MLB Lockout Thread

[Tony-OH]

31 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 

Makes sense. This has always been about allowing the big market teams to spend as much as possible. While there are some who have bought in hook, line and sinker to the player propaganda, at the end of the day, this was always about trying to get rid of the luxury tax so the Dodgers, Yankees and Angels can spend ungodly amounts of money to offset their poor decisions and still get them into the playoffs every year.

This entire thing is nothing but a money grab by the players and owners who will drag this out as long as possible because they don't car about April and May baseball.

Neither side gives two squats about the fans. They all are greedy POSs.

[jabba72]

Im not sure why the owners are so desperately clinging to this CBT.  Unless they think it gives the big markets teams too much of an advantage. 

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, jarman86 said:

1. Almost spit out my coffee seeing a poster compare first 3 years of MLB as an internship....I thought MiLB was the internship? Holy crap, a 6-9 year internship to maybe get more than a million a year? If you haven't been flushed out of sport by then.

You spit out your coffee easily, don't you? 

The first three years can certainly be looked at as a high paid internship at a Law form. The MiLB portion would be the schooling phase, the first three years where they will make over $1.8 million dollars is the internship, and they hopefully make partner after that. 

But yeah, I don't know know how they would ever be able to survive on that? The horros of making $650k a year the first year with incremental numbs the next two must be too much to bear for those poor indentured servents.

Meanwhile, the player unions real goal is to put the luxary tax higher and higher so the big market teams can try and outspend each other. lol

I would say it's sad how easily manipulated people can be by PR and media, but then again, just gotta look at where we are right now as a country and world.

I refuse to argue anymore. You have your right to your opinion. 

Power to the peasant players!!!! See, I'm coming around.

[jarman86]

3 hours ago, forphase1 said:

Where are you getting half a billion dollars in profit?  Everything I see says it was $104M.  Still a great profit, but no where near $500M.  https://sports.yahoo.com/champion-braves-report-huge-profits-as-mlb-claims-teams-are-bad-investments-173334889.html  Now REVENUE was $568M, but revenue is NOT profit.  HUGE difference.  Also means owners are NOT making at least $2-300M a year as you claim as the Braves only 'made' $104M.  Still stupid money, but not near the numbers you were claiming.  Of course, some are likely making more than the Braves and some are likely making less.  We don't know any solid numbers other than for the Braves of course.  

You are right, I pulled a morning ruse.

However, lets not get confused. So that number is "ticket sales, concessions, corporate sales, retail, suites, premium seat fees and postseason revenue. Liberty Media also earns revenue from local broadcast rights and revenue streams it shares with other Major League Baseball franchises, including national broadcast rights and licensing. "

It does not include revenues from any other source, such as MLB TV, Fanatics, etc... basically it isn't the 10-12B under the MLB arm. 

Payroll, largest expense, $131M would bring that down to $430M.  I would assume since rent is $3.1M a year, and I would guess 6-10 for turning lights on etc... Also, the rent is most likely paid for by Suntrust, so that negates it. 

Not to mention, that as a business person, you should know that lots of profit doesn't exactly get reported. $8M alone written out of "profit" for "stock based compensation."  To who that went to or why? I would guess maybe CEO Maffei? But that counts as an expense and not profit. 

 

[jarman86]

21 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

You spit out your coffee easily, don't you? 

The first three years can certainly be looked at as a high paid internship at a Law form. The MiLB portion would be the schooling phase, the first three years where they will make over $1.8 million dollars is the internship, and they hopefully make partner after that. 

Have you any experience/idea of what a "high paid internship" at a law firm is? Not livable...speaking as one who went to law school and has friends working at law firms and prestigious law firms at that. My friends who got jobs out of law school with large firms were making starting $100-150k, and I wouldn't compare them to MLB starter level quality when they were getting paid that much. 

Saying a guy needs 9 years of "internshipping" or sorry.....2-6 years of schooling, and then interning is a hell of a description for a profession that brings in since we don't know what profits are, billions of revenue. And my classmates got nicely compensated for working on those large settlements beyond their regular salary. Which is what the MLBPA is trying to do.  It makes sense. Only difference is if those law firms don't compensate the attorneys, they will go elsewhere. And here, the government has made MLB the only game in town. And rules limit the amount of foreign players on teams in another country, such as Japan or Korea, so they can't exactly go to other leagues in other countries. 

Doesn't help me being bitter about not making as much as they do, or I guess in your case not making it to pro ball or whatever.

[forphase1]

11 minutes ago, jarman86 said:

You are right, I pulled a morning ruse.

However, lets not get confused. So that number is "ticket sales, concessions, corporate sales, retail, suites, premium seat fees and postseason revenue. Liberty Media also earns revenue from local broadcast rights and revenue streams it shares with other Major League Baseball franchises, including national broadcast rights and licensing. "

It does not include revenues from any other source, such as MLB TV, Fanatics, etc... basically it isn't the 10-12B under the MLB arm. 

Payroll, largest expense, $131M would bring that down to $430M.  I would assume since rent is $3.1M a year, and I would guess 6-10 for turning lights on etc... Also, the rent is most likely paid for by Suntrust, so that negates it. 

Not to mention, that as a business person, you should know that lots of profit doesn't exactly get reported. $8M alone written out of "profit" for "stock based compensation."  To who that went to or why? I would guess maybe CEO Maffei? But that counts as an expense and not profit. 

 

Sure, the books of any corporation is going to be highly complicated, and no doubt there are tax shelters and clear manipulation of the numbers by accountants to get the numbers as low, or as high, as possible, depending on situation and goal.  However, do wonder a few things.  

1)  You said this did not include revenues from other sources, such as MLB.TV, Fanatics, etc.  Without diving deep into the books, we do not know if the MLB.TV numbers was included in the 'revenue streams it shares with other MLB franchises' and if the fanatics revenue was included in the 'retail' portion of the revenues listed.  I'm not claiming they WERE, but I don't think we know for certain either.  The information is likely out there if we care enough to dive deeply.  

2) The great thing about the Braves is that most of those numbers are available if anyone cares enough to dive into it.  And no, most profits gets reported by a public company as they are taxed on said 'profits'.  Now there are accounting measures that are taken to lessen profits, almost all of us do that, individuals (donations to goodwill, tax write-offs, etc) and Lord knows businesses have full divisions dedicated to taking advantage of every loophole they can.  For your case in point, the compensation of the CEO is most certainly an expense for the BUSINESS entity and is not and should not be counted as a profit.  The salary of business executives of Ford, Apple, Google, etc are expenses to the business entity, why should the salaries or stock based compensation to baseball executives not be treated the same way?  Again, the Braves are a different beast being a publicly company, but still operate the same way.  The money paid to the executives is an expense, a lessening of the business revenue in the form of payment to high executive employees.  Why do you consider that written out "profit" any more than any other employee compensation?  Just because it's more money?

3)  Let's assume these numbers are correct.  That the Braves brought in $568M in total revenue and after expenses they ended up with a $104M profit.  Now that sounds really high, but honestly that's only a about an 18.3% net profit margin and a profit percentage of 22.41%, well in line with the target numbers of other business that I know.  For a few examples as to net profit margin, based on December 2021 numbers (most recent I could easily find):

Apple - 27.94%, Ford - 32.6%, Microsoft - 36.28%, Exxon - 10.7%, JPMorgan Chase - 35.51%

Point being, a 18.3% net profit margin is VERY reasonable, if not low, in comparisons to some quickly pulled other companies.  Yes, clearly the industries are vastly different, but it's not like the profits the Braves made was outlandish or unreasonable based on some other well known corporations.  I know the owner of my local grocery story, and they also try to keep their profits at roughly 15-25% of total revenue, though that varies greatly from product to product of course.  

[wildcard]

2 hours ago, jabba72 said:

Im not sure why the owners are so desperately clinging to this CBT.  Unless they think it gives the big markets teams too much of an advantage. 

Ken Rosenthal article on The Athletic quotes Gene Orza, from union COO,  as saying he is sure Owners are concerned that Steve Cohen, new Mets owner, might raise his team's payroll to 300m/yr if restriction are dropped.  Forbes says Cohen is the 30th richest person in the US with 13 billion.

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Ken Rosenthal article on The Athletic quotes Gene Orza, from union COO,  as saying he is sure Owners are concerned that Steve Cohen, new Mets owner, might raise his team's payroll to 300m/yr if restriction are dropped.  Forbes says Cohen is the 30th richest person in the US with 13 billion.

And?

First off no one (other than maybe Cohen) is suggesting that restrictions are dropped.

Secondly, who cares if he does? 

OK, the Mets spend 300M and buy themselves into one of the 14 playoff spots?  So?

Does anyone think that fans are going to revolt if Cohen is spending 300M and their owner isn't?  That's going to be more upsetting to the fanbase than the lockout?

[jarman86]

1 hour ago, forphase1 said:

Sure, the books of any corporation is going to be highly complicated, and no doubt there are tax shelters and clear manipulation of the numbers by accountants to get the numbers as low, or as high, as possible, depending on situation and goal.  However, do wonder a few things.  

1)  You said this did not include revenues from other sources, such as MLB.TV, Fanatics, etc.  Without diving deep into the books, we do not know if the MLB.TV numbers was included in the 'revenue streams it shares with other MLB franchises' and if the fanatics revenue was included in the 'retail' portion of the revenues listed.  I'm not claiming they WERE, but I don't think we know for certain either.  The information is likely out there if we care enough to dive deeply.  

That is what every article has said reporting on this, that it does not include MLB revenue sharing and is only revenue from their operations.

1 hour ago, forphase1 said:

2) The great thing about the Braves is that most of those numbers are available if anyone cares enough to dive into it.  And no, most profits gets reported by a public company as they are taxed on said 'profits'.  Now there are accounting measures that are taken to lessen profits, almost all of us do that, individuals (donations to goodwill, tax write-offs, etc) and Lord knows businesses have full divisions dedicated to taking advantage of every loophole they can.  For your case in point, the compensation of the CEO is most certainly an expense for the BUSINESS entity and is not and should not be counted as a profit.  The salary of business executives of Ford, Apple, Google, etc are expenses to the business entity, why should the salaries or stock based compensation to baseball executives not be treated the same way?  Again, the Braves are a different beast being a publicly company, but still operate the same way.  The money paid to the executives is an expense, a lessening of the business revenue in the form of payment to high executive employees.  Why do you consider that written out "profit" any more than any other employee compensation?  Just because it's more money?

I am aware it is an "expense," but...as stated, they are taxed on profits. So...when I see $8M in stock compensation....for someone? Maybe Freddie Freeman or Jorge Soler for all I know. It is a salary or compensation for someone that is either arbitrary or something. Being separate, I assume it was not part of a CEO's salary. So, lets say, CEO of I forget this company's name, decides he wants $50M a year for owning and "running" the Braves. He can do that, that is an expense....That is also an expense someone like Peter Angelos doesn't have to report, so that would be extra profit. So, where after all taxes and financing and rusing, there was $104M "profit" for the Braves and $20M went to CEO salary, that in any other world would be $124M profit because the Angelos or owner is getting a salary than pay. Or he does pay himself, but again, we will never know because no owner is going to release their balance sheets.

1 hour ago, forphase1 said:

3)  Let's assume these numbers are correct.  That the Braves brought in $568M in total revenue and after expenses they ended up with a $104M profit.  Now that sounds really high, but honestly that's only a about an 18.3% net profit margin and a profit percentage of 22.41%, well in line with the target numbers of other business that I know.  For a few examples as to net profit margin, based on December 2021 numbers (most recent I could easily find):

Apple - 27.94%, Ford - 32.6%, Microsoft - 36.28%, Exxon - 10.7%, JPMorgan Chase - 35.51%

Point being, a 18.3% net profit margin is VERY reasonable, if not low, in comparisons to some quickly pulled other companies.  Yes, clearly the industries are vastly different, but it's not like the profits the Braves made was outlandish or unreasonable based on some other well known corporations.  I know the owner of my local grocery story, and they also try to keep their profits at roughly 15-25% of total revenue, though that varies greatly from product to product of course.  

