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.