Profit to Owners

[JuanAgosto]

The sport is dying and everyone with the ability to fix it cant see it through their greed.

Easy solutions:

1. Salary cap and floor. Limit crazy spending and force cheap organizations to improve their efforts.

2. Better marketing. The league has been awful at this.

3. Lower costs to attend games.

4. More exciting product. The 3 outcome style is boring.

Juan, I 100% agree. Couldn’t say it better myself.

And for those of you who don’t understand what the salary cap and floor mean for a sport, look at how exciting and interesting the National Hockey League has become. The richest franchises, Toronto, NY Rangers, Chicago, and Detroit are not guaranteed championships, and smaller market teams like Pittsburgh, Tampa, Denver, and our own BLUES have won The Cup in the last 10 years.

Yes, indeed. G8ves every teams and fanbase a chance!

[Bob39]

I'm not sure players are in the position that everyone thinks they are. Most owners have enough money stored away that they will not starve for lack of baseball income. Things like homes and cars are things that they already have. Players, on the other hand, are young men without a lot saved up. If you are 28 years old today, are you willing to give up your entire age 29 season to make sure players 50 years from now don't have a cap? Are you willing to give up $6 million (or whatever you make) that isn't coming back. Players, unlike owners, have an expiration date on their ability to milk the cash cow.

[Youboughtit]

I'm not sure players are in the position that everyone thinks they are. Most owners have enough money stored away that they will not starve for lack of baseball income. Things like homes and cars are things that they already have. Players, on the other hand, are young men without a lot saved up. If you are 28 years old today, are you willing to give up your entire age 29 season to make sure players 50 years from now don't have a cap? Are you willing to give up $6 million (or whatever you make) that isn't coming back. Players, unlike owners, have an expiration date on their ability to milk the cash cow.

The game is loosing popularity. Owners cannot allow that. I am not saying a cap will not happen but I am saying a cap will not happen without full revenue sharing to even the playing field like all other professional sports. The owners have nothing else to give that compares to a Cap. Less games isn’t close 1 less year of team control isn’t close. 2 big asks that balance each other

[ClassicO]

The gap between the haves and have nots has never been narrower. Unlike in the past, all these teams are owned by billionaires or billionaire groups whose financial security does not rest with the baseball team. With additional playoff teams, the competitive balance has never been better. When the two leagues were made up of 8 teams each, 4 teams dominated: the Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, and Cardinals with the Yankees on top by far. The Yankees haven’t won since 2009. The Dodgers have won twice since 1988, one being in a strike year. The Mets haven’t won since 1986.

Btw, the owners will get most, if not all, of their national TV money, strike or no strike. Local might be different. Owners are using “competitive balance” as a pretext for a power/money grab.

You nailed it. Well done.
And we don't know how much MLB teams really make -- except that it's more than Forbes lists. Forbes has been significantly low in the estimates of every team's sale value.

[Red7]

The gap between the haves and have nots has never been narrower. Unlike in the past, all these teams are owned by billionaires or billionaire groups whose financial security does not rest with the baseball team. With additional playoff teams, the competitive balance has never been better. When the two leagues were made up of 8 teams each, 4 teams dominated: the Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, and Cardinals with the Yankees on top by far. The Yankees haven’t won since 2009. The Dodgers have won twice since 1988, one being in a strike year. The Mets haven’t won since 1986.

Btw, the owners will get most, if not all, of their national TV money, strike or no strike. Local might be different. Owners are using “competitive balance” as a pretext for a power/money grab.

I don't know about what you just said. Sure all the owners are billionaires. But there is a huge difference between having $4B of which $2.5B is team value like the Dewitts and Steve Cohen of the Mets worth $21B. Cohen can afford to lose $200M a year for a long time. The Dewitt's not so much. With the RSN system collapsing and future streaming revenues uncertain, I don't see either the players or the owners negotiating from a position of strength. Teams are getting smarter about not paying veterans into their late 30s. Therefore, with the exception of a very few elite players getting 10+ year contracts at free agents, players are getting kicked to the curb quicker. Owners are facing revenue shortfalls and a shifting fan demographic that is not favorable.

