Aaaannnd the Yankees... win

[DrungoHazewood]

Whatever.

This is pure jealousy. No one was complaining when we lead the league in payroll in the late 90's and had a bunch of hired guns.

I know people are gonna come in and say that the moneys different, etc...save it, please. The point remains is that we were at one time the big spenders and the big winners.

Ask anyone on this board if we could switch bank accounts with the Yankees and I don't think anyone would say no. If they did, they'd be crazy.

So the Yankees look like they've bought themselves a title.

BFD. Any one of us would love to do the same.

Am I jealous of the Yanks' success? Sure, a little. Would I root for an O's team with a $150M payroll? Sure, and I'd enjoy it.

But that doesn't mean I'm not outraged at Major League Baseball for setting up and enforcing a situation where one team has access to five or six times the revenues of others, fully allowing that team to exploit that advantage, and then telling the public that it's just good ol' fashioned 'merican competition when the Yanks win 100 games every year and the Royals pull out 82 once every 15 or 20.

[Moose Milligan]

Am I jealous of the Yanks' success? Sure, a little. Would I root for an O's team with a $150M payroll? Sure, and I'd enjoy it.

But that doesn't mean I'm not outraged at Major League Baseball for setting up and enforcing a situation where one team has access to five or six times the revenues of others, fully allowing that team to exploit that advantage, and then telling the public that it's just good ol' fashioned 'merican competition when the Yanks win 100 games every year and the Royals pull out 82 once every 15 or 20.

True, and I agree.

Nothings gonna change, though. MLB loves that the Yankees are contenders every year...makes things a lot more interesting to the common, casual fan. You and I and other baseball diehards would like to see the Royals make it this far but the fans who think Paul O'Neil and Bernie Williams are still playing for the Yankees wouldn't watch.

Sadly, thats who they're after. It's akin to a presidential election, both sides have their bases but the candidates are after that "swing" vote. MLB is after that "swing" fan, that fan who'll only watch if the Yankees or Sox are involved.

At least this year I'll have someone to root against. The past few years I've been pretty indifferent, just wanted to see a good Series.

[DrungoHazewood]

True, and I agree.

Nothings gonna change, though. MLB loves that the Yankees are contenders every year...makes things a lot more interesting to the common, casual fan. You and I and other baseball diehards would like to see the Royals make it this far but the fans who think Paul O'Neil and Bernie Williams are still playing for the Yankees wouldn't watch.

Sadly, thats who they're after. It's akin to a presidential election, both sides have their bases but the candidates are after that "swing" vote. MLB is after that "swing" fan, that fan who'll only watch if the Yankees or Sox are involved.

At least this year I'll have someone to root against. The past few years I've been pretty indifferent, just wanted to see a good Series.

I'm sure Bud and his buddies have made a calculated decision. They think it's easier and just as profitable to have 10s of millions of Yankee and Red Sox fans spread over the country than it is to upend the system and have the maximum number of people in their own communities want to root for their home teams.

Kludges and patchwork fixes are almost always simpler to implement than fundamentally changing the root problems. The flip side is many cities with long, proud baseball traditions now have trouble giving away tickets.

[J.D.]

I'm sure Bud and his buddies have made a calculated decision. They think it's easier and just as profitable to have 10s of millions of Yankee and Red Sox fans spread over the country than it is to upend the system and have the maximum number of people in their own communities want to root for their home teams.

Kludges and patchwork fixes are almost always simpler to implement than fundamentally changing the root problems. The flip side is many cities with long, proud baseball traditions now have trouble giving away tickets.

Easier and cheaper. Upending the system and implementing a salary cap or something of the like to even the playing field is pretty much betting for a year or two without baseball.

Not saying I agree with how they do it now. Not at all. But I understand, right or wrong, why they haven't and won't fix it.

[Moose Milligan]

Easier and cheaper. Upending the system and implementing a salary cap or something of the like to even the playing field is pretty much betting for a year or two without baseball.

Not saying I agree with how they do it now. Not at all. But I understand, right or wrong, why they haven't and won't fix it.

Put it better than I could.

[DrungoHazewood]

Easier and cheaper. Upending the system and implementing a salary cap or something of the like to even the playing field is pretty much betting for a year or two without baseball.

Not saying I agree with how they do it now. Not at all. But I understand, right or wrong, why they haven't and won't fix it.

The real obstacle is that people/groups have bought franchises with values based in large part on their territorial monopolies. Every time you do something to put competitive pressures on the Yanks, their franchise value goes down a little. Implement significant revenue sharing, or put five teams in NYC, and Little Stein and his army of lawyers will erupt like Mt. St Helens. Bud the other owners don't have the stomach or the pocketbooks for that, nor the marketing gurus to spin it well.

Far, far easier to leave the status quo alone. Everybody makes money, everybody except the fans in Pittsburgh, KC, Baltimore, Toronto, etc. are happy.

[geschinger]

The real obstacle is that people/groups have bought franchises with values based in large part on their territorial monopolies. Every time you do something to put competitive pressures on the Yanks, their franchise value goes down a little. Implement significant revenue sharing, or put five teams in NYC, and Little Stein and his army of lawyers will erupt like Mt. St Helens. Bud the other owners don't have the stomach or the pocketbooks for that, nor the marketing gurus to spin it well.

Far, far easier to leave the status quo alone. Everybody makes money, everybody except the fans in Pittsburgh, KC, Baltimore, Toronto, etc. are happy.

Couldn't the issue be forced w/o it becomeing a legal battle? Why couldn't other teams refuse to give permission to televise their team when they play the Yankees without compensation?

[J.D.]

Couldn't the issue be forced w/o it becomeing a legal battle? Why couldn't other teams refuse to give permission to televise their team when they play the Yankees without compensation?

Why would those teams do that and lose their highest rated games of the year?

[geschinger]

Why would those teams do that and lose their highest rated games of the year?

Short term pain for long term gain. A fair shake of the revenue they help Yes! generate is a whole lot more than what they would lose if the Yankees did the same in reverse. If enough teams had the courage to do it the Yankees could decide that real revenue sharing is cheaper than the alternative.

[DrungoHazewood]

Couldn't the issue be forced w/o it becomeing a legal battle? Why couldn't other teams refuse to give permission to televise their team when they play the Yankees without compensation?

How do they decide the revenue splits now? Isn't this a negotiated agreement between all of the teams?

Even if it was as simple as you suggest, I'm not sure it even works. If The Orioles just told the Yanks that they want a 50-50 split of all YES money or they can't broadcast, wouldn't the Yanks say no, and tell MASN to keep it's cameras out of Yankee Stadium? Who do you think would hold out longer? MASN probably makes a much larger share of revenues from Yankee games than YES does from the O's. What are the chances a significant number of small- to mid-market teams join in this risky protest? How many months or years do you think YES could go without showing the O's? I guarantee it's a lot longer than MASN could go without it's highest viewership programming.

You're asking a small-market team to risk a huge amount of money and a huge PR hit and an ugly battle with the other owners that there's no guarantee of success in. Or, they could just accept the status quo and keep turning a nice profit every year.

[byrdz]

MLB is most profitable with a Yankees and Red Sox competitive and in the playoffs. Since making a buck in a rigged game is the reason MLB was formed why not just give the Yankees/Red Sox an automatic bid into the playoffs? I'm seeing dollar signs already and peeing my pants at the thought of the money that could be made. I couldn't bear the thought of the Yankees not being able to stay warm by the fireplace filled with bricks of cash.

[NewMarketSean]

I'm sure Bud and his buddies have made a calculated decision. They think it's easier and just as profitable to have 10s of millions of Yankee and Red Sox fans spread over the country than it is to upend the system and have the maximum number of people in their own communities want to root for their home teams.

Kludges and patchwork fixes are almost always simpler to implement than fundamentally changing the root problems. The flip side is many cities with long, proud baseball traditions now have trouble giving away tickets.

This is what it comes down to. I have wanted to start a thread here called "Does the MLB want American to just pick a side: Red Sox or Yankees?" for a while, but never did.

It seems like the MLB would rather have that happen than fix the problems that face baseball. Just have the Red Sox and Yankees play each other for 162 games and play their games in stadiums across America and contract all the other AL teams.

[RShack]

I'm sure Bud and his buddies have made a calculated decision. They think it's easier and just as profitable to have 10s of millions of Yankee and Red Sox fans spread over the country than it is to upend the system and have the maximum number of people in their own communities want to root for their home teams.

Kludges and patchwork fixes are almost always simpler to implement than fundamentally changing the root problems. The flip side is many cities with long, proud baseball traditions now have trouble giving away tickets.

To borrow what used to be Maryland's slogan, this situation is "America in miniature"...

[geschinger]

How do they decide the revenue splits now? Isn't this a negotiated agreement between all of the teams?

Even if it was as simple as you suggest, I'm not sure it even works. If The Orioles just told the Yanks that they want a 50-50 split of all YES money or they can't broadcast, wouldn't the Yanks say no, and tell MASN to keep it's cameras out of Yankee Stadium? Who do you think would hold out longer? MASN probably makes a much larger share of revenues from Yankee games than YES does from the O's. What are the chances a significant number of small- to mid-market teams join in this risky protest? How many months or years do you think YES could go without showing the O's? I guarantee it's a lot longer than MASN could go without it's highest viewership programming.

You're asking a small-market team to risk a huge amount of money and a huge PR hit and an ugly battle with the other owners that there's no guarantee of success in. Or, they could just accept the status quo and keep turning a nice profit every year.

I'm saying that if it's something that a lot of owners would be in favor of I think it can be done without needing leaguewide approval if the bigger market teams vehemently opposed it. It wouldn't be feasible w/o enough smaller market team buy in.

[Mad Mark]

The Yankee$ infield--Miss Pay-Fraud, Derek Christ, Bargain Cano (I only make $6MM per season!) and the Switch Hitting Satan--is paid more than 14 entire MLB teams!

Yeah, there's nothing unfair about this system!

Somehow, they have $208MM invested in only 23 guys!