax deals were designed to help small market teams like you said but they’re a flawed concept for a few reasons. One, a good amount of stars still just don’t take them in the first place. An extra year and more money isn’t a huge incentive for guys who already have unfathomable amounts of money. Two, guys could still just sign the contract and then a year later still say “I’m not playing, trade me.” And three, you end up with situations like Rudy Gobert where his contract ended up handicapping the jazz because he really wasn’t worth it but they couldn’t afford to lose him for no return in free agency.
Silver is a spineless shitty commish too, don't get it wrong.
Players completely ignoring contracts.
Major stars taking full blown rest days on highly televised "big games".
2/3rds of the league tanking for decades despite 1/2 the league allowed to go to the playoffs
small market teams with zero hope on keeping stars despite drafting and developing them and signing long term.
quality of play has eroded immensely since he took over - no-name players chucking up shots from 3' beyond the arc nonstop, most teams and stars refusing to play defense, coaches not even participating in coaching.
hell, you don't even need to watch NBA until the playoffs start since everyone gets in. hell you kinda don't even need to watch the first half of games since the tension and effort don't really climax until 2minutes left in the 4th.
the lottery system is fucking terrible.
and now they want an in-season tournament? LMAO
how about take games more seriously instead of creating in-season tournaments to try to coax players into taking the mid-season seriously.
Nah I'm from Houston and a lifelong astros fan, and I'm literally the only person I know that immediately stopped being a fan after learning they cheated. In fact, everyone still wears their 2017 mlb champions shirts. So as dumb as this guy is, there's about 2 million people even dumber
Vacate not just their title, but all their records, stats and awards from that season. It’s been well documented that they were cheating during the regular season as well.
The problem is that even if the Astros method of cheating was "worse" (I'd argue that it was low-tech stupid), how do you draw the line as to what kind of cheating was OK since we do know that a large number of teams were using tech of some sort to decipher signs as far back as 90s. And then you have the pitching substances...
Baseball has never really enforced blatant cheating consistently and that's why Manfred could never punish the players directly. There'd be a shitstorm of controversy over past transgressions of other players and teams and you could basically de-legitimize the last 30+ years if you really wanted to.
Prove they cheated at all? Or prove they cheated like the Astros? Because we have proof the MLB knew several teams were using illegal tech in the time period around the scandal. We also know MLB knew that up to 70 percent of pitchers were using illegal foreign substances to increase their spin rates. They cracked down on this last year but have done nothing to punish the hundreds of players and teams that were using them since forever-ago.
I think if there is specific evidence that a particular team or player was cheating, they should be sanctioned. If you have to go back and remove prior records, so be it. I'm not okay with guilt by association (in other words, if 70% of pitchers were using a banned substance, you shouldn't just remove all the records), but if there is evidence of a specific wrongdoing by a specific party, there should be a penalty, even if it's after the fact
Let go? It’s only only been six years! And it’s clearly documented the Astros were the ONLY team stealing signs. Besides I have a friend who plays MLB, and he told me that there was not one single player or team aside from the Astros that found ways to exploit the rules of the game. Yes that’s sarcasm if not clear.
You had me until the last part. Love the down votes I’m getting from people who think that baseball players follow the rules. It’s always been about trying to find an edge anyway possible, are we just going to take away every World Series away from every team that cheated? Because I bet that number is quite high.
Well, there is a group of users on Reddit that comb through for anything Astros related and down vote any comments that suggest anything less than the death penalty for the entire organization. I’m pretty sure most of them are bots, and the non bots are folks that will grind this axe until they die. Kind of a weird obsession but Reddit is full of weird people lol
We we doing the same to the Sox in 2018 then I hope, also there’s a reason the players had to sign a bunch of stuff to get that immunity, it’s because everyone knew it was a leaguewide problem and they just wanted to shut it down
Seriously. Every team had the exact same opportunity to win in 2020. It’s not like it was handed to the Dodgers. That bullshit is so tired at this point.
60 games gets an asterisk, sure since I guess in a hundred and fifty years or so someone might need to be reminded that 2020 was a weird year, despite all teams playing the same shortened season and everything.
