Sports Illustrated: Why Bud Selig Should Not Be in the HOF

[weams]

You mean won the World Series, right? In a cap environment, but with the same multi-tiered playoff system? Of course there's substantial doubt they would have won the Series under those conditions. A 100-win team has maybe a 20% chance of winning the Series on day one of the playoffs, a 88-win team maybe 8-10%. The A's would have to have made the playoffs six or eight times to have a very good chance of winning one World Series. And even then they may have been the Braves, who made the playoffs, what... 14? straight years with one title to show for it.

You mean the clubs that are going for it are battling for a potential increase of 6 to 8 percent n their overall odds? And if they lose game one of a playoff series, their odds decrease by 15 percent?

[SteveA]

I think some of those things are good. The wild card was bad for the game, but turning the wild card into a one-game playoff was very good, and I think the regular season is now properly valued. There's no way you can lay all the blame for the 1994 season on Selig. The players went on strike; they made the decision. And especially if you are going to then blame him for the imbalance in payrolls, considering that it was the players who were fighting to maintain that.

I don't blame him, or frankly care, about the steroids issue. Testing should have been implemented earlier, sure, but again, it was the players union that resisted that.

The owners were trying to roll back some of the gains the players had made in previous CBAs. Maybe they were right to try that.

But the bottom line is, the deal they wound up settling for the in the spring of 1995 was basically one the players would have accepted in the summer of 1994. He cancelled the World Series for NOTHING.

[SteveA]

Because they have been poorly run off and/or on the field (and, in some cases, have been just a little been short, maybe as a matter of bad luck, when they got close).

To me, the objective of increasing competitive balance isn't to ensure that championships are evenly or even widely distributed. That will depend on which teams are best put together and play most successfully. The goal should be to give competing teams roughly equal financial resources with which to compete. How they deploy those resources, and how many championships they win or come close to, will depend on what strategies they use to build their teams and how successful (and with how much luck) they implement those strategies. I would like to see baseball have more of that sort of balance.

The fundamental problem is TV revenues.

Baseball teams get most of their TV revenue from their local broadcasts, and obviously the rights fees for those vary by market size.

National baseball rights don't pay much because the ratings are miniscule. NFL preseason games outdraw just about any regular season telecast, including the Sunday Night ESPN package. I think 7 people actually watch the Sunday afternoon TBS national games.

That's just the way it is. Fox & TBS pay rights fees and telecast regular season games for two reasons:

1) To fill some airtime because there are 500 channels.

2) For the right to be able to broadcast postseason baseball. Which actually does get ratings (though once again it is dwarfed by the NFL. I am pretty sure that the NBC Sunday Night Football regular season game each week this year averaged more viewers than the World Series did).

So balancing the revenue would mean the big market owners VOLUNTARILY give up revenue. It's not going to happen, to any extent (and would you expect a business man to do that? Only if the entire MLB was in danger of failing would it be worth while to chip in to save the small markets, and we ain't there). Look at the way the Nats and Orioles are going at it over local TV revenue! You think that any owner is going to voluntarily turn a chunk of his local TV revenue over to the small market teams?

Of course not. So revenue parity just isn't coming to baseball. All you are going to get is stuff at the margins like luxury taxes that go some small fraction of the way towards revenue parity.

Not defending Selig. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, the guy cancelled a World Series for nothing and I have never forgiven him. But there wasn't much he can do in terms of creating revenue parity.

You know why we haven't had a strike/lockout since 1994? Because it's settled in terms of a player v. owner point of view. Players have free agency and an arbitration system that pays them, for the most part, something close to what the market makes them worth. And that's never going back.

All the remaining disputes are big market vs small market disputes among ownership. The only way we ever have labor problems again is if the owners try to put together some sort of onerous free agent compenstation package to discourage big market owners from signing as many free agents, then the Union would see their freedom being diminished and we'd be striking/locking out again. But barring that, the major issues is big market vs small market. And it's basically not solvable as long as MLB as a whole is as profitable as it is. If small market teams were going out of business or the teams were drastically losing value, then the big markets would HAVE to give something... because as popular as the Yankees are, they need an opponent. No one will show up or tune in to see a Yankee intrasquad game.

