Interesting

[Sanfran327]

Socialism is a government-mandated economic system. Unless you're going to argue that MLB is a national government I don't think your argument holds much water.

It depends on the level at which you would like to argue. High level, I'd have to say you're right. MLB is, in fact, not a national government.

However, socialism has certain criteria and thories designed to reach specific conclusion. Applying that criteria (i.e., forcing the richer clubs to give money to smaller clubs by law) is a bit socialist.

[Sanfran327]

Ok, but you've got that now though. 80 win teams are making the playoffs.

I don't think there is a perfect solution to this. What I am trying to come up with is a solution that doesn't require MLB to completely re-write how they conduct business. I'm not saying my ideas are the best, just maybe level the playing field with greater ease.

I'd love revenue sharing and caps and floors, but MLB wants doesn't seem to want a financial change to it's format. At least from what Verducci writes.

Sure you do. And I don't like that, either. And as it stands now, you're already getting one or two a year. Adding more teams guarantees more 80-something teams, because each additional team will be.

We don't need to water down the playoffs. They're the perfect length and level of excitement as it stands. And I don't necessarily need to see 8 different teams each October, either.

[smpetro05]

I have been obsessed with this realignment and balanced schedule lately.

I have come across numerous articles about it but it seems like most of the real interesting ideas come from message boards. haha

I kinda like the floating realignment idea but what about seeded realignment while playing a regional schedule? Meaning you would play teams more in your region more rather than just in you division. And it would probably change by the year.

We would still play teams like the Yankees and Red Sox but not necessarily both as much and might not necessarily in the same division as both. More games with the indians and royals!!! And the Yankees and Red Sox can still play each other as much as they want..

[byrdz]

These are the kind of ideas you get when you try to please everyone, overly complex.

[RShack]

I like some of your ideas, but this is a tad... umm... socialist for me. If each game has teams splitting the revenue, what is your motivation for getting better front office personnel, building a better stadium, advertising, or anything else that improves the fan experience?

Because isn't that what we really want to improve? An improved fan experience is what we're really after - bottom line. How MLB handles that is the real question. I don't know that realigning the divisions is the answer.

I wish we'd stop using Socialist to mean stuff it doesn't mean. Socialism is where the government takes control of for-profit business so that the benefits go to the society rather than to Capitalist owners. For example, it would be Socialism if all the hospitals were owned by the government, and all the doctors and nurses were government employees, and all the drug companies and medical supply companies were owned by the government and everybody who worked for them was a government employee. That's Socialism. Somehow, people have been conned into thinking it just means just about anything that's egalitarian and not 100% selfish in nature. That's a con job to make it sound like either you're a selfish SOB who looks out for #1 and nobody else, or else you're a Socialist. The MFY's look out for #1 and nobody else, but that doesn't mean that the alternative is Socialism. People have been conned into thinking it means anything that involves sharing, from taxpayers getting services in return for tax dollars, to a franchise-monopoly deciding to have it's franchises modify their wealth-sharing scheme. Those things have nothing to do with Socialism.

As for the matter at hand, what's wrong with the 2 teams who play the game splitting the total revenue for that game? If the MFY's don't have other teams to play, they're not worth anything. They get all their value from playing other teams. Sharing the revenue for each game does not mean that other teams wind up with as much money as the MFY's overall. The MFY's would still wind up 3 or 4 times richer than most other teams, rather than 20 times richer like it is now.

MLB is not a collection of independent businesses. They are a cartel, more like OPEC than McDonalds. Nothing wrong with them deciding to divvy up the money in a way that's best for the cartel as a whole rather than have just a couple rich teams and a bunch of poor teams. The main reason the rich teams are rich is because of the geographic area that the MLB monopoly gives to them in a way that protects them from competition. The only reason that happens is because they are exempt from anti-trust laws that apply to everybody else.

As for encouraging teams to win, if it was up to me, the revenue for each game would not be split 50/50, it would be split so that whoever wins the game gets a tad more. Whether that's 51/49 or 60/40, I have no idea. But whatever the appropriate split would be, it would motivate cheapskate owners to win rather than just collect money. It would also give teams a special incentive to beat the MFY's, because the tad-more percentage they get from beating the MFY's would be a lot more dollars than the tad more they'd get from beating the KC Royals, and there's nothing wrong with encouraging everybody to beat the MFY's ;-)

[byrdz]

It depends on the level at which you would like to argue. High level, I'd have to say you're right. MLB is, in fact, not a national government.

However, socialism has certain criteria and thories designed to reach specific conclusion. Applying that criteria (i.e., forcing the richer clubs to give money to smaller clubs by law) is a bit socialist.