Labor negotiations are always hard to predict. But, if the owners remember anything about the last strike, attendance took an enormous hit and didn't recover until they collaberated to allow hitters to use steroids and break the HR records. They are not going to be saved by that again. So both sides have to figure this out. They both really set the stage on how to do so last time. Higher taxes on the high end payrolls offset by a larger pre-arb bonus pool. That then leaves the issue of an international draft in play to help the competitive balance. The wild card issue will be expansion and the potential economic windfall from that. Presumably the owners will want to pocket 100% of the money from the franchise fees while the players will want something. They are likely to get scraps.

If baseball was smart, they would set the franchise fee at $1.5B, take the $3B collected and use the interest on that $3B, $150M per year to both fund some revenue sharing and part of the pre-arb bonus pool. They would also require the sharing teams to increase their payroll accordingly. By doing it this way, the payroll tax could be lower due to the $150M of additional revenue sharing. This lessens the impact of an artifical cap. The players would also be effectively getting an increased floor and some additional bonus pool. It helps the high revenue - high spending teams by lowering their payroll tax, helps the lower revenue teams by giving them additional dollars while getting a bit more dollars into the pre-arb players hands. But, we will see if they make a mess of it.

Most media I have heard has said the players have the owners begging at this point and will win huge but are still unwilling to budge on Cap unless full revenue sharing is done first

The players are against revenue sharing. Revenue sharing means the big revenues, the ones who pay the highest salaries, will have less money to spend. That will serve as a drag on salaries.

[Youboughtit]

The gap between the haves and have nots has never been narrower. Unlike in the past, all these teams are owned by billionaires or billionaire groups whose financial security does not rest with the baseball team. With additional playoff teams, the competitive balance has never been better. When the two leagues were made up of 8 teams each, 4 teams dominated: the Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, and Cardinals with the Yankees on top by far. The Yankees haven’t won since 2009. The Dodgers have won twice since 1988, one being in a strike year. The Mets haven’t won since 1986.

Btw, the owners will get most, if not all, of their national TV money, strike or no strike. Local might be different. Owners are using “competitive balance” as a pretext for a power/money grab.

I don't know about what you just said. Sure all the owners are billionaires. But there is a huge difference between having $4B of which $2.5B is team value like the Dewitts and Steve Cohen of the Mets worth $21B. Cohen can afford to lose $200M a year for a long time. The Dewitt's not so much. With the RSN system collapsing and future streaming revenues uncertain, I don't see either the players or the owners negotiating from a position of strength. Teams are getting smarter about not paying veterans into their late 30s. Therefore, with the exception of a very few elite players getting 10+ year contracts at free agents, players are getting kicked to the curb quicker. Owners are facing revenue shortfalls and a shifting fan demographic that is not favorable.

Labor negotiations are always hard to predict. But, if the owners remember anything about the last strike, attendance took an enormous hit and didn't recover until they collaberated to allow hitters to use steroids and break the HR records. They are not going to be saved by that again. So both sides have to figure this out. They both really set the stage on how to do so last time. Higher taxes on the high end payrolls offset by a larger pre-arb bonus pool. That then leaves the issue of an international draft in play to help the competitive balance. The wild card issue will be expansion and the potential economic windfall from that. Presumably the owners will want to pocket 100% of the money from the franchise fees while the players will want something. They are likely to get scraps.

If baseball was smart, they would set the franchise fee at $1.5B, take the $3B collected and use the interest on that $3B, $150M per year to both fund some revenue sharing and part of the pre-arb bonus pool. They would also require the sharing teams to increase their payroll accordingly. By doing it this way, the payroll tax could be lower due to the $150M of additional revenue sharing. This lessens the impact of an artifical cap. The players would also be effectively getting an increased floor and some additional bonus pool. It helps the high revenue - high spending teams by lowering their payroll tax, helps the lower revenue teams by giving them additional dollars while getting a bit more dollars into the pre-arb players hands. But, we will see if they make a mess of it.

Most media I have heard has said the players have the owners begging at this point and will win huge but are still unwilling to budge on Cap unless full revenue sharing is done first

The players are against revenue sharing. Revenue sharing means the big revenues, the ones who pay the highest salaries, will have less money to spend. That will serve as a drag on salaries.

Not if there is a Floor above 80-% like all other sports. Lowest is 82%. Same amount of revenue just spent between all teams allowing overall payroll to increase