Jopal78

It does not. I don't think baseball will evaporate, but it is not the same animal that football is. The NFL is in this country's DNA. I wouldn’t underestimate baseball like that. The difference is gambling and marketing. It’s easy to gamble on football, and there are seemingly hundreds of ways to bet on a single game, down to individual players and stats. MLB is terrible at marketing it’s product. I bet almost anyone off the street could name you five NFL players. Baseball has lost its way in marketing its biggest stars beyond people who consumer their product anyways. Then baseball’s own commissioner has acknowledged the product is boring and made it his quest to speed up the game to correct that. It’s unbelievable. People love nostalgia and baseball wants to flush the heritage of their game and the fact the rules are mostly unchanged in the last 100 years. (A footballer from the 1920’s would hardly recognize todays pro-game).

Not true. ‘95 was a down year across baseball. In 1997 the Brewers paid attendance eclipsed what it was in ‘93. They weren’t even competitive, the Yankees were down in ‘95 and better than ever onward. People may have grumbled and said they were through with baseball but didn’t really back up their words with deeds for very long.

I’m sorry but that’s a false equivalency. In the micro sense, sure Soto probably means a lot to pro baseball in DC. In the macro sense though, if Juan Soto never played another inning, MLB would continue on as it always has. But more importantly they’re baseball players, the play baseball games for money. Hypothetically, if all players on all the MLB teams never played again it’s not like they can go out and play professional football or basketball games for money. They’d have to find another way to make money. Again hypothetically, the owners of MLB teams can always get new players. Other than those who are fans of certain players if you’re a fan of a particular team you already are basically a fan of some laundry, a stadium experience and a past heritage, none of which can be altered by players on the field. With all different players I’m sure some folks would say the game sucks now, and yes maybe there wouldn’t be pitchers throwing 100mph every night, but there’d still be homeruns, and players scoring from first on a double, and relay throws nailing runners at the plate. It would still be pro babes all. Most likely the consumer of professional baseball isn’t going to notice any difference without being told (radar gun, spins on a curveball etc.).

Sure but why don't we say the same thing about the owners? Probably because we have no idea what they make. It's kind of funny the hero worship/distortion that goes on in the baseball labor fight. Just change the context, what if instead of baseball players they were all auto workers for a single American car company. In a wage dispute, the auto workers could always leave and go make cars for another company in Mexico, Japan or Korea but wouldn't be paid as much as they currently get. They don't have the skill set to move to a different industry (NFL, NBA, NHL) so they're stuck as auto workers. The auto workers make the finished product, but don't own the finished product. It's the car company's obligation to continue to market the product, sell the product; and the auto worker's don't share in any of that cost or risk. Certainly, if the car company is really successful they could share more of their profits with the workers, but they're under no real obligation to do so, and wouldn't be alone in America sharing none of their profits with their workers. As most sides do in a labor fight the MLBPA is trying to win in the Court of public opinion. In reality they have less leverage than it seems. The owners always could go the same way they did in '95 and offer $25,000 guarantees to professional players not in organized baseball to come to spring training with another $100,000 guaranteed if they make an opening day roster, and they'd have to beat of the folks who show up in Arizona and Florida with a stick.

Then again if you’re the New York Yankees, that local media revenue is a competitive advantage. The Dodgers, Red Sox, Yankees, etc. know they’re likely going to be competitive every year because of their war chest; and winning equals more even revenue in the pocket. I’m pretty sure those clubs want to keep the Rays, Oakland, Milwaukee, etc. with a hand ties behind their back. And over the years the small market revenue sharing recipients have all fielded bargain priced non-competitive clubs, which doesn’t help their argument they need more money to level the playing field. I don’t know if I’d call it a broken system. If we were all Dodger fans I would be okay with letting Milwaukee die on the vine every year instead of helping them financially so they can be a stronger club.

The Brewers haven’t asked yet. According to the reports there is a reserve fund from the stadium tax of 87 million dollars. The Brewers anticipate the improvements that will be recommended following the study they commissioned (the District declined to pay for their own study) will exceed the reserve fund which means the Brewers will have to pony up the difference themselves or ask for more public dollars. With 8 years on their lease at the stadium, it’s the perfect timing. You’re likely to hear more chatter about needing improvements to stay competitive and then the chatter of potentially relocating if the 5 counties won’t give them the facility they want.

The reality is, they probably can get Rosario for less than 9 million. After the 2020 season, he was put on outright waivers and every team in the league passed. Then, after he was non-tendered he signed with Cleveland for 8 million dollars; and cumulatively had another mediocre season; underperforming his career marks in OBP and SLG. In fact, his SLG% was down for the third consecutive year (.500 in '19,.476 in '20 and .435 in '21). What is the crowded outfield market going to have in store for a slightly below average outfielder, 31 years old, poor defender and outside a handful of high profile games hasn't had much success in several years? After writing all this out, I'd be surprised the Brewers would have any interest at all unless it was at a cut rate 1 year/5 million dollars type, or even a NRI deal with a similar guarantee if he made the team.

If by “something” you mean human baseball players, ok. Otherwise take a look at what the Red Sox got for Theo Epstein from the Cubs. Three organizational soldiers 2 of whom never saw the major leagues and a third who pitched 6 innings for Boston and was released. Any team that wants a certain executive under contract with another club, can just wait them out if it’s that important, no reason to give up “real” talent to get them early.