If MLB decided to get rid of revenue sharing for the reasons you cite, then they need to allow any team to move anywhere they want, including New York and Boston. A team should be able to move right next door if they want.

[srock]

If MLB decided to get rid of revenue sharing for the reasons you cite, then they need to allow any team to move anywhere they want, including New York and Boston. A team should be able to move right next door if they want.

We are getting close the simple answer!

Move more teams into the bigger markets.

The first move is to move a small market team into NY. I say the Pirates move to Brooklyn, but NJ or CT works as well.

MLB could just make this happen, which would be the simplest way to go about it. But, they would have to design a system the evaluates things every 10 years or so. This committee decides to move a team or expand/contract teams based on revenue potential.

Obviously, this screws places like Pittsburgh and Kansas City but economics doesn't lie. If they can't compete and they won't leave the kitchen, someone has to come in and throw them out.

The more complicated solution is for MLB to migrate to a world soccer model. Two or three tiers of competition with relegation/promotion between the leagues. In the long run, this has the same effect as moving teams around based on revenue. The most successful teams should make the most money and keep from being relegated. When a new market becomes baseball crazy its support should raise revenues and eventually result in promotion to the highest division.

I'm not suggesting the soccer model is what should happen. I think it would work, but getting from the current system to the new system is fraught with peril and probably isn't worth the risk.

What I am suggesting, is both solutions boil down to the same thing: Splitting revenue potential evenly by putting the correct number of teams into each market.

And, this has already begun. See the Washington Nationals as evidence.

[DrungoHazewood]

We are getting close the simple answer!

Move more teams into the bigger markets.

...

Obviously, this screws places like Pittsburgh and Kansas City but economics doesn't lie. If they can't compete and they won't leave the kitchen, someone has to come in and throw them out.

I think you've missed the point. In my opinion, the reason you want 6, 8, 10 teams in NYC and similar concentrations in other big cities is to make each team have a market size and a financial "pot" about the same as Indianapolis or Sacramento or Milwaukee. Then everyone is competing on roughly equal terms, and there are dozens of additional cities that could support high-level baseball.

The more complicated solution is for MLB to migrate to a world soccer model. Two or three tiers of competition with relegation/promotion between the leagues.

And as I've often stated, this is impossible in a closed-league world where MLB owns all of the players down to 16-year-old Dominicans. Of course with the exception of a handful of A Ball-quality indy leagues.

The only way I see promotion/relegation working in North America would be for the federal government to step in and break up baseball, AT&T style. And that's just not going to happen.

[charliec107]

Does MLB really need divisions in the first place? Why not just a balanced schedule for each league, and the four best teams go to the playoffs. The owners currently in the Central and West would love more visits from the Yankees and Red Sox each year. The fans of the O's, Jays, and Rays would love less visits from the Yankees and Red Sox each year.

[Miller192]

Sure you do. And I don't like that, either. And as it stands now, you're already getting one or two a year. Adding more teams guarantees more 80-something teams, because each additional team will be.

We don't need to water down the playoffs. They're the perfect length and level of excitement as it stands. And I don't necessarily need to see 8 different teams each October, either.

Alright, let's be honest here. Who cares if you don't want more 80 wins teams in the playoffs? I know you did add "personaly" to it but it's not about what we want as individuals. I don't want day-night double headers but who cares what I want? It's a way to accomodate the proposed changes.

Anything that MLB does, whether it be realignment or revenue sharing is going to cause some level of dilution.

We're trying to address how to balance the gap between teams that reside in cities that given them a competitive advantage over other teams. In doing this, we don't want to lessen the value of those rich and important franchises.

An expanded playoff format is going to bring in more revenue to more cites. It's also likely to increase MLB broadcast rights.

It's not THE solution but just an idea to go along with a couple of others.

[srock]

I think you've missed the point. In my opinion, the reason you want 6, 8, 10 teams in NYC and similar concentrations in other big cities is to make each team have a market size and a financial "pot" about the same as Indianapolis or Sacramento or Milwaukee. Then everyone is competing on roughly equal terms, and there are dozens of additional cities that could support high-level baseball.

And as I've often stated, this is impossible in a closed-league world where MLB owns all of the players down to 16-year-old Dominicans. Of course with the exception of a handful of A Ball-quality indy leagues.

The only way I see promotion/relegation working in North America would be for the federal government to step in and break up baseball, AT&T style. And that's just not going to happen.

This is exactly my point. Sorry if it was confused by my tangent about KC and Pitt losing teams.