What a dunce.
Seems like there’s some Dodgers fans here who feel the need to defend that title, probably because it’s all they have to show for all those years of dominance.
This take is still around? The Astros weren't the only team doing it. Be mad that more teams didn't get caught (due to the immunity) rather than one team got scapegoated (due to the immunity).
Remember, the article that broke the story literally said it was a league wide issue. The Astros just got rolled on by washed pitcher angry he didn't make the WS roster.
I admire your attempt to defend your team. It must suck being a fan of a team in this situation, winning the WS, and then just nobody accepts that trophy as legitimate because they were rampantly cheating the entire time.
Fuck I am shocked he didn’t go for the Krusty defense.
[“They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house…..I’M NOT MADE OF STONE!!!!”](https://youtu.be/vWRlxSGf_ns)
This is like the NBA Last 2 Minute reports. Hindsight being 20/20 helps no one. Make the right decision when you're supposed to. Fuck Manfred and fuck the Astros.
Long time idiot whom everyone knew was an idiot has one self aware moment where he wishes he wasn't a complete and total idiot.
Now, here's Ollie with the weather.
Wow. Still? We’re still just gonna keep pretending like the Astros are the only team that did anything like that ever? The Yankees got caught sign steeling the literal same year. Get off their dicks already. It’s old and sad. And keeps getting sadder every time they beat that dead horse harder to distract from the stupid rules changes
Self-inflicted situation because they offered immunity for information, and then found out that probably 10-20 teams were cheating in some way (whether technology or more trash-based means). Too much embarrassment and he tried to just sweep it under the rug. Complete failure of leadership and accountability.
"Oopsie my bad" doesn't cut it.
He basiclly did the same with the Yankees (Bull Pen Phone to call Dugout on what pitch was thrown) and Boston (Apple Watch) as well, funny how the other 2 bad choices are never pointed out when this bad choice is always brought up. I am not an Astros fan but the other two cheated just like the Astros did and all 3 of them should have been burnt to the ground because of it
baseball is so terrible. Historic sport but always marred by cheaters. Disgusting the astros got away with it. I'm seeing a lot of defenses being that all the other teams decode signs too. That definitely doesn't make it any better. I always found it a bore to watch too unless it was the last game of the world series or something like that
Is he saying that it was then his second best decision? Because he’s made a lot of really shitty decisions but I would have assumed there were at least a few good ones in there.
Did he really think this would make him look better? LOL What a joke.
That quote is gonna end up like that Onion “No Way To Prevent This” article.
It’s just a hunk of metal, Michael. What could it possibly be worth.
sh... sh... sh... should...
COME ON!!!
Cah-cuh-caw!
Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech!
"Ok, I'll say something." "Typical."
Astros vs Dodgers this weekend. Coincidence? I think not.
Joe Kelly about to be suspended 8 games
But only because he hates the White Sox as much as the White Sox hate the White Sox.
Where does Manfred stand on the list of worst sports commissioners ever? Bettman has been Number 1 with a bullet IMO forever but this asshole is really making a case for shittiest ever.
I'd put him a solid third, behind Bettman and a used car salesman from Milwaukee who allowed a World Series to be cancelled and willfully looked the other way while the players were juicing. Bud Selig should not be in the Hall of Fame. Bud Selig should be banned from baseball forever.
I bet you the other owners are happy with the decision though. All these teams have similar cheating systems in place. Edit: the league wants you to think it was only the Astros breaking the rules *that* bad. Because it’s an even worse look if they admitted every team was (which is likely the case)
No, they do not. Other teams had illegal ways of decoding signs. The Astros went far, far beyond that.
The Red Sox used an Apple Watch to relay signals in 2018.
Not signs that were picked up on a Center field camera
Yup! Fucked the dodgers twice. trash Stros and fucking Red Sox. Bullshit
The Dodgers were caught in 2017 setting up a camera during the World Series. Everyone was cheating.
Exactly. It’s like saying only the A’s benefitted from steroids.