Manfred does what the owners collectively tell him to do, or he would be out of a job. Fay Vincent tried to do what he thought was "best for the game" and the owners quickly kicked him out of the job, and put one of their own (Selig) in as Commissioner. Manfred was one of the owners'' lawyers in the '94 labor fight, and had risen to Selig's right hand man, before taking over for Bud. So his actions as Commissioner are likely 100% owner approved and always will be. Manfred (and the Player's Union) know the next CBA will be better for the players than the one which just expired (which despite their PR was pretty good for the players), the real fight is how much better the next one will be over the last. Just like in settlement negotiations for a lawsuit, both sides start out with unreasonable positions asking for the moon and stars. But both sets of negotiators for the owners and unions have amongst themselves realistic but likely inflated figures of where they'd like to be, and ultimately a real set of numbers that will get a deal done, and they haggle for the best situation they can get. In this instance despite the clock ticking neither side appears in a hurry to come off of their initial unreasonable positions.

Me too. The union obviously doesn’t care about competitive balance, their sole aim is to put a higher percentage of revenue into the player’s pockets. The large market clubs could level the playing field on their own by sharing all local broadcast revenue, but I don’t think the Dodgers and Yankees necessarily want to empower teams like the Rays and Brewers to be even stronger competitors. The player’s union is going to get a better deal than they had before which necessarily means there will be some concessions from the owners but I don’t think there will ever be any seismic changes. The success cycle of the smaller clubs will get shorter, and the difference making front office talent working for those teams will wonder even more if the grass is greener in NY, California, Chicago, Texas etc.

Good question. I don't think the players union particularly cares what teams get richer or which teams get poorer they're trying to deliver more pay for union members. Adding the Universal DH creates more demand for players (which effects wages), shortening service time until arbitration escalates player's salary exponentially, the "anti-tanking" measures the union wants is so teams without enough talent to compete will still spend 90 million instead of 50 million meaning more demand for players (which again effects wages). What raising the competitive balance tax threshold, really is about is giving the players more potential ammunition to argue the owners are colluding to keep payroll down. If they raised it to 500 million, I don't think the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox are going to suddenly go out an add 150 million dollars in payroll. Rather it removes a legitimate reason for teams to not spend money on players. But to your point, I have a feeling the new CBA is going to make an already tight rope teams like the Brewers need to walk in order to compete regularly even more narrow.

This is a nice start. Let's see what the owners offer on CBT, minimum salary and 0-6 year players for earlier free agency or arbitration. I think I read that less than six years to free agency was dead on arrival, along with the player's proposal for players 30 years old and less than 6 years service time to qualify.

Those players were signed as free agents from outside the United States. Not all teams have the same presence in the Caribbean (in fact some teams like Baltimore have little to no presence there). The White Sox signed Tatis Jr. in the Dominican Republic as a 16 year old kid and the Rays signed Franco from there when he was 16. I'm not sure how an international draft levels the playing field much if at all, unless teams have an equal presence in the Caribbean, Japan etc. I think it only helps those amateur international players make more money. The 'perceived' problem is the current set-up can be somewhat of exploitative for those players. Tatis Jr. signed for $700,000 in bonus money. Moreover, Ozzie Albies got $350,000 and Ronald Acuna was signed by the Braves for $100,000. Had those been first round picks in the June MLB draft, they would have made exponentially more in signing bonus money. Franco was a much more heralded international player and got nearly a 4 million dollar bonus from the Rays but is still a fraction of what a top of the first round pick would get in the MLB draft.

There's a lot to unpack here. The owners instituted a "lock out" as a PR move because it's less a pejorative term than "strike." The reality is organized labor doesn't go to work without a collective bargaining agreement, so an eventual player strike was a foregone conclusion when the old CBA expired, the owners merely headed the player's off at the pass. There's a labor dispute happening everyday in America; baseball's is unique because both sides are famous. As for the owners "opening their books" to the Union. This is all just talking points and spin. By and large baseball team's are closely held corporations. They have no obligation to "open their books" to the public. I'm sure Cargill or Koch Industries or other behemoth private corporations tell the Unions they're negotiating with to go pound sand as well. Despite what the media would have you believe; Billionaire's don't buy sports teams as play things. Baseball teams are unicorns:: almost all of them are worth a billion dollars or more, and they never depreciated. They've never gone out of business, have proven impervious to recession, can always raise capital, and there's varied and sophisticated revenue streams beyond game day revenue. The owners are not doing anything they don't do with their other businesses or that other CEO's of billion dollar companies wouldn't do: keeping their investment healthy and maximizing returns. The players also know they have a good thing going and know when they finally do reach an agreement on a new CBA they'll be doing even better. They've just proven better at framing the narrative than the owners. Both sides simply want more but the player's can frame the issue as one of fairness. Thus Whit Merrifield is out there saying with a straight face its" unfair" 21 year old kids are making just $500,000, while not mentioning he and many others are 1%-ers already and they're looking for a bigger cut as well. Clearly, nobody would have an ounce of sympathy for a 1%-er saying they're not paid enough, thus in order to not look like an idiot, he has to say the owners are ripping them off and the owner's are disingenuous, dishