MLB needs a salary cap

[DrungoHazewood]

An expansion to New Jersey, Connecticut, and Brooklyn will help as well.

I agree to a point. Even if you expanded and added three new NY metro area teams in 2016 they would be entering a market where a large percentage of the population has already picked the Yanks and a small percentage the Mets to be their team. I don't know that there are a whole lot of undecideds. It will take literally generations for those teams to build up a strong, lasting fanbase. And I don't know how they would work out cable deals. I would guess that if everyone in the great NYC area currently pays a mandatory $5 on their cable bill for YES, there would be something of a backlash if they then had to pay an addition $10(?) for a new RSN or RSNs for the new teams. And all of this assumes that they somehow get around the to-the-death opposition of the Yanks and Mets without having to pay them $billions for their loss in revenues. The MASN dispute would be the War of 1812 compared to the YES dispute's WWII.

[Tx Oriole]

Baseball is the only major sport without one. It also has a wide disparity of income. I'm fine with setting it above what most teams can afford. But, allowing the Dodgers to have a 240 million payroll is absolutely absurd. The Yanks and Redsox also have been advantaged throughout the last 20 years. So, let's be fair. Set the cap at 175 million and let the lower market teams come up to speed based on inflation and increased revenue. Maybe some of that increased revenue would be the fact that mid and small market fan bases would feel that eventually, they would have an even shot at this.

Before anyone points out that small market teams have been successful, let me preempt you with the fact that even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. You give a competent organization more money to spend, that organization will win more. Basic economics. It's time the playing field is leveled and if we have to put up with ten more years of unfairness, so be it.

I want my grandchildren going to games where one team has an even chance against another.

That should not keep your grandchildren from enjoying baseball. The Giants have

done very well while the Dodgers haven't. It's something else besides having a

240 million dollar payroll. There is a disparity but I don't let it bother me. I still

enjoy the game of baseball. Win or lose.

[spiritof66]

We absolutely do NOT need a salary cap. I've never been a fan of punishing people/companies/teams for being well run. Either you adapt and overcome or you fail. Artificially leveling the playing field in real life or in sports is almost always wrong. It cheapens everything. The next time the Orioles win the World Series, I want it to be because they worked hard and were better than the competition, not because MLB tied the hands of better teams so that we'd have an easier time.

This reminds me of a comment by one of the Steinbrenner Boys a couple of years ago that MLB was punishing the Yankees for being successful in competing against other teams. Well, yes and no. The problem with this post, and with Steinbrenner's outlook, is that the "competition" is warped by teams' territorial exclusivity. There would be something more akin to fair competition among clubs if, say, the Rays and Royals were free to move to New York or LA or Hartford. That is a key difference between MLB and the non-salary cap European soccer leagues (at least in Britain, and I believe the same is true elsewhere): no team "owns" London or Barcelona or Rome. Other teams can move there, and a new team can form there and try to advance through that country's leagues to challenge the entrenched teams. By contrast, MLB owners who have the advantage of operating in the nation's largest population centers have the right to preclude teams from competing there.

I agree that it's clear there won't be a salary cap in MLB any time soon, if ever, and that it's more productive to think about and advocate new forms of or enhancements to revenue sharing. I do think there is a possibility for some shake-up of MLB if a few members of Congress take an interest in whether baseball should be subject to antitrust laws. (Briefly, in a 1922 case arising from the screwing organized baseball gave the owner of the Baltimore Terrapins of the the Federal League, the U.S. Supreme Court decided, probably correctly, that the antitrust laws did not apply to baseball because it is local activity, not interstate commerce. Over the years, antitrust law has changed, and subsequent decisions have made other professional sports leagues subject to antitrust laws, but the Supreme Court has said that any change in the status of baseball should be made by Congress.) That inquiry might, for example, require that MLB owners open their books so that Congress can consider the monopoly profits they are continuing to make. Where things might head in the wake of such hearings is anybody's guess.

[DrungoHazewood]

This reminds me of a comment by one of the Steinbrenner Boys a couple of years ago that MLB was punishing the Yankees for being successful in competing against other teams. Well, yes and no. The problem with this post, and with Steinbrenner's outlook, is that the "competition" is warped by teams' territorial exclusivity. There would be something more akin to fair competition among clubs if, say, the Rays and Royals were free to move to New York or LA or Hartford. That is a key difference between MLB and the non-salary cap European soccer leagues (at least in Britain, and I believe the same is true elsewhere): no team "owns" London or Barcelona or Rome. Other teams can move there, and a new team can form there and try to advance through that country's leagues to challenge the entrenched teams. By contrast, MLB owners who have the advantage of operating in the nation's largest population centers have the right to preclude teams from competing there.

