MLB Lockout Thread

[Redskins Rick]

2 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

It seems like it's usually the owners who cave in first.

in the past, you had thinner pocketed owners among the fatcats like Steinner.

These days, Im pretty sure they are heavy hitters, with Angelos, probably one of the lower end ones.

They sure didnt bat an eyelash, and took the high ground, refusing to even negotiate a new cba.

 

[Philip]

19 hours ago, scOtt said:

Both Pit Bulls tho. Which is exactly why they gut their jobs.

Being tenacious and incompetent is a lot worse than just being incompetent.

[Philip]

6 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I don’t have an issue with Max Scherzer saying what he did.  He is speaking for the whole union.  Just because he has made a ton doesn’t mean he is wrong in what he said and let’s face it, if Jordan Lyles came out and talked about it, would anyone outside of his family listen?  

Would anyone care if Neustrom came out talking about minor league conditions?  

Having a big name(s) come out is what they should do.

What they say is important. The meaningful goal should be to raise the floor.

these negotiations are always about two groups of powerful people discussing how to divide money up amongst themselves instead of how to take care of those who have no power.

Players don’t get paid for Spring Training? Have to make their own housing arrangements? Get paid next to nothing as minor leaguers?

Yes I realize that, like the Communist party, you have to be very special to join the MLBPA but that’s part of the problem. Everyone in the system needs to be heard. If you’re drafted, you’re in. If you’re at Spring Training You get paid.

There are some passages in the Bible that deal with exactly this situation that if anybody would listen to could go along way towards helping solve the problem.

Scherzer and his like are only expressing dismay on behalf of other guys who have already made tons of money. Even the bad guys like Brian Matusz retired with plenty of dough. They don’t need any more, quite literally. But the guys who do need it are guys like Caleb Joseph who had to deliver pizza.

So raise the floor. Be more inclusive. Treat the guys like the elite talents that they are, and make no mistake, the worst player on the worst minor-league team in baseball is still an elite athlete, and should be paid a respectable amount of money.

The owners should definitely spend more, but the players in the players Association want the money for themselves, and they don’t need it. Instead they should expand membership so that the guys who do need it can get it.

[interloper]

Sure would be cool to have some indication that they plan on, uh, negotiating at some point this winter. 

[Chuck A]

22 minutes ago, interloper said:

Sure would be cool to have some indication that they plan on, uh, negotiating at some point this winter. 

Interferes with their tee times.

[Moose Milligan]

4 hours ago, RZNJ said:

MLB is in a death rattle?   Could have fooled me.  I guess that's why no one wants to spend a billion to get into this decline. 

It is lagging behind the NFL and the NBA in terms of popularity, I am not sure how you miss that.  Turn on ESPN any given morning, all they talk about is the NFL and the NBA.  MLB is an afterthought.  Now you might not like ESPN but they cover and talk about what the masses want to see.  Less kids are playing the game, less kids are interested in the demographics are for older males of a certain age.  

Sure, sports franchises are expensive but they only increase in value over time.  That's not a metric that speaks to the popularity of the sport.

[RZNJ]

20 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

It is lagging behind the NFL and the NBA in terms of popularity, I am not sure how you miss that.  Turn on ESPN any given morning, all they talk about is the NFL and the NBA.  MLB is an afterthought.  Now you might not like ESPN but they cover and talk about what the masses want to see.  Less kids are playing the game, less kids are interested in the demographics are for older males of a certain age.  

Sure, sports franchises are expensive but they only increase in value over time.  That's not a metric that speaks to the popularity of the sport.

Bottom line is money.   MLB is 2nd only to the NFL, in the world, when it comes to making money. Not even close are the NBA and NHL.

People have been talking about baseball not appealing to younger demographics for the last 40 years.  Let me know when it's reflected in the bottom line.  

[Moose Milligan]

4 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Bottom line is money.   MLB is 2nd only to the NFL, in the world, when it comes to making money. Not even close are the NBA and NHL.

People have been talking about baseball not appealing to younger demographics for the last 40 years.  Let me know when it's reflected in the bottom line.  

Fair enough.

[RZNJ]

10 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Fair enough.

According to Forbes MLB revenues increased EVERY year, establishing a new high of over 10 billion in 2019.  Obviously the last two years haven't been normal.  The NFL has probably been #1 since the 60's.  Just guessing.  People hate Manfred and talk about the demise of baseball.  I just haven't seen the evidence. 

[Redskins Rick]

14 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

According to Forbes MLB revenues increased EVERY year, establishing a new high of over 10 billion in 2019.  Obviously the last two years haven't been normal.  The NFL has probably been #1 since the 60's.  Just guessing.  People hate Manfred and talk about the demise of baseball.  I just haven't seen the evidence. 

Not that I follow NASCAR, but based on revenue alone, NASCAR was outranking MLB before covid days.

People hate all baseball commishs, more than the other sports. Doom and gloomers have been talking the demise of baseball since the free agent period started.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, RZNJ said:

According to Forbes MLB revenues increased EVERY year, establishing a new high of over 10 billion in 2019.  Obviously the last two years haven't been normal.  The NFL has probably been #1 since the 60's.  Just guessing.  People hate Manfred and talk about the demise of baseball.  I just haven't seen the evidence. 

I find the business side of baseball, the dollars and cents and revenue numbers to be inherently boring.  So correct me if I'm wrong (probably am) but I'm assuming those revenue numbers are including TV deals which are astronomical.

Attendance numbers and TV viewership numbers are down:  https://frontofficesports.com/mlb-attendance-hits-37-year-low/#:~:text=Major League Baseball welcomed fans,the lowest figure since 1984.

Even before Covid, it was declining from 2015-2019.  https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2019/10/04/from-terrible-teams-to-rising-costs-and-more-why-mlb-attendance-has-been-down-over-7-since-2015/?sh=24c6bbda31a8

This article says it's been declining from 2007:  https://dailytrojan.com/2021/01/27/running-the-break-how-does-mlb-address-its-declining-popularity-the-answer-is-in-the-baseball-itself/

Quote

Total attendance numbers for MLB peaked in 2007 at over 79 million across a whole season. This number has since steadily declined. TV ratings are even worse: average viewership for the World Series has declined precipitously since the 1970s, from 44.2 million in 1978 to a record low 9.8 million viewers in 2020. 

As I mentioned earlier, people under 18 aren't watching:

Quote

Also concerning is that baseball’s average audience is significantly older than that of other major American sports, and it continues to age. According to Sports Business Journal, the average viewer of nationally televised MLB games was 57 in 2016, up from 52 in 2000. Another jarring figure is that just 7% of MLB’s viewers are under the age of 18. 

The most obvious explanation for this decrease in popularity aligns with younger generations’ seemingly shrinking attention span and demand for a faster pace than the game of baseball currently offers. In contrast, basketball has incredible athletes and non-stop action. Each and every play in football can change the outcome of an entire game. 

If you want to use revenue as the only metric to look at to shape your argument, I can't argue with that.  Sure, it's #2 behind the NFL.  But if we're going to agree to that, you should also agree with me that the MLB doesn't have a global reach the way the NBA does.  There's a reason why someone like Michael Jordan or LeBron James is known worldwide and someone like Mike Trout is barely known in his own country.  That cannot be denied and if we're trying to have an honest conversation about the declining popularity of a sport, this needs to be a part of it.

It's a slow bleed and it won't happen overnight.  It hasn't happened over night.  But you can't look at declining attendance numbers and declining demographics numbers and think that the game is okay.  I don't think you'll see the declining numbers from baseball all of a sudden represented in another sport directly, but you'll see other sports gain in popularity across the board...like soccer, lacrosse, basketball, etc.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LookinUp]

The three big issues I've heard are:

1. Tanking
2. RSN viability with cable cutting, and
3. Pace of play.

Outside of disincentives re: tanking, I'm not sure what's being done. The third issue simply isn't one with a big fix at the ready. Best thing to do there is what they're doing, use the minors to figure out good solutions.

[spiritof66]

3 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

The three big issues I've heard are:

1. Tanking
2. RSN viability with cable cutting, and
3. Pace of play.

Outside of disincentives re: tanking, I'm not sure what's being done. The third issue simply isn't one with a big fix at the ready. Best thing to do there is what they're doing, use the minors to figure out good solutions.

I would add (4) style of play, or whatever you want to call it: too many K's, walks and foul balls, too few balls in play, and (5) beyond tanking, lack of competitive balance in three of the divisions. Somewhere down the list is the increase of (or increasing awareness of) errors in home-plate umpiring. 

[RZNJ]

1. If no one in Italy knows who Mile Trout is, what's that got to do with baseball dying as a business in this country.

2. If much of the baseball revenue is based on TV contracts, the question should be, why do all of these networks invest so much in a dying game with unattractive demographics?

And lastly, if things are getting worse why do team values continue to skyrocket?

[spiritof66]

 

5 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

.  .  .

Now, I refuse to believe that negotiations aren’t happening.  People are definitely talking.  But they aren’t locked in a room and that needs to be happening.

I have looked a few times (not in the past week or so) for reports, leaks, rumors, etc. of negotiations of some kind. Haven't seen a thing.

Is there some information to the contrary? Or are you just unable to believe that these people are so stupid and self-destructive and caught up in their own egos or manhood that they're doing absolutely nothing collaborative or constructive? Sadly and slowly, I have come to believe that. It's hard for me to imagine that anything is going on if, as appears to be the case, it hasn't been leaked or confided to some reporter, directly or directly.