Sports-Communist
I am realizing more and more that I am a left-wing sports ideologue. I think that capitalism in American sports has run awry and is exploiting the labor of the fans (the players make out pretty well). Major league teams enjoy monopolies and use that to screw over everyone they can.
The best example of this has been the situation involving the Montreal Expos / Washington Nationals. From the beginning, this situation did nothing but help current owners at the expense of everyone else. First, Major League Baseball buys the Expos franchise, and has them play half their home games in Montreal, and half in Puerto Rico. During this time, they used their leverage to force any city that wants to be home to the franchise will have to pay most of the costs of the Stadium. I had argued that it was good for DC to offer to pay for it, but in looking back, I was definitely wrong. A city with as much financial trouble should not be building a stadium when most teams are willing to pay for most of it. In New York, The Yankees will be paying for 80% of the cost of their new stadium.
Major League Baseball did this for one reason - to increase the price of the team when they went to resell it. A team they purchased for over $100 million they will sell for well over $400 million. Without a stadium deal, the team would probably sell for much less. So in the eyes of MLB, they make a bigger profit, and the city of DC pays the bill (through taxes raised from business around the new stadium).
The next step was to pay off Peter Angelos, who was worried that me might actually have to make his team competitive with a rival close by. Since that violated the monopoly most of these teams have (unless your team is in New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles), MLB gave Angelos a huge deal allowing him to take 90% now (66% in the future) of the TV revenue from the Nationals and Orioles. Again, Nationals owners and fans lose out - without all the TV revenue they would normally get, the Nats will be at a significant disadvantage in the powerhouse National League East.
The reason all of this happened is that a few robber-barons were able to use their influence to make as much money as possible after throwing fairness and equity aside. The Wop's explanation of European soccer leagues is more appealing every day.
*If you want the other side of the argument, there are two highly flattering pieces on Angelos in the Washington Examiner - one an interview in which he says the Nationals are getting "fair market value" for the TV revenues, and the other a very supportive column by Rick Snider.
posted by Brendan @ 2:02 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I guess I didn't know that teams can't just sell a player's contract - although by trading the player, they are already saving the money they would normally have to pay that person. Not to mention, if a team is trying to make itself better, they should want to get prospects, not cash.
As for salary caps and revenue sharing - I don't see that as a bad thing at all. If you think about it, the markets the teams operate in are not equal. So when the Yankees or Red Sox have all that money to spend, it is because they exist in New York City and Boston. So allowing them to spend as much as they want keeps them at an advantage just based on their location.
Although anecdotal evidence (comparing the NFL and MLB over the past ten years) doesn't give the impression that these things lead to more competitiveness, it is hard to argue that they don't make it more fair.
My argument wasn't meant to imply that money is the be all and end all. You make good points about how high spending doesn't guarentee success. But the reality is also that lacking money causes problems.
The Athletics, although always fielding a good team, can't keep their talent once they become free agents. The Expos were the same way - although they were really only competitive in 1994. In both cases, these teams develop great young talent only to watch them sign somewhere else.
The NFL is a good example of a league with salary caps and revenue sharing, and it has problems with the same few teams winning and making the playoffs. So going that way will not guarantee competitiveness.
But it certainly feels fair when a team like the Patriots wins because of good coaching and talent, instead of when the Yankees and Red Sox are in the playoffs again because of pretty good talent development and lots of money.
In the end, I think it would send a good message if teams like the Yankees and Red Sox were punnished for their spending, instead of encouraged to steal the league's talent.
I want to point out again though, the reason the Yankees, Mets, Braves, and Red Sox have so much money is not because of the teams they have, but because of the market they are in.
Capitalism is popular in America because we associate it with the Horatio Alger stories, pull yourself up from your bootstraps; improve yourself from your own hard work.
If the Yankees had all that money to spend because of their baseball methods, I wouldn't have a problem because then other teams could get that much money if they learned how to use the same tactics the Yankees use.
But their high revenues come from the fact that they are in the biggest metropolitan area in the country. Therefore, other teams will never match their revenue.
Post a Comment
<< Home