But the fact is, the small market teams are not suffering financially. Has a team ever sold for less $ than it did the previous time it changed hands? I don't think so. Everybody is making money. Getting businessmen (big market) to give something up "for the good of the game" will never happen as long as the game is thriving.

[Machado13]

No he shouldn't be in the hall of fame. But since when are the Giants a large

market team?

They aren't la dodgers, Yankees or red sox but if I remember right they were top 5 or 7 payroll right?

I don't remember but if I had to guess:

1. Dodgers

2. Yankees

3. Red Sox

4. Tigers

5. Phillies

6. Giants

7. Angels

Am I close? I was totally winging it

[weams]

They aren't la dodgers, Yankees or red sox but if I remember right they were top 5 or 7 payroll right?

I don't remember but if I had to guess:

1. Dodgers

2. Yankees

3. Red Sox

4. Tigers

5. Phillies

6. Giants

7. Angels

Am I close? I was totally winging it

1. LA Dodgers $235,295,219

2. NY Yankees $203,812,506

3. Philadelphia Phillies $180,052,723

4. Boston Red Sox $162,817,411

5. Detroit Tigers $162,228,527

6. LA Angels $155,692,000

7. San Francisco Giants $154,185,878

8. Texas Rangers $136,036,172

9. Washington Nationals $134,704,437

10. Toronto Blue Jays $132,628,700

11. Arizona Diamondbacks $112,688,666

12. Cincinnati Reds $112,390,772

13. St. Louis Cardinals $111,020,360

14. Atlanta Braves $110,897,341

15. Baltimore Orioles $107,406,623

[weams]

1. LA Dodgers $235,295,219

2. NY Yankees $203,812,506

3. Philadelphia Phillies $180,052,723

4. Boston Red Sox $162,817,411

5. Detroit Tigers $162,228,527

6. LA Angels $155,692,000

7. San Francisco Giants $154,185,878

8. Texas Rangers $136,036,172

9. Washington Nationals $134,704,437

10. Toronto Blue Jays $132,628,700

11. Arizona Diamondbacks $112,688,666

12. Cincinnati Reds $112,390,772

13. St. Louis Cardinals $111,020,360

14. Atlanta Braves $110,897,341

15. Baltimore Orioles $107,406,623

BOLD - playoffs

[InsideCoroner]

No one has mentioned his allowing the All-Star Game winner to have home field advantage in the Series, something that I find utterly appalling. I think AL fans should get together and vote in all the worst NL players one year, just to prove a point. "Your starting NL shortstop... Zack Cozart!"

And the fact that they will likely still be playing baseball in November this year is nearly as absurd.

[Frobby]

I think Bud leaves behind a mixed legacy. The one thing I like is that though he made some big mistakes, he seemed to learn from them. His last few years were pretty strong. Bottom line is that he was Commissioner for more than 20 years, and that will get him into the HoF eventually. Marvin Miller should go in first, it's a joke that he's not in already.

[spiritof66]

But since when are the Giants a large

market team?

For some reason, lots of people think of San Francisco as a medium-sized market. Maybe it's the comparison to LA that fosters that image. Or maybe it's the bad management and lousy ballpark that hindered the Giants for many years after they moved there.

San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose is the sixth largest television market in the U.S. It is about 80 miles from Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, which is the 20th largest market (and the second largest, after Orlando, without a ML franchise). If you add the two markets together, they are larger than Chicago, the third largest market. There's a large population in the rest of Northern California, including Fresno-Visalia, the 55th largest TV market in the U.S., from which the Giants might draw.

http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/docs/solutions/measurement/television/2013-2014-DMA-Ranks.pdf

There's plenty of corporate and individual wealth for luxury boxes and other high-priced tickets. While the Giants share the market with Oakland, they are clearly the dominant team. Two years ago, the Bloomberg valuations ranked them sixth in team revenues, not far behind the Dodgers, Cubs and Phillies and ahead of the Angels. They may have crept up a bit in the pecking order since then.

[Ohfan67]

Two big positives: currently in the longest period without labor unrest since Union was formed (I think that's correct) and baseball has never been so profitable for owners and players. He was also commissioner during massive stadium building era. It wasn't all bad. The 94 strike was ugly, but that seemed to be driven by a small but powerful group of owners who wanted to break the union. I don't think any commissioner could have avoided it. Not a bud fanboy, but just pointing out some positives.