December 21, 2003
Brew Ha-Ha
Jan from Wellesley send a link to this NY Times article by baseball business expert Andrew Zimbalist:
"The Brewers made it clear that if we built a modern, state-of-the-art stadium, it would provide them with the resources to field a winning baseball team," Thompson, now the secretary of health and human services, said. "The Brewers need to put an end to the games. They need to invest in a winning team."
Other politicians are more outspoken. Referring to the family that owns the Brewers, State Senator Mike Ellis said, "The Seligs just scammed the living dickens out of the people of this state."
They not only scammed the state, they appear to have scammed the rest of baseball:
Meanwhile, the Brewers' ownership has decided that the team cannot be competitive in the near term. The opening-day payroll was reduced from $52.7 million in 2002 to $40.6 million in 2003 and to a projected $30 million for 2004. (The Brewers have dumped the salaries of seven of their higher-paid players from last season.) Fans want to know what happened to the promise of a competitive team.
Fans might also want to know what the Brewers are doing with their revenue-sharing money from Major League Baseball. During the labor negotiations, Bud Selig, who put his 30 percent interest in the Brewers in a blind trust after becoming commissioner in 1998, reportedly insisted that the new agreement restructure the revenue-sharing plan so that the third quartile of teams receive a proportionately larger benefit than the bottom quartile.
His family's Brewers just happen to be in the third quartile and just happen to have increased their net revenue-sharing receipts by more than any other team. It rose from $1.5 million in 2001 to $9.1 million in 2002 to an estimated $18 million in 2003, according to a financial analysis the Brewers provided to potential investors in July.
The labor agreement is clear that each club must use its receipts "in an effort to improve its performance on the field" and that the commissioner "shall enforce this obligation." Thus, the Brewers appear to be violating their covenants with the people of Wisconsin and with the players' union, as the commissioner seems to be idly standing by.
Selig, as commissioner, has not acted in the best interests of baseball. He's acted in the best interest of his pocketbook. I don't know why the other owners have allowed him to continue in this job. I've assumed it was one of two reasons:
- Selig knows incrimnating things about enough owners that he can't be touched.
- The other owners don't care that much, and since Selig is willing to do the work, they let him be commissioner.
I guess we're stuck with him for a while. When he's replaced
this is the system I'd like to see used. Maybe then we'll get someone who is more interested in an owners-players partnership than stealing from his fans and peers.
Posted by David Pinto at
01:20 PM
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It's amazing the things that Selig has done and has gotten away with. I've always wondered how he's managed to do it. Maybe we'll never know. It's too bad, baseball is such a great game, it sucks to have it sullied by someone such as Selig - both as an owner and the commissioner.
Yet, no one dares name any actual thing Bud has done that has hurt the game, because half the fans will disagree. Hence, the rub. Mr. Selig has made of dozens of wonderful decisions, including adding the wildcard, and playoff expansion, getting a CBA done without a strike for the first time ever, interleague play, added revenue sharing, etc.
The funniest thing is the hypocrisy involved. Even Mr. Pinto has made glaring oversights, criticizing contraction, and then wanting to get rid of 6 teams a while later...then trying to say that wasn't contraction, it was creating a Super Minors concept (it reminded me of a politician calling it a "revenue generating concept" rather than a tax increase.
It should also be noted the guys who are most critical are the worst writers as well. Jim Caple is a blithering idiot, as he tried to write a hunorous column a week ago that called for the now dead Lou Boudreau to return to manage the Indians. ESPN quickly edited the column, but can't do much with most of Caple's stupidity. The mere fact Caple dislikes Bud is as big of a vote of confidence as I've ever seen.
Let's see, Al. You conviently forget the 1994 loss of a World Series, when Selig refused serious negotiations with the players in order to break the union, resulting in the loss of the 1994 post-season. Let's not forget his outsting of Fay Vincent, a commissioner who cared about the game and the fans. Let's not forget a money-grubbing 2nd expansion in the 1990's, when baseball was still out of kilter from the 1993 expansion. Let's not forget the loss of television revenue during his tenure that threw baseball into the state it's in. Let's not forget that Selig has done nothing to create better relations between owners and players.
And what of these wonderful moves he has made? All gimmicks. Baseball is a great game. But because there continues to be strife between owners and players, baseball does not promote its stars. Instead, they depend on interleague games and wild card races. And with all that, attendance has dropped two years in a row.
The only thing Selig has to be proud of is his fattening wallet.
And by the way, how is changing the status of teams the same as making them disappear from the face of the earth?
You wanted to eliminate 6 major league teams and create a "special" minor league for them. If that wouldn't have eliminated them, I'm not sure what would have. Of course, all the fans would have stood and cheered this move...right? Laughable, at best.
Attendance is down, but by extremely small amounts. The economy is finally back, and with the way MLB has dominated the offseason thus far, I'd say it's as strong as ever. Ratings are down as well, but ratings of almost everything is down. We are in an age of 100 choices, and most nights, 10-15 good ones. I didn't watch much of the playoffs or Series either, it doesn't say I dislike the sport.
Hey, strikes happen...that's why the fact there wasn't one is such a huge accomplishment. We'll let the next commish deal with the next labor agreement, lotsa luck with all that.
Al, if you really think the economy is back, you might as well tattoo the word REPUBLICAN on your forehead. Talk to the millions and millions of people who are still unemployed, then talk to the millions and millions of people who are UNDERemployed because they had to take jobs at McDonald's after their manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas.
And if Bud really wanted to contract teams, he would have considered contracting Milwaukee, the team that REALLY needs to be contracted.
If you believe the economy is not back, despite dozens of economic indicators telling you otherwise, you need to bury your head deeper in the sand, and be sure not to miss your Man Never Walked On The Moon meeting next week.
And, I'm glad you're not on Bud's side.