I pretty sure I built my theory around your posts, from many other threads, where you argue why the soccer model works in England. It allows the biggest markets to support the most teams. This is why London has like 7 premiership teams while a historic club like Sheffield Wednesday are playing in the Champions League (div 2). Sheffield just can't compete financially with the neighboring teams in Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds. It's like Salisbury, MD trying to compete with Philly, Baltimore, and DC. It just wont' work.

However, the system allows Sheffield to compete in the 2nd division. Occasionally, they might put a strong side together and make a move to the Premiership, but without an owner willing to lose money in order to win, Sheffield will ultimately wind up back in division 2.

Anyway, back to baseball. I agree it would take a huge event, such as the government breaking up MLB, to enable such a switch. Which is why I think the more plausible solution is for MLB to move teams around according to market forces. It won't be perfect, but it should be a big improvement so long as MLB isn't complete morons about it.

[geschinger]

But there is something socialist about the way an industry tries to split revenue among it's corporations. An MLB franchise is a bit different than your local McDonalds.

I wouldn't be for a strict 50/50 split but I do think there needs to be a lot more revenue sharing. Why shouldn't the Yankees for example have to share a decent percentage of the revenue they receive with the Royals when they broadcast a Yankees / Royals game? Right now they get to rake in the money w/o compensating the Royals for providing part of the product without which there would be no revenues.

[BaltimoreTerp]

But there is something socialist about the way an industry tries to split revenue among it's corporations. An MLB franchise is a bit different than your local McDonalds.

Major League Baseball is, essentially, a government-sanctioned monopoly. So they can do basically anything they want within their organization when it comes to splitting revenue.

I'm not going to join the argument over the semantics of the term "socialism", since both sides have points. However, within certain circumstances it, and everything it implies about economics, is not a bad thing.

You are right that a major-league franchise is different than a McDonalds' franchise, but at their most basic levels they are the same. The key difference, though, is a set of contradictory issues: All of the franchises are competing against one another for increased income; however, the franchises all need each other to be somewhat successful in order for there to even be a business.

That's where a more "socialistic" (just to continue using the terms in the thread) view comes in. Since the interest of the fans should be about the competition between the franchises and not the economics, having equal or more-equal finances between the franchises transfers as much of the outcome of games, seasons and careers as possible onto the field. Instead of money being a very important, if not the most important factor in team success, it becomes all about the talent playing on the field and all the decisions over talent off the field.

If there was a chance to the complete other direction towards multiple leagues competing, and cities hosting as many teams as could find a grounds and draw enough fans to have success, that would be ideal. But with the current system in no way about to change you have to move towards making the game about the talent and not the economics as much as possible.

[RShack]

We are getting close the simple answer!

Move more teams into the bigger markets.

The first move is to move a small market team into NY. I say the Pirates move to Brooklyn, but NJ or CT works as well.

MLB could just make this happen, which would be the simplest way to go about it. But, they would have to design a system the evaluates things every 10 years or so. This committee decides to move a team or expand/contract teams based on revenue potential.

Obviously, this screws places like Pittsburgh and Kansas City but economics doesn't lie. If they can't compete and they won't leave the kitchen, someone has to come in and throw them out.

Whoa! You're happy to see the people in Pittsburgh and KC get screwed, just because you think the most important thing is dollars? Well, I don't buy that at all. There is zero reason why the MLB cartel can't have a revenue sharing arrangement that would permit the good people of Pittsburgh and KC and wherever keep their team if they support it. Look, just because the MFY's have ramped up the dollars into mega-dollars, that doesn't mean people in other places should get screwed because of what the MFY's have done...

[srock]

Whoa! You're happy to see the people in Pittsburgh and KC get screwed, just because you think the most important thing is dollars? Well, I don't buy that at all. There is zero reason why the MLB cartel can't have a revenue sharing arrangement that would permit the good people of Pittsburgh and KC and wherever keep their team if they support it. Look, just because the MFY's have ramped up the dollars into mega-dollars, that doesn't mean people in other places should get screwed because of what the MFY's have done...

Pitt and KC are just examples relevant to our current situation. Economics, revenue potential, and ownership change so it could be any team depending on current conditions.

And maybe moving isn't the best thing. Maybe expansion would be better (although I'm not excited about watering down the talent pool). I don't know.

But I do think a better system is needed that doesn't reward small market teams for continuing to lose. Distributing revenue is fine, but there has to be another incentive to put that money into winning baseball games. Losing your franchise is extreme, but it's the cartel equivalent of relegation.

Maybe its not just moving teams around that is needed. Instead MLB can take over a franchise, kind of like how they bought the Expos, until a new owner can be found, regardless of location.