I agree that it's clear there won't be a salary cap in MLB any time soon, if ever, and that it's more productive to think about and advocate new forms of or enhancements to revenue sharing. I do think there is a possibility for some shake-up of MLB if a few members of Congress take an interest in whether baseball should be subject to antitrust laws. (Briefly, in a 1922 case arising from the screwing organized baseball gave the owner of the Baltimore Terrapins of the the Federal League, the U.S. Supreme Court decided, probably correctly, that the antitrust laws did not apply to baseball because it is local activity, not interstate commerce. Over the years, antitrust law has changed, and subsequent decisions have made other professional sports leagues subject to antitrust laws, but the Supreme Court has said that any change in the status of baseball should be made by Congress.) That inquiry might, for example, require that MLB owners open their books so that Congress can consider the monopoly profits they are continuing to make. Where things might head in the wake of such hearings is anybody's guess.

Good post. One minor quibble: European soccer clubs move exceptionally rarely. There are already multiple teams in all the markets that could support them. That's a huge benefit of an open-league, promotion/relegation structure. There are no exclusive groups of owners and the commish hand-picking what city gets a franchise, instead teams naturally grow up and settle in at a level where their city and fanbase can support them.

[Big Al]

brianod: I agree 100% with everything you are saying. The unfortunate reality is $$$$$ trumps fairness. Just look at the direction the NCAA is heading with 5 Super Conferences or Citizens United.

[Redskins Rick]

I dont like salary caps.

Salary caps are just limits for owners that can't stop spending obscene amounts of money.

[BradyBunch]

I wouldn't say it solves nothing. It would contribute to leveling the playing field on the umm.... playing field. The big money teams would still have huge advantages, but they'd be lessened somewhat. It would be more of an indirect benefit to have more money than God and only being able to spend X on payroll. As opposed to the direct benefit of a $250M payroll.

It doesn't change anything.. all it does it flip the switch so to speak. A small market team scouts and develops their players if you put a cap on it.. those small market teams now have more competitors. So for example, Yankees have $250m to spend but have about $100m sitting around for scouting and developing which would be close to double what the Rays would have. So now you have a situation in which Rays are forced to compete with Yankkes on scouting and developing as well on the field. Rays model was scout/develop/trade. Now that model is blown up and Rays won't have an advantage off the field anymore. That is my point. Can't say it solves something when the short sighted thought is about the on the field product while ignoring what the real product a team has an advantage. So when you limit big teams spending, you put pressure on small market teams on the front end costs of developing and producing future teams.

As much as I love international soccer, European soccer, etc, that might not be a great test case for the impact of unrestrained spending and free agency on a sport. You say that winning matters more than the TV money, but I don't think you've made a great case that spending isn't directly related to success. I think revenues up front drives the winning, which is a self-reinforcing cycle. Billionaire injects cash, which leads to winning, which leads to revenues, which leads to more winning. Without the initial injection of money its very difficult to move between tiers of competition in Europe.

Winning does matter in European soccer. If you don't get the top 3 to 5 spots in your leagues you are talking about missing out on $50 to $100m in tv money from league prize, Champions and Europa League. You can only maintain your spending if you are winning. If you aren't winning your spending goes down. Ask Malaga CF, Elche CF, Portsmouth or a Leeds type team who spend big money to get to the top and had poors seasons and went bankrupt and/or were relegated.

Long gone are the days of Man City popping up especially under the new fair play rules.

The biggest, richest owner-team combinations win most often. Man City wasn't a power until they had hugely rich foreign ownership come in. Chelsea, similar. Tottenham is just up the road from Arsenal and Chelsea and has a big following, but their owner Daniel Levy seems to operate much more within a very defined budget and they finish out of the Champions League most every year. So sure, it's not necessarily the TV money that drives things, but when anyone with enough cash can come buy a team and then spend about as much as they want that certainly has a huge impact on the standings. One reason they put up with this in Europe is the fact that there are a lot of extra-league competitions like the FA Cup and the League Cup and the Europa League, so a team can have legitimate aspirations beyond the almost impossible task of trying to unseat the super teams at the top of the best leagues.

Man City actually has a long history, during the 1960s and 70s they were good. Competing for titles every year. They struggled in the 1980s and 1990s to stay up and became an also ran while Man United under Sir Alex kept winning and increasing it's earnings. Also Man City was actually owned by Thaksin Shinawatra (fmr Prime Minister of Thailand) until bought by what you see as an influx of money. Thaksin Shinawatra had his assets frozen over some issues in Thiland and had to sell the team. Shinawatra spend close to $100m on players in 2007/2008 season.

Tottenham isn't owned by Daniel Levy. It's owned by ENIC Group which is co-owned by Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy. Lewis would be chairman but refuses to step foot in UK over taxes. Tottenham also has a very defined budget for reasons of seeking funds to build a new stadium from London and British Government, so pouring money into the club would make seeking a new Government funded stadium hard to sell.

So you wanna try another club...

And you know what's strange, I'll listen to some English radio that's rebroadcast on the SiriusXM soccer channel. They'll sometimes complain about the revenue situation, or the ticket pricing or something along those lines, but it's not really in relation to competition. They're not usually arguing that it's not fair to Fulham or Crystal Palace that Chelsea can spend so much more. They're more upset that Crystal Palace charges 50 pounds for an away ticket when Liverpool comes to their stadium, and only 30 pounds for Burnley. Europeans actually seem more surprised that North American sports "rewards failure" with salary caps and drafts and the like. It is an interesting juxtaposition where NA leagues redistribute wealth and make sure the last place team gets the best draft picks, while Europe operates in a much more winner-take-all mode. The analogy only goes so far, but the Laissez Faire Americans are sports socialists, while the socialist Europeans are Laissez Faire sports fans.

And I am a Laissez Fair period. I hate rewarding failure. Salary cap or not there will always be those teams that are just there to be there and not win anything.

[DrungoHazewood]

It doesn't change anything.. all it does it flip the switch so to speak.

So, yea, it changes things. Not to the extent the salary cap advocates suggest, it's certainly no magic solution. But to say it doesn't change anything is being disingenuous.

Winning does matter in European soccer. If you don't get the top 3 to 5 spots in your leagues you are talking about missing out on $50 to $100m in tv money from league prize, Champions and Europa League.

The Champions League does bring with it revenues. I don't know if your numbers are correct. I'd be stunned if the Europa League came with anything at all like $50M in TV money. Tottenham's management basically said that they could take it or leave it because they get so little out of running off every few weeks to rural Norway or Belarus to play a match and wear down their players. And then go play the team below them in the Premier League at a disadvantage because they spent the week hanging out eating home cooking and practicing.

And I am a Laissez Fair period. I hate rewarding failure. Salary cap or not there will always be those teams that are just there to be there and not win anything.

There is no such thing as Laissez Faire period. Maybe that's your goal or dream, but every sports team gets subsidized in some way, from either the league, the government, their benefactors, or all of the above. We don't live in a black or white world.

[brianod]

That should not keep your grandchildren from enjoying baseball. The Giants have

done very well while the Dodgers haven't. It's something else besides having a

240 million dollar payroll. There is a disparity but I don't let it bother me. I still

enjoy the game of baseball. Win or lose.

That's like telling women in the 1960's that they should accept a salary discrepancy and enjoy cooking dinner for their man. Unfairness is always corrected eventually, may be long term, may be short term. But MLB will be forced to address it eventually, like it or not.

[Beef Supreme]

That's like telling women in the 1960's that they should accept a salary discrepancy and enjoy cooking dinner for their man. Unfairness is always corrected eventually, may be long term, may be short term. But MLB will be forced to address it eventually, like it or not.

Baseball competitiveness would benefit from revenue sharing. Without it, a salary cap does nothing.

[brianod]

Baseball competitiveness would benefit from revenue sharing. Without it, a salary cap does nothing.

Well, it increases the competitiveness or the game and the Yanks, RedSox and Dodgers owners would be richer...

[oriolediehard]

I hear you. Maybe someone should stand up for what is fair and right? Money talks and influences, I'm not naive but the MLB is sticking out like a sore thumb when it comes to fairness.

The 1994 strike was to break the union and have a salary cap. The owners gave in and ended the strike with no salary cap.

[brianod]

The 1994 strike was to break the union and have a salary cap. The owners gave in and ended the strike with no salary cap.

Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. He started a world war. That doesn't mean it was right.

[Beef Supreme]

Well, it increases the competitiveness or the game and the Yanks, RedSox and Dodgers owners would be richer...

So, maybe the cap would be $150 million (?). And fifteen teams still would have payrolls < $120MM. Seems like it would just result in the richest teams becoming more profitable rather than increasing competitiveness.

[brianod]

So, maybe the cap would be $150 million (?). And fifteen teams still would have payrolls < $120MM. Seems like it would just result in the richest teams becoming more profitable rather than increasing competitiveness.

If you bothered to read my original post, I proposed a 175 million cap instituted now that wouldn't hurt anyone but LA. My assumption is that it would be less painless and more acceptable to everyone. Also, I assume that those well under the cap would take years through increased revenue to be able to spend it.