And 18.3% is better than rate of return on stock market, which contradicts the Poor owners line that Manfred and Co. state.

[jarman86]

8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

And?

First off no one (other than maybe Cohen) is suggesting that restrictions are dropped.

Secondly, who cares if he does? 

OK, the Mets spend 300M and buy themselves into one of the 14 playoff spots?  So?

Does anyone think that fans are going to revolt if Cohen is spending 300M and their owner isn't?  That's going to be more upsetting to the fanbase than the lockout?

Good to see $200+M buys you 3rd place in a division where one team gave up halfway through. 

[wildcard]

10 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

And?

First off no one (other than maybe Cohen) is suggesting that restrictions are dropped.

Secondly, who cares if he does? 

OK, the Mets spend 300M and buy themselves into one of the 14 playoff spots?  So?

Does anyone think that fans are going to revolt if Cohen is spending 300M and their owner isn't?  That's going to be more upsetting to the fanbase than the lockout?

Who cares?  Orza is saying he thinks the Owners care.   And the Owners are not just some guy on a message board like you and me.

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Who cares?  Orza is saying he thinks the Owners care.   And the Owners are not just some guy on a message board like you and me.

Yea, I think the owners are using Cohen as a bogeyman. 

We are talking about a hypothetical situation that can't exist and won't be impactful even if it does.

I think this is about what it is always about, a significant number of teams don't want to spend one penny more than they have to.

[Ripken]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Yea, I think the owners are using Cohen as a bogeyman. 

We are talking about a hypothetical situation that can't exist and won't be impactful even if it does.

I think this is about what it is always about, a significant number of teams don't want to spend one penny more than they have to.

There's something to it.  I don't know what the right spending numbers are but there were reasons other sports went to caps.  For certain, owners do not want to spend any more than they absolutely have to.  True that.  Further, a $300M payroll does not guarantee a championship but it's sure gonna make one hell of a team with really good odds of winning that piece of metal.  It's also going to make a few other financially deep and capable teams spend a ton to compete for every top player.  That's not fatal to lower market teams or competitive balance but it's not good either.  It sure as hell will be bad for fans; the "one game cost for the average family of four" type conversations.

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, Ripken said:

There's something to it.  I don't know what the right spending numbers are but there were reasons other sports went to caps.  For certain, owners do not want to spend any more than they absolutely have to.  True that.  Further, a $300M payroll does not guarantee a championship but it's sure gonna make one hell of a team with really good odds of winning that piece of metal.  It's also going to make a few other financially deep and capable teams spend a ton to compete for every top player.  That's not fatal to lower market teams or competitive balance but it's not good either.  It sure as hell will be bad for fans; the "one game cost for the average family of four" type conversations.

I think it gives them a really good shot at making the postseason every year.  I don't think it gives them "really good odds" of winning the World Series, not if 14 teams are in the mix.

I also don't think 300M will be enough to be in on "every top player", not when top players cost 30 million a year.

 

I'll agree that it isn't good for fans, but I'd much rather have that then no baseball at all, or a situation in which teams can spend 35M or less and make no attempt to put a winning product on the field.

[wildcard]

If the Mets go to 300m do you think the Yankees are going to concede the NY market or will they go to 300m also?

If the Yankees go to 300m will the Red Sox?   What about the Jays.  They contending for AL East title.  And they have a whole country behind them.   They can probably afford to go higher.

And do you think the Dodgers are going to sit and  watch or do they go to 300m also.

Sounds like opening Pandora's box and leaving the rest of the baseball to be non competitive.