Yet today on other forums all folks do is whine like little you know whats about The NY teams getting talent. Meanwhile LA gets a pass and to be clear other than Soto the Dodgers get everything they want. If Soto did deferrals he'd be there too!
I'm totally against salary caps but in court of general perception what the Dodgers are doing means no one will listen the my arguments as to why.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
bgr - true - I agree, but you can't run your organization like the rays and marlins either. While maybe the pirates can't spend 750 millions a year on players, they probably can do 400 - 500 million. Plus there are many places to go, that don't have teams. They can move there. Nashville, Memphis -- no state taxes. North Carolina, South carolina, Virginia Beach. There is 5 re-locations right here where the teams would make a killing.
You can't live in a bubble, sometimes owners need to make real decisions, not if they are going to spend another million or 2. Most of the owners aren't even trying to win, they exist just to pocket 20 or 30 million a year. it's sad.
Kansas City Chiefs aren't having any issues making money, so why are the Royals having a lot of trouble? Owners greed?
im saying if pittsburg or tampa or kc isn't the place to make the most money -- move. there are many other cities that want and can support baseball teams. don't blame the market, blame the owners. i bet the owners are making plenty of money.
the owners are billionaires, they can spend whatever they want to.
I don’t begrudge the Dodgers doing what they’re doing. It’s smart. Is it best for MLB in the long run? Historically, improving parity in the league has been huge for the league so I expect changes. I don’t think we will see a salary cap but I do expect more teeth in the luxury tax.
But it’s not so much that some teams are choosing not to spend like the Dodgers, including those who could. Not all can even if they could.
@olb31 said:
bgr - true - I agree, but you can't run your organization like the rays and marlins either. While maybe the pirates can't spend 750 millions a year on players, they probably can do 400 - 500 million. Plus there are many places to go, that don't have teams. They can move there. Nashville, Memphis -- no state taxes. North Carolina, South carolina, Virginia Beach. There is 5 re-locations right here where the teams would make a killing.
You can't live in a bubble, sometimes owners need to make real decisions, not if they are going to spend another million or 2. Most of the owners aren't even trying to win, they exist just to pocket 20 or 30 million a year. it's sad.
Kansas City Chiefs aren't having any issues making money, so why are the Royals having a lot of trouble? Owners greed?
Amazing how so many called free market capitalists to the death desire pure socialism in pro sports. Mind Boggling to me
@olb31 said:
GM PLAYING TO WIN. ALL TEAMS SHOULD. THEY all make millions every year. spend the money.
now would probably be a good time for you to recognize that the Dodgers make $100 million per year more than any other team from RSN revenue alone ($334 million per year, $8.35 billion over 25 years through 2038). That would include big market teams that actually own their own RSNs like the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs etc...and compare that to say Detroit who gets less than $40 mill per season). So congrats that your favorite MLB club had the random good fortune their TV deal was up at the right time, a few years before the RSN bubble burst and mass cord-cutting. It does, however, defeat your narrative since the Dodgers aren't actually spending anywhere near their revenue since they'd nearly have enough to cover their player payroll with their RSN contract alone - not even accounting for the national tv revenue, MLBam ($50 mill a year), ticket sales, merchandising, concessions etc. The % they spend of their revenue on player payroll is right in line with several other clubs.
@olb31 said:
bgr - true - I agree, but you can't run your organization like the rays and marlins either. While maybe the pirates can't spend 750 millions a year on players, they probably can do 400 - 500 million. Plus there are many places to go, that don't have teams. They can move there. Nashville, Memphis -- no state taxes. North Carolina, South carolina, Virginia Beach. There is 5 re-locations right here where the teams would make a killing.
You can't live in a bubble, sometimes owners need to make real decisions, not if they are going to spend another million or 2. Most of the owners aren't even trying to win, they exist just to pocket 20 or 30 million a year. it's sad.
Kansas City Chiefs aren't having any issues making money, so why are the Royals having a lot of trouble? Owners greed?
Amazing how so many called free market capitalists to the death desire pure socialism in pro sports. Mind Boggling to me
Well, there’s no actual example of free market capitalism. No one would know what that is outside of theory. But I think the idea of Free Market Capitalism is an entanglement of free market economies and capitalist economies. There’s no example of a capitalist economy which lacks regulation and regulation is what allows markets to operate effectively for the benefit of consumers. Too much and too little regulation are both bad. You can argue which is worse but they’re both so distant from socialism that you can equate them. Let’s not talk about economics on this forum. I don’t want to know what crazy ideas people have.
Groo - do you really believe every team is really trying to be the best they can? Pittsburgh never even tries. Invision me and you owning a team, both of us billionaires. The best way to boost up the market value is to win, not to keep 20 million a year in our pockets. i would assume we would try to be the best team every year, even if we weren't.
Jerry Jones is a perfect example. He paid $140 millions for the team. Instead of just sitting on the profits each year. he spent and spent, made shrewd trades, etc. Now they are worth $10 Billion.
Kraft the same thing. paid $227 million in 1994 for the patriots and now it;s worth $8 billion. The teams that win are worth most. Not trying always keeps you at the bottom.
The capitalist comment from above -- this is capitalism. Win and your product goes way up. lose and you make a little but each year (a little bit for billionaires).
Neither Dallas or NE are in NY or California - and their owners are doing quite well.
@olb31 said:
Groo - do you really believe every team is really trying to be the best they can? Pittsburgh never even tries. Invision me and you owning a team, both of us billionaires. The best way to boost up the market value is to win, not to keep 20 million a year in our pockets. i would assume we would try to be the best team every year, even if we weren't.
Jerry Jones is a perfect example. He paid $140 millions for the team. Instead of just sitting on the profits each year. he spent and spent, made shrewd trades, etc. Now they are worth $10 Billion.
Kraft the same thing. paid $227 million in 1994 for the patriots and now it;s worth $8 billion. The teams that win are worth most. Not trying always keeps you at the bottom.
The capitalist comment from above -- this is capitalism. Win and your product goes way up. lose and you make a little but each year (a little bit for billionaires).
Neither Dallas or NE are in NY or California - and their owners are doing quite well.
My interpretation is that shared revenue is socialism. Which it kind of is... Then you have the fans who whine about no salary cap. I feel a Cap too is socialism.
Until recently Mets fans used to complain like little b's about no Salary cap. now that they have an owner who spends not a peep from them. This means size of the market is significantly less important than the ownership!
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Under socialism the government would own the teams.
I don't understand why the word socialism is even entering this conversation. I believe it's to add negative energy to the argument for a level playing field in competitive sports. You guys are acting like it's the owners who are competing. It's supposed to be the players competing. We're talking about baseball, not capitalisms.
I don't know if any of you live in Los Angeles. But, the fire department is totally socialism.
The kid picked the right organization. He laughed at the Cubs even though the Cubs should be on > @bgr said:
Not all clubs are in the same financial position and the salary deferrals mock the integrity of the league.
The Cubs owner made a statement that they are lucky to break even each year. A complete joke. He cried they don't have the money of the Dodgers, Mets, or Yankees. The Cubs basically own all of Wrigleyville and their franchise has quadrupled in value since they bought them. A complete crock and cop out. Cubs are swimming in money and they should be on par with LA.
Dodgers are the benchmark. If other teams don't like it, then they can mimic it...but they don't want to.
@1948_Swell_Robinson said:
The kid picked the right organization. He laughed at the Cubs even though the Cubs should be on > @bgr said:
Not all clubs are in the same financial position and the salary deferrals mock the integrity of the league.
The Cubs owner made a statement that they are lucky to break even each year. A complete joke. He cried they don't have the money of the Dodgers, Mets, or Yankees. The Cubs basically own all of Wrigleyville and their franchise has quadrupled in value since they bought them. A complete crock and cop out. Cubs are swimming in money and they should be on par with LA.
Dodgers are the benchmark. If other teams don't like it, then they can mimic it...but they don't want to.
I want to be clear that I don't have much of a problem with what the Dodgers are doing. They are operating within the rules of MLB.
What the Dodgers have is an organizational structure with the Guggenheim management group that allows them to do what they are doing. Not all organizations have this flexibility - the flexibility to do something with these deferrals which would generally be viewed negatively with regard to financial management.
Further, the Dodgers have an advantageous television deal setup. While there are some other clubs which eat both ends of the same banana too, it should be mentioned that not only do the Dodgers benefit from their Television deal with regional sports networks, they also have an ownership position in those networks. The revenue the team receives from the deal is accounted within the framework of revenue sharing, but the revenue the team receives on the other side of that from their ownership in the network is not. This loophole will likely get filled as more and more organizations are following this model - for good reasons. However, without including this revenue in sharing, you have a disparity from one market to another regarding the value of an eyeball.
It should also be mentioned that the signing of Sasaki isn't going to be a huge contract now as he enters MLB as an international free agent. So he will make somewhere around league minimum and receive a signing bonus from their international pool funds probably in the $5MM-$7MM range - I don't actually know what the Dodgers have available.
I, personally, am not bothered by the reality of the situation. Regardless whether some teams have an advantage based on the position, desire, or operational efficacy of their organization, MLB is still an environment where a team with a $100MM roster can compete with the Dodgers - the probability is certainly not in their favor, but when it happens, it's that much sweeter.
I think, however, that changes are destined, and that these changes will attempt to promote more parity by way of subsidy. I would hope that this subsidy comes with strings, such that the shared revenue must be a percentage of payroll etc. Call it the Athletics Rule. I'm not whining or pining for this... I simply think it's inevitable. The league wants expansion and I think you're going to see a MLB team in Mexico City before the end of the 2020s.
I've heard Charlotte, San Jose, Salt Lake City. Too hard to predict that - I am just most confident in Mexico City as being one of the 2 expansion cities. I think Nashville also gets mentions. If you went by market I think Orlando is one of the highest rated TV markets without a MLB team. Not sure that means much there though.
Adding teams won't add eyes though. Maybe right at the beginning. All those places, except maybe Mexico City have teams they follow. Even if the team isn't right next door. In KY, when I was a kid, people around there followed Ohio teams. Probably St. Louis too. They would just be moving eyes from one team to another. Taking dollars from one team and giving them to another.
That would also dilute the supply of good players who aren't with the largest market teams.
I would think it’s far from zero-sum regardless of the expansion market. Mexico would be the biggest because you would be exposed to a larger market. To say that everyone who would be a fan that doesn’t have a local team has adopted a team is an assumption I don’t make.
Bob Costas wrote a good book about the competitive imbalance in baseball. As he said, you can't compare baseball with other economics. If Apple destroys Samsung, people will buy phones from other companies. If the competitive imbalance destroys teams, people stop watching. Some people love watching the Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox buy up all the good players every season. Many don't. Baseball is the last major sport without a salary cap. The beauty of a cap is it also comes with a floor. That means cheapskate owners like Bob Nutting have to spend at the minimum or sell the team. The floor also helps lower tier players as there's more money spread around all the teams instead of concentrated at the top. Scott Boros and his player representatives do his bidding to defeat the cap. He wants the top salaries to go as high as possible because that's what's made him rich. He doesn't care if a guy who scratched out 4 years as a middle reliever makes less in this system.
Maybe the new cities aren't expansion cities, but current teams move their to enhance their market share, their Market value. I hear all the time about "small market teams" like Milwaukee can't compete. Well then move to a place where you can. Charlotte would be better than Milwaukee. White sox to memphis, Marlins to Nashville, -- just as examples.
The owners who aren't trying to win are just milking their cities and fans. The fans and the city want to win not to just exist.
The Brewers obviously can compete... perhaps not for the biggest contracts, but they compete in the NL Central and MLB and are most likely top 5 in wins over the past decade. It's been a string of success since we brought C.C. Sabathia over to close out the 2008 season that has really changed the perception of baseball in Milwaukee.
Attanasio of the Brewers doesn't have the resources some other owners do. He's not even a billionaire. He does provide the Brewers with the resources necessary to compete, but they're almost always near the bottom of the bottom-half of MLB payrolls. So here you have an example of a team that is playing to win, and winning, but can't spend like the other teams can.
I don't necessarily think these mega deals are good for baseball, but the Dodgers are getting a bit of a discount on many of these contracts. Ohtani $700 for 10 vs. Soto $765 for 15? Which is bigger? The Brewers broke a record with deferred money when they signed Yelich ($28MM deferred). Perhaps that was a little less than the deferral of the Bobby Bonilla contract in future value, but in 2018 dollars it was a record. The $1Bn that the Dodgers have deferred is so much that it's worrisome to think about how they're going to operate effectively if the assumptions that (if they don't come to pass might be problematic for LA):
Salaries are going to keep rising, and dramatically, making these dollars make sense. For reference, Ohtani's contract is valued at $45MM a year in today's dollars.
That the investments of that income. They have to take that $45MM a year and put it into liquid assets. Let's assume that Guggenheim can make this pay off better than the Mets did with Bonilla - if memory serves they invested with Madoff.
The Diamondbacks did this in the early 2000s. "Betting the farm" for that 2001 WS. They had an inflation adjusted bucket of money on the books - around $260MM... which ended up getting their owner forced out by MLB and new debt ratios established for teams.
I think it's more likely than not that the Dodgers organization is able to navigate this successfully. It's the Dodgers... It's a very valuable franchise, managed by a very effective organization. Not every club can do this, and we've seen what happens when they tried in the past. It wasn't good for baseball. So, again, I expect changes to come because MLB doesn't need another DBacks situation.
I want to offer a contrarian view on the A's, Marlins, Rays, Royals, etc.
For us as fans, it is very easy for us to say that the powers that be are not operating their organizations the right way. They don't spend money on players, they alienate their fanbases. When you put a sub-standard product on the field, of course you are going to lose support and revenue.
Someone previously used the example of an owner not keeping $20 mil in their pocket and instead invest it in your team. I would agree. However, let's use the A's as an example. I think the current ownership group bought the team in 2005 for $180 million. According to the 2024 Forbes report, the team is estimated at $1.2 billion. Let's ignore the fact that their value will balloon when the Vegas thing is complete.
So, let's pretend that an investor is presented with a scenario where you can buy in for $180M in 2005, cap rate is 11% (which gets us to the $20M annually in cash flow), and the market value of your investment would increase 6.5x in a 20 year period. That is a pretty attractive investment. If I recall, I think finding anything over an 8 cap in 2005 was a win.
If I was presented the same opportunity, say a rental house, at an 11 cap in 2005, I would have been doing summersaults just from a cash flow perspective. You can't predict what appreciation will be, but if that property happened to 6.5x in 20 years, more summersaults. There are plenty of investors who would take that deal.
@olb31 said:
The owners who aren't trying to win are just milking their cities and fans. The fans and the city want to win not to just exist.
When you make it a money spending game, I would think the guys who like baseball would lose interest in trying to win the whole thing. In a money spending game the team profiting the most is the winner.
While Fisher is a Billionaire, the A's have been running at a pretty substantial cash-flow deficit for many years. The last time they likely were profitable was in 2016. Their available market size, and the resulting Market Score from MLB in 2017 hurt their revenue sharing. I can only assume the organization will spend more once they're in LAS, but the stadium won't be ready until 2028 (?) so we'll see what they do the next few seasons. I look favorably on the team departing Oakland. I heard one of the best descriptions of Oakland recently from someone who lives there.... "Oakland is great at normalizing dysfunction.". While San Francisco is experiencing yet-another tech boom, Oakland is left in a state of social, and physical, disrepair.
If you're in Oakland, I understand. Look west and there's San Francisco taunting you across the bay... Turn south and... San Jose taunts you... Mountain View Billionaires crack jokes about the feces on your streets. Sorry Oaklandians... My best advice. Start digging and let the ocean swallow you up.
@bgr said:
While Fisher is a Billionaire, the A's have been running at a pretty substantial cash-flow deficit for many years. The last time they likely were profitable was in 2016. Their available market size, and the resulting Market Score from MLB in 2017 hurt their revenue sharing. I can only assume the organization will spend more once they're in LAS, but the stadium won't be ready until 2028 (?) so we'll see what they do the next few seasons. I look favorably on the team departing Oakland. I heard one of the best descriptions of Oakland recently from someone who lives there.... "Oakland is great at normalizing dysfunction.". While San Francisco is experiencing yet-another tech boom, Oakland is left in a state of social, and physical, disrepair.
If you're in Oakland, I understand. Look west and there's San Francisco taunting you across the bay... Turn south and... San Jose taunts you... Mountain View Billionaires crack jokes about the feces on your streets. Sorry Oaklandians... My best advice. Start digging and let the ocean swallow you up.
Sadly, the feces on the street is not isolated to Oakland. I've seen it in the City too.
@olb31 said:
The owners who aren't trying to win are just milking their cities and fans. The fans and the city want to win not to just exist.
When you make it a money spending game, I would think the guys who like baseball would lose interest in trying to win the whole thing. In a money spending game the team profiting the most is the winner.
Ohio State spent $20 million on their team. UVA spent $5 million.
Comments
Just over a month till spring training.
Mookie better be practicing at shortstop.
Yet today on other forums all folks do is whine like little you know whats about The NY teams getting talent. Meanwhile LA gets a pass and to be clear other than Soto the Dodgers get everything they want. If Soto did deferrals he'd be there too!
I'm totally against salary caps but in court of general perception what the Dodgers are doing means no one will listen the my arguments as to why.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Soto didn't look so good till he went to NY. The Padres probably didn't have enough cash to pay off the opposing pitchers.
Kudos on your third grade education.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
You're right. Those pitchers making so much money, they probably throw the homers for free.
Huh????
Must be nice to be most worried about if Snell or Glassnow will win out the 5th spot in the rotation. smh.
GM PLAYING TO WIN. ALL TEAMS SHOULD. THEY all make millions every year. spend the money.
Not all clubs are in the same financial position and the salary deferrals mock the integrity of the league.
bgr - true - I agree, but you can't run your organization like the rays and marlins either. While maybe the pirates can't spend 750 millions a year on players, they probably can do 400 - 500 million. Plus there are many places to go, that don't have teams. They can move there. Nashville, Memphis -- no state taxes. North Carolina, South carolina, Virginia Beach. There is 5 re-locations right here where the teams would make a killing.
You can't live in a bubble, sometimes owners need to make real decisions, not if they are going to spend another million or 2. Most of the owners aren't even trying to win, they exist just to pocket 20 or 30 million a year. it's sad.
Kansas City Chiefs aren't having any issues making money, so why are the Royals having a lot of trouble? Owners greed?
500 million doesn't get you the guy when the other guy is offering 750.
Paying the 2nd place guy more doesn't make him play better.
The players have to want to win. They also have to be allowed to win.
I realize all the players want it to be a money spewing game.
You're kinda saying that the Royals should move to Nashville so they can pay some guy 250 million dollars more.
Google says the Chiefs are having a hard time making money. Google also says the Royals make money.
There should probably be an MLB draft. Salary cap too.
im saying if pittsburg or tampa or kc isn't the place to make the most money -- move. there are many other cities that want and can support baseball teams. don't blame the market, blame the owners. i bet the owners are making plenty of money.
the owners are billionaires, they can spend whatever they want to.
I don’t begrudge the Dodgers doing what they’re doing. It’s smart. Is it best for MLB in the long run? Historically, improving parity in the league has been huge for the league so I expect changes. I don’t think we will see a salary cap but I do expect more teeth in the luxury tax.
But it’s not so much that some teams are choosing not to spend like the Dodgers, including those who could. Not all can even if they could.
Amazing how so many called free market capitalists to the death desire pure socialism in pro sports. Mind Boggling to me
now would probably be a good time for you to recognize that the Dodgers make $100 million per year more than any other team from RSN revenue alone ($334 million per year, $8.35 billion over 25 years through 2038). That would include big market teams that actually own their own RSNs like the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs etc...and compare that to say Detroit who gets less than $40 mill per season). So congrats that your favorite MLB club had the random good fortune their TV deal was up at the right time, a few years before the RSN bubble burst and mass cord-cutting. It does, however, defeat your narrative since the Dodgers aren't actually spending anywhere near their revenue since they'd nearly have enough to cover their player payroll with their RSN contract alone - not even accounting for the national tv revenue, MLBam ($50 mill a year), ticket sales, merchandising, concessions etc. The % they spend of their revenue on player payroll is right in line with several other clubs.
Well, there’s no actual example of free market capitalism. No one would know what that is outside of theory. But I think the idea of Free Market Capitalism is an entanglement of free market economies and capitalist economies. There’s no example of a capitalist economy which lacks regulation and regulation is what allows markets to operate effectively for the benefit of consumers. Too much and too little regulation are both bad. You can argue which is worse but they’re both so distant from socialism that you can equate them. Let’s not talk about economics on this forum. I don’t want to know what crazy ideas people have.
Groo - do you really believe every team is really trying to be the best they can? Pittsburgh never even tries. Invision me and you owning a team, both of us billionaires. The best way to boost up the market value is to win, not to keep 20 million a year in our pockets. i would assume we would try to be the best team every year, even if we weren't.
Jerry Jones is a perfect example. He paid $140 millions for the team. Instead of just sitting on the profits each year. he spent and spent, made shrewd trades, etc. Now they are worth $10 Billion.
Kraft the same thing. paid $227 million in 1994 for the patriots and now it;s worth $8 billion. The teams that win are worth most. Not trying always keeps you at the bottom.
The capitalist comment from above -- this is capitalism. Win and your product goes way up. lose and you make a little but each year (a little bit for billionaires).
Neither Dallas or NE are in NY or California - and their owners are doing quite well.
why is it players are not doing this for other teams??
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
My interpretation is that shared revenue is socialism. Which it kind of is... Then you have the fans who whine about no salary cap. I feel a Cap too is socialism.
Until recently Mets fans used to complain like little b's about no Salary cap. now that they have an owner who spends not a peep from them. This means size of the market is significantly less important than the ownership!
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Under socialism the government would own the teams.
I don't understand why the word socialism is even entering this conversation. I believe it's to add negative energy to the argument for a level playing field in competitive sports. You guys are acting like it's the owners who are competing. It's supposed to be the players competing. We're talking about baseball, not capitalisms.
I don't know if any of you live in Los Angeles. But, the fire department is totally socialism.
The kid picked the right organization. He laughed at the Cubs even though the Cubs should be on > @bgr said:
The Cubs owner made a statement that they are lucky to break even each year. A complete joke. He cried they don't have the money of the Dodgers, Mets, or Yankees. The Cubs basically own all of Wrigleyville and their franchise has quadrupled in value since they bought them. A complete crock and cop out. Cubs are swimming in money and they should be on par with LA.
Dodgers are the benchmark. If other teams don't like it, then they can mimic it...but they don't want to.
Why do you guys seem to think that the value of the team matters? Value is, a lot of the time, complete BS.
Are you saying that they could sell? Or implying that they should borrow against their team to make no money?
All things being equal, players are more likely to want to play in LA than in Chicago. Chicago is freakin cold.
I want to be clear that I don't have much of a problem with what the Dodgers are doing. They are operating within the rules of MLB.
What the Dodgers have is an organizational structure with the Guggenheim management group that allows them to do what they are doing. Not all organizations have this flexibility - the flexibility to do something with these deferrals which would generally be viewed negatively with regard to financial management.
Further, the Dodgers have an advantageous television deal setup. While there are some other clubs which eat both ends of the same banana too, it should be mentioned that not only do the Dodgers benefit from their Television deal with regional sports networks, they also have an ownership position in those networks. The revenue the team receives from the deal is accounted within the framework of revenue sharing, but the revenue the team receives on the other side of that from their ownership in the network is not. This loophole will likely get filled as more and more organizations are following this model - for good reasons. However, without including this revenue in sharing, you have a disparity from one market to another regarding the value of an eyeball.
It should also be mentioned that the signing of Sasaki isn't going to be a huge contract now as he enters MLB as an international free agent. So he will make somewhere around league minimum and receive a signing bonus from their international pool funds probably in the $5MM-$7MM range - I don't actually know what the Dodgers have available.
I get the feeling that you guys are just realizing that truth hurts.
I, personally, am not bothered by the reality of the situation. Regardless whether some teams have an advantage based on the position, desire, or operational efficacy of their organization, MLB is still an environment where a team with a $100MM roster can compete with the Dodgers - the probability is certainly not in their favor, but when it happens, it's that much sweeter.
I think, however, that changes are destined, and that these changes will attempt to promote more parity by way of subsidy. I would hope that this subsidy comes with strings, such that the shared revenue must be a percentage of payroll etc. Call it the Athletics Rule. I'm not whining or pining for this... I simply think it's inevitable. The league wants expansion and I think you're going to see a MLB team in Mexico City before the end of the 2020s.
tennessee north carolina oklahoma alabama, south needs more teams. southern states love sports.
I've heard Charlotte, San Jose, Salt Lake City. Too hard to predict that - I am just most confident in Mexico City as being one of the 2 expansion cities. I think Nashville also gets mentions. If you went by market I think Orlando is one of the highest rated TV markets without a MLB team. Not sure that means much there though.
More teams would be great.
Adding teams won't add eyes though. Maybe right at the beginning. All those places, except maybe Mexico City have teams they follow. Even if the team isn't right next door. In KY, when I was a kid, people around there followed Ohio teams. Probably St. Louis too. They would just be moving eyes from one team to another. Taking dollars from one team and giving them to another.
That would also dilute the supply of good players who aren't with the largest market teams.
To add eyes you need to increase interest.
I would think it’s far from zero-sum regardless of the expansion market. Mexico would be the biggest because you would be exposed to a larger market. To say that everyone who would be a fan that doesn’t have a local team has adopted a team is an assumption I don’t make.
Bob Costas wrote a good book about the competitive imbalance in baseball. As he said, you can't compare baseball with other economics. If Apple destroys Samsung, people will buy phones from other companies. If the competitive imbalance destroys teams, people stop watching. Some people love watching the Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox buy up all the good players every season. Many don't. Baseball is the last major sport without a salary cap. The beauty of a cap is it also comes with a floor. That means cheapskate owners like Bob Nutting have to spend at the minimum or sell the team. The floor also helps lower tier players as there's more money spread around all the teams instead of concentrated at the top. Scott Boros and his player representatives do his bidding to defeat the cap. He wants the top salaries to go as high as possible because that's what's made him rich. He doesn't care if a guy who scratched out 4 years as a middle reliever makes less in this system.
Maybe the new cities aren't expansion cities, but current teams move their to enhance their market share, their Market value. I hear all the time about "small market teams" like Milwaukee can't compete. Well then move to a place where you can. Charlotte would be better than Milwaukee. White sox to memphis, Marlins to Nashville, -- just as examples.
The owners who aren't trying to win are just milking their cities and fans. The fans and the city want to win not to just exist.
The Brewers obviously can compete... perhaps not for the biggest contracts, but they compete in the NL Central and MLB and are most likely top 5 in wins over the past decade. It's been a string of success since we brought C.C. Sabathia over to close out the 2008 season that has really changed the perception of baseball in Milwaukee.
Attanasio of the Brewers doesn't have the resources some other owners do. He's not even a billionaire. He does provide the Brewers with the resources necessary to compete, but they're almost always near the bottom of the bottom-half of MLB payrolls. So here you have an example of a team that is playing to win, and winning, but can't spend like the other teams can.
I don't necessarily think these mega deals are good for baseball, but the Dodgers are getting a bit of a discount on many of these contracts. Ohtani $700 for 10 vs. Soto $765 for 15? Which is bigger? The Brewers broke a record with deferred money when they signed Yelich ($28MM deferred). Perhaps that was a little less than the deferral of the Bobby Bonilla contract in future value, but in 2018 dollars it was a record. The $1Bn that the Dodgers have deferred is so much that it's worrisome to think about how they're going to operate effectively if the assumptions that (if they don't come to pass might be problematic for LA):
The Diamondbacks did this in the early 2000s. "Betting the farm" for that 2001 WS. They had an inflation adjusted bucket of money on the books - around $260MM... which ended up getting their owner forced out by MLB and new debt ratios established for teams.
I think it's more likely than not that the Dodgers organization is able to navigate this successfully. It's the Dodgers... It's a very valuable franchise, managed by a very effective organization. Not every club can do this, and we've seen what happens when they tried in the past. It wasn't good for baseball. So, again, I expect changes to come because MLB doesn't need another DBacks situation.
I want to offer a contrarian view on the A's, Marlins, Rays, Royals, etc.
For us as fans, it is very easy for us to say that the powers that be are not operating their organizations the right way. They don't spend money on players, they alienate their fanbases. When you put a sub-standard product on the field, of course you are going to lose support and revenue.
Someone previously used the example of an owner not keeping $20 mil in their pocket and instead invest it in your team. I would agree. However, let's use the A's as an example. I think the current ownership group bought the team in 2005 for $180 million. According to the 2024 Forbes report, the team is estimated at $1.2 billion. Let's ignore the fact that their value will balloon when the Vegas thing is complete.
So, let's pretend that an investor is presented with a scenario where you can buy in for $180M in 2005, cap rate is 11% (which gets us to the $20M annually in cash flow), and the market value of your investment would increase 6.5x in a 20 year period. That is a pretty attractive investment. If I recall, I think finding anything over an 8 cap in 2005 was a win.
If I was presented the same opportunity, say a rental house, at an 11 cap in 2005, I would have been doing summersaults just from a cash flow perspective. You can't predict what appreciation will be, but if that property happened to 6.5x in 20 years, more summersaults. There are plenty of investors who would take that deal.
When you make it a money spending game, I would think the guys who like baseball would lose interest in trying to win the whole thing. In a money spending game the team profiting the most is the winner.
While Fisher is a Billionaire, the A's have been running at a pretty substantial cash-flow deficit for many years. The last time they likely were profitable was in 2016. Their available market size, and the resulting Market Score from MLB in 2017 hurt their revenue sharing. I can only assume the organization will spend more once they're in LAS, but the stadium won't be ready until 2028 (?) so we'll see what they do the next few seasons. I look favorably on the team departing Oakland. I heard one of the best descriptions of Oakland recently from someone who lives there.... "Oakland is great at normalizing dysfunction.". While San Francisco is experiencing yet-another tech boom, Oakland is left in a state of social, and physical, disrepair.
If you're in Oakland, I understand. Look west and there's San Francisco taunting you across the bay... Turn south and... San Jose taunts you... Mountain View Billionaires crack jokes about the feces on your streets. Sorry Oaklandians... My best advice. Start digging and let the ocean swallow you up.
Sadly, the feces on the street is not isolated to Oakland. I've seen it in the City too.
Ohio State spent $20 million on their team. UVA spent $5 million.
.