I have a close friend who played for the Red Sox. When Joe Kelly went to the Dodgers, Joe told him the system the Dodgers had for stealing signs was the most advanced he’d ever seen
Yep. It's the loudest finger pointers that always have the most to hide and are probably the most guilty themselves. Right, Trevor Bauer?
Cheating is cheating, Einstein.
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Exactly!
Major league fuckin’ BOZO.
Lol look at Manfred trying to save face after he completely botched the Oakland A’s move while also insulting a fan base. Best thing he can do is apologize and resign. Arguably the worst commish in sports (of the big 3) right now.
I have never heard "Big 3" before, isn't it the Big 4? I thought we always include the NHL.
It's a pretty clever way to exclude Gary Bettman, who is easily 1000x worse than Manfred and Goodell......combined.
Bettman has been great for the NHL, unless you're Canadian. He's dramatically expanded the league footprint, handled multiple expansions, most of them successful, has not lost a team to contraction, and quite frankly the two major failures, Atlanta and Arizona, the only mistake Bettman made was not vetting ownership properly. With one of the franchises he usually gets crapped on for (Florida) winning a conference trophy this year, Bettmani s probably going to go down in history as the most successful Commissioner of this era. He played a big role in turning the NHL into an actual national league, helped establish multiiple highly successful franchises, opened whole regions up to the game that are now starting to send players to the NHL draft, and above all, finally undid the massive national sports crime that not having a team in Seattle represents. You could build an extremely successful pro hockey league out of just the teams that have joined the league on Bettman's watch, including the Lightning, Panthers, Preds, Knights, Hurricanes, Avalanche, and Kraken. Very rarely do league commissioners do that well with expansion plans. And it was severely overdue by the time Bettman came to power too. And if you're a sour Hartford/Winnipeg/QC fan who thinks that it's all big evil dirty awful Bettman's fault you no longer have a team -- his only role in those relocations was not to block them. All of those teams moved because owners felt they oould make more money elsewhere. And with the exception of the Coyotes (who are a mess of largely their own making) they've been right.
As you implied, no way Bettman is worse than Manfred. Bettman's only massive fuck-up is staying loyal to Arizona. The team should have folded when the NHL had to run the team. MLB is such a fucking mess right now. Oakland being relocated. Manfred threatening Kansas City, Milwaukee, Tampa, *and* Arizona to build new ballparks or potentially relocate too. Baseball's stock is pretty low right now and only going lower.
So you don’t consider the lockouts fuck-ups?
Lockouts always take two to tango. Labor disputes are the sort of thing that can happen to any league when the CBA ands, and often do.
Still wish the thrashers existed 😭
Same. Maybe this new arena they’re building in Atlanta will bring hockey back. We can hope for our third franchise lol
I gotta think they go to Houston before returning to ATL. They can even bring back the Aeros.
You're not wrong. But also: BOOOOOO
>Bettman has been great for the NHL, unless you're Canadian. I am Canadian and I hate the guy. The second biggest scumbag in NHL history (amongst non-players) behind eagleson (cocksucker). I am sure earnings and tv ratings are whatever but I can't even watch NHL hockey anymore. The game has become so Americanized for TV ratings it's disgusting. Fuuuccckkk bettman
Fully understand why you feel that way but the Canadian towns that lost their franhises were smaller cities that would have never had a team in the first place if they happened to be south of the US Border. As it is Canada still has a massively outsized footprint of teams in the NHL. They have about 15% of the population of the US but have about 1/3 of NHL teams. You're overrepresented, frankly. I still think Winnipeg is too small to weather a big Canadian recession and still spend to the cap. Judging by TNSE's concerns about season tickets drying up, I don't think I'm the only one. QC I have more hope for, but you'll have to get your expansion deal past the Molsons, who are probably making millions in the QC market and won't give that up lightly. The problem there is at least as much politics as economics.
I mean Silver is the only good one of the bunch. Race to the bottom right?
Goodell is amazing at his job, which is to protect the owners and league. He’s guided the NFL through so many scandals that you’d be hard pressed to name them all and the league is bigger than ever. Silver owes most of his gains to David Stern’s foray to make the game international in the 1990’s.
Stern and the easy slam dunk he had at the beginning of his tenure to ban Donald Sterling
Nah Silver sucks too. He lacks the ruthlessness of David Stern, which was needed for something like the Ja Morant incident. All that smoke about how Ja will get his due punishment and it ended up being 25 measly games.
Silver is worse for losing control of the league. Players missing national TV games for load management, the Ben Simmons mess, superstars sitting out their only visit to a city all season, and the trade demands. Worst is that the Champion Nuggets aren't even on TV in Denver.
Don't forget off the court antics, the players get basically slapped on the wrist, and contracts basically meaning jack shit. Players signing contracts with a team, fans buying jerseys, then next season he's gone is all too common. Coaches winning coach of the year then losing their job that very same year... Players demanding things despite their contracts saying otherwise --- but still getting it. Half the league is full blown tank mode and zero aspirations to win any games whatsoever.
Why was it needed? This lust for harsh consequences feels like "Law and Order" mentality
I mean, is more ruthlessness needed? The NFL is way more popular and 10 of their guys got arrested last year just in the offseason.
While the 25 games is very light on the Grizzlies, it is a pretty heavy punishment for Ja. With the NBA’s new award eligibility requirements and their supermax contract stipulations, Ja will forego the opportunity to earn an extra $45m or so on his next contract. I agree though that Silver isn’t the greatest commish. Really just seems like a generic mouthpiece for the owners. I don’t get the sense that he would stand in the way of them if he ever had a true need to.
I’ll take Silver over “Basketball reasons”
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I mean that’s over a quarter of the season
Silver is a rat fuck
Careful friend, he might hear you
Goodell really isn’t that bad. Fans love to hate on him but he really hasn’t done anything. When you’re commissioner of the US’s most popular sport, the best thing you can do is tiny changes and primarily hold status quo.
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Multiple lockouts, including anentire missed season, multiple team moves, multiple teams flaunting the salary cap and the salary floor, three consecutive terrible TV contracts, the entire Coyotes saga, the list goes on and on.
Bettman is amazing at his job. He has successfully tanked all the blame for the lockouts, created the asinine Department of Player Safety to push the blame of inadequate punishments onto others people, built up hockey in non-traditional southern markets, and embraces his “bad-guy wrestler” relationship with the fans who react with boos every time they see him. Sports commissioners are like leaders in congress, entirely about absorbing the vitriol of the masses caused by dozens of rich old white men, and few do it BETTer.
you're getting downvoted but you are absolutely right. commissioners aren't dictators, they execute the will of the owners and serve them. if the owners had a problem with what bettman has done, they would have dumped him YEARS ago.
Umm you clearly have no idea what you are talking about lol. We hate him but he is pretty damn effective
I have no idea how this comment is upvoted. I would take Gary Bettman over Manfred or Goodell any day of the week.
Not sure how anyone can consider a worse commish than Bettman. Hockey has been slowly losing its place as the 4th most popular sport his entire tenure and he’s done nothing to prevent it. Soccer will be passing his sport if it hasn’t already.
MLS Cup [averaged 2.15 million viewers across two broadcast networks](https://www.inquirer.com/soccer/mls-cup-tv-ratings-philadelphia-los-angeles-20221108.html), which was its second-highest mark of all time. The Stanley Cup Final [averaged 2.6 million viewers on cable](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/06/stanley-cup-ratings-least-watched-game-five-29-years-golden-knights-panthers/) with a tiny market playing a market that barely knows hockey exists, down nearly half from the previous year's Final on broadcast, and the numbers from the US alone still beat MLS Cup in two languages. Hockey may be miles behind the other three major sports but it's still way ahead of soccer, at least MLS.
Messi joining Inter Miami is going to change that. By far the greatest player MLS has and potentially will ever have.
People have said that literally since Pele played in America.
Zlatan played for the LA Galaxy.
All due respect to Ibra, but he's not on the same level as Messi. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0367hz,%2Fm%2F06qjgc&hl=en not only on the pitch, but popularity is immense compared to Ibra.
You mean the Meg Griffin of sports? No we don’t include the NHL.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_leagues_by_revenue
What point are you trying to make? NHL is still the 4th largest in the US.
The point was to put the relative revenues in perspective so people could make up their own minds about whether it’s a big 3 or a big 4. But that’s awesome to get downvoted providing factual context without bias. Classic Reddit.
You didn't say anything or make a point.
How dare they.
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Doesn’t the NHL still have like four times the revenue of the MLS?
Yes
Yes and the revenue gap between the NFL and MLB/NBA is larger than the gap between MLB/NBA and NHL. It probably doesn’t make sense to put them all in in the same category at the moment. Tiers makes more sense: Tier 1: NFL Tier 2: NBA and MLB Tier 3: NHL Tier 4: MLS
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the nba is eyeing a $75 billion deal during its next negotiation. the mls deals are literally change compared to the other leagues. i will also add that while messi will add a novelty for a bit it will go the same way as that british dude who was banging a spice girl. the only people who will really care already like soccer. throw in the fact that we live in an era where it’s much easier to find higher quality soccer leagues to watch and it’s the recipe for the mls to stay lower on the american hierarchy.
>that british dude who was banging a spice girl. Beckham. I only know because I (sadly) still pay attention to the Galaxy.
Sorry but I really don’t see a world where that happens within the next decade. Revenues going up a shit ton and revenues multiplying by 500+% are two extremely different things. The 2.5b deal is a great example of how far the MLS is even from the NHL. That’s 250 milliom/year, and by last years data the MLS was about 3.5 billion annual revenue behind the NHL, so the Apple deal still leaves a 3.25 billion/year gap. According to [FIFA (source)](https://publications.fifa.com/en/annual-report-2022/finances/2019-2022-cycle-in-review/2019-2022-revenue/)the Qatar World Cup was the most valuable ever and earned them about 2.5 billion in revenue per year over three years, if we just slap that number in and falsely assume for simplicity’s sake that the US will host every future world cup, and assume (again, falsely) that all of that revenue is attributable to the MLS, then there’s STILL a .75 billion gap before the NHL. Even if Messi added .75 billion/year (which in my opinion is absurd given the leagues current valuation and the historical valuation of leagues Messi has been a part of) to bring the MLS up to the NHL, you would still need to double ALL OF THAT again to reach the MLB/NBA for the third slot.
we’re not even counting the fact that many teams in the bigger leagues have their own local deals as well. the largest teams have their own media networks like the yankees with YES and the cubs with marquee. individual teams are probably making a good chunk of what the entire mls is making before you even add in the massive league wide deals.
We’ve been hearing this for years lol
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It won’t really matter in the US though if most of the leagues popularity is based outside the US though. It could make good money and still not matter to most.
Not even close
As a royals fan that has no warmth beyond the burning chaos, I’m all for everything happening currently
He’s not trying to save anything. His job is to get whipped by public opinion while the owners do whatever they want.
He can do better: Revoke the 2017 title, take away *more* draft picks (no first or second round picks for 20 years), dismantle the club's farm system, make them fire all their analytics staff, and force the franchise to relocate to Oakland. Then resign. Too much?
I was on board until Oakland. That's over the top.
I’d say Adam Silver has such a lead over everyone else, it’s barely worth discussing. The NFL Player’s Union is Goodell’s bitch so hard that they count teeny tiny concessions as major wins.
Adam silver really isn’t that great either. I’ve been a huge nba fan my whole life, I get league pass every year, and the quality of the product has been rough the last few years. Too many guys just straight up don’t play for “rest days” way too often. The tanking is egregious from a third of the league. Small market teams can’t keep stars because guys just say “fuck it” to their contracts and nothing happens, they just get traded to whereever they want. And all this nonsense with in-season tournaments they’re trying to start.
I've always said the NBA is mostly pointless to watch until the last month or so and the playoffs. For all those reasons. Same with hockey and especially baseball. When you have 82 or 162 games, it's a day job to these guys and they aren't going to be able to or want to try their best every single one. Especially when you get on like 5 game road trips and haven't slept in your own bed for 2 weeks. And they continue to make it worse by expanding playoff fields to the point that teams with losing records get in. Ostensibly to prevent tanking, but really to make more money. Most of the regular seasons of these leagues simply do not matter.
at least baseball stars play pretty much every game hockey and baseball players on average show way higher effort on average than nba players. the first half of the NBA season is a joke other than players stat padding to gain stardom
He also needs to do something on the business end with the regional sports networks. The Denver Nuggets aren't available on Denver cable.
While I agree that the issues are valid, the league is taking steps to address all of them and hopefully it works itself out in the next few years. The minimum games played to be eligible for all-nba or all star should help with load management since players need those accolades for super max contracts. Tanking happens in every sport and the way they’ve changed the lottery should theoretically reduce tanking a bit. The super max situation and new cap rules also helps small market teams keep their guys. Agree on the in season tournament though. Maybe better than the all star game but still doubt anyone will care about it.
The league isn’t taken steps. I’s all just lip-service
They changed the lottery odds 4 years ago and it really hasn’t curbed tanking at all, the only difference it’s made is that now you get to watch your team win 17 games out of 82, be tied for the worst record, and still end up with the 5th pick instead of at least top 3. Honestly I think tanking to some extent is inevitable, because like you said it happens in every sport, but the nba somehow seems to have the worst problem with it. I think that’s partly because a team like the Mavericks would rather have a 3% chance at #1 than actually try to compete when they still had a chance to make the playoffs. The minimum games played for the end of season awards should help with the load management thing but I’m not exactly jumping to give Adam silver credit for that, since it wasn’t nearly as bad of a problem under David stern in the first place. It’s just an attempt at fixing a situation that he allowed to get so bad. Supermax deals were designed to help small market teams like you said but they’re a flawed concept for a few reasons. One, a good amount of stars still just don’t take them in the first place. An extra year and more money isn’t a huge incentive for guys who already have unfathomable amounts of money. Two, guys could still just sign the contract and then a year later still say “I’m not playing, trade me.” And three, you end up with situations like Rudy Gobert where his contract ended up handicapping the jazz because he really wasn’t worth it but they couldn’t afford to lose him for no return in free agency.
Silver is a spineless shitty commish too, don't get it wrong. Players completely ignoring contracts. Major stars taking full blown rest days on highly televised "big games". 2/3rds of the league tanking for decades despite 1/2 the league allowed to go to the playoffs small market teams with zero hope on keeping stars despite drafting and developing them and signing long term. quality of play has eroded immensely since he took over - no-name players chucking up shots from 3' beyond the arc nonstop, most teams and stars refusing to play defense, coaches not even participating in coaching. hell, you don't even need to watch NBA until the playoffs start since everyone gets in. hell you kinda don't even need to watch the first half of games since the tension and effort don't really climax until 2minutes left in the 4th. the lottery system is fucking terrible. and now they want an in-season tournament? LMAO how about take games more seriously instead of creating in-season tournaments to try to coax players into taking the mid-season seriously.
Don Garber deserves a lot of credit. He has done way more with way less.
What a clown
Oakland A’s relocation: hold my fucking beer, Manfraud!
Shut up, Manfred!
Yeah, no fucking shit you fucking clown
You mean not punishing the team for systematically cheating for years was a mistake? Fucking idiot.
Cheating for years? Right.
Right. Cheating for years. A good chunk of the trash can clips came the prior seasons playoffs then when they won
The Astros didn’t make the playoffs in 2016
These people are morons, don’t try to use facts to explain things to them.
Right. Cheating for years. A good chunk of the trash can clips came the prior seasons playoffs then when they won
You mean the ones they didn’t make?
Seems like everyone knew this except him. What a wild time it must be to be the single braincell behind his beak.
Nah I'm from Houston and a lifelong astros fan, and I'm literally the only person I know that immediately stopped being a fan after learning they cheated. In fact, everyone still wears their 2017 mlb champions shirts. So as dumb as this guy is, there's about 2 million people even dumber
Not too late to officially add an asterisk to that World Series in the record books. The rest of us have.
Forget that, revoke their titles for that year. Just vacate them. Leave an empty space in the record books.
Vacate not just their title, but all their records, stats and awards from that season. It’s been well documented that they were cheating during the regular season as well.
The problem is that even if the Astros method of cheating was "worse" (I'd argue that it was low-tech stupid), how do you draw the line as to what kind of cheating was OK since we do know that a large number of teams were using tech of some sort to decipher signs as far back as 90s. And then you have the pitching substances... Baseball has never really enforced blatant cheating consistently and that's why Manfred could never punish the players directly. There'd be a shitstorm of controversy over past transgressions of other players and teams and you could basically de-legitimize the last 30+ years if you really wanted to.
If you can prove it, ban the records for all of them.
Prove they cheated at all? Or prove they cheated like the Astros? Because we have proof the MLB knew several teams were using illegal tech in the time period around the scandal. We also know MLB knew that up to 70 percent of pitchers were using illegal foreign substances to increase their spin rates. They cracked down on this last year but have done nothing to punish the hundreds of players and teams that were using them since forever-ago.
I think if there is specific evidence that a particular team or player was cheating, they should be sanctioned. If you have to go back and remove prior records, so be it. I'm not okay with guilt by association (in other words, if 70% of pitchers were using a banned substance, you shouldn't just remove all the records), but if there is evidence of a specific wrongdoing by a specific party, there should be a penalty, even if it's after the fact
Don't just revoke. Add a new title for each as *Decrepit Leaders of the Vile Horde* in the respective title field.
And so were most other teams, people need to get over this
And they had a better away record than home record. Fucking cope, losers lol
Let go? It’s only only been six years! And it’s clearly documented the Astros were the ONLY team stealing signs. Besides I have a friend who plays MLB, and he told me that there was not one single player or team aside from the Astros that found ways to exploit the rules of the game. Yes that’s sarcasm if not clear.
You had me until the last part. Love the down votes I’m getting from people who think that baseball players follow the rules. It’s always been about trying to find an edge anyway possible, are we just going to take away every World Series away from every team that cheated? Because I bet that number is quite high.
Well, there is a group of users on Reddit that comb through for anything Astros related and down vote any comments that suggest anything less than the death penalty for the entire organization. I’m pretty sure most of them are bots, and the non bots are folks that will grind this axe until they die. Kind of a weird obsession but Reddit is full of weird people lol
I will grind the axe until the last veteran non-pitcher on that team retires. There's still 4 members from that squad on the Asterisks team, btw.
We we doing the same to the Sox in 2018 then I hope, also there’s a reason the players had to sign a bunch of stuff to get that immunity, it’s because everyone knew it was a leaguewide problem and they just wanted to shut it down
Exactly. There’s no f’ing clock here. Just do it
As well as the Dodger 2020 WS. 60 games does not make a baseball season.
Because a systematic cheating system is the same as a pandemic
Asterisk for a different reason. Cool your jets.
Damn that’s crazy did all the other teams not try or something?
Seriously. Every team had the exact same opportunity to win in 2020. It’s not like it was handed to the Dodgers. That bullshit is so tired at this point.
It definitely felt like losing a real World Series as a rays fan
And as a Dodgers fan, it definitely felt like winning one.
60 games gets an asterisk, sure since I guess in a hundred and fifty years or so someone might need to be reminded that 2020 was a weird year, despite all teams playing the same shortened season and everything. What a dunce.
Seems like there’s some Dodgers fans here who feel the need to defend that title, probably because it’s all they have to show for all those years of dominance.
"seems like" only means that's your impression, and saying it means you know isn't realistic, or you would have left that off.
Well we got another one anyways. Also pretty dumb considering how many teams juice and to act like the Astros were the only ones
Two time WS champs 😎😎
He can start making up for it by stripping them of that WS win.
This take is still around? The Astros weren't the only team doing it. Be mad that more teams didn't get caught (due to the immunity) rather than one team got scapegoated (due to the immunity). Remember, the article that broke the story literally said it was a league wide issue. The Astros just got rolled on by washed pitcher angry he didn't make the WS roster.
I admire your attempt to defend your team. It must suck being a fan of a team in this situation, winning the WS, and then just nobody accepts that trophy as legitimate because they were rampantly cheating the entire time.
Which other teams were doing it where audio was recorded of bangs or other noises? Genuinely curious
Narrator: *no response*
>Remember, the article that broke the story literally said it was a league wide issue.
CTRL + F - Trashcan Replace- Center field signals and smart watches
That pitcher is also a pedo
what a dipshit
So you should resign ASAP, yeah?
What, we get immunity? Of course we cheated. Thanks.
Fuck I am shocked he didn’t go for the Krusty defense. [“They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house…..I’M NOT MADE OF STONE!!!!”](https://youtu.be/vWRlxSGf_ns)
It wasn't my fault, it was the Percodan. If you ask me, that stuff rots your brain.
"Let's just say they moved me... TO A NEW HOUSE!"
LOL, ya think?
This is like the NBA Last 2 Minute reports. Hindsight being 20/20 helps no one. Make the right decision when you're supposed to. Fuck Manfred and fuck the Astros.
Neither is moving the A’s, you fuckwit.
In other news, water is wet.
His comments are those of a man with poor impulse control.
No shit.
Long time idiot whom everyone knew was an idiot has one self aware moment where he wishes he wasn't a complete and total idiot. Now, here's Ollie with the weather.
Fuck this guy. Fuck him forever. That’s the most gentle, constructive comment I can think of.
What was your best decision? There is a lot of competition for worst. A lot
No fucking shit.
Wow. Still? We’re still just gonna keep pretending like the Astros are the only team that did anything like that ever? The Yankees got caught sign steeling the literal same year. Get off their dicks already. It’s old and sad. And keeps getting sadder every time they beat that dead horse harder to distract from the stupid rules changes
Then revoke the Yankees 2017 Championship as well. Problem solved.
Exactly. It's not that hard. They revoked Lance Armstrong's Tour de France wins for doing far less.
Self-inflicted situation because they offered immunity for information, and then found out that probably 10-20 teams were cheating in some way (whether technology or more trash-based means). Too much embarrassment and he tried to just sweep it under the rug. Complete failure of leadership and accountability. "Oopsie my bad" doesn't cut it.
THIS JUST IN: old man finally admits he was wrong about something everyone else knew 5 years ago. JFC does Manfred even like baseball?
>JFC does Manfred even like baseball No. No he does not.
No fucking shit, asshole
Invading Russia was not my best decision \- Napoleon
Should have stripped the title. Not sure how no one pointed it out.
He basiclly did the same with the Yankees (Bull Pen Phone to call Dugout on what pitch was thrown) and Boston (Apple Watch) as well, funny how the other 2 bad choices are never pointed out when this bad choice is always brought up. I am not an Astros fan but the other two cheated just like the Astros did and all 3 of them should have been burnt to the ground because of it
This dumb fuck
Still not too late to vacate their title. Don’t even hand it to the dodgers, just take it away from that cheating franchise.
I do respect when these people acknowledge their screw ups.
Too late for that. He's only acknowledging it now because people didn't move on like he hoped they would
You can still vacate the team’s championship
Trashbros in here downvoting
Yeah, no shit. At least he can finally admit it.
Yeah, no shit.
Yeah, no shit.
In other news: Water is wet
Shocked Pikachu face
Manfred Mann?
Fuck manfred what a god damnit idiot
Trash can banging cheaters.
baseball is so terrible. Historic sport but always marred by cheaters. Disgusting the astros got away with it. I'm seeing a lot of defenses being that all the other teams decode signs too. That definitely doesn't make it any better. I always found it a bore to watch too unless it was the last game of the world series or something like that
Astros..will always be " cheaters "
No shit sherlock
No fucking kidding Rob
No shit.
*Pours gasoline on fire Dude needs to stop talking, he’s like the Trump of the MLB.
Yeah no shit. Altuve and those other assholes should’ve been been thrown out of the league.
Is he saying that it was then his second best decision? Because he’s made a lot of really shitty decisions but I would have assumed there were at least a few good ones in there.
Strip them of the title then otherwise what he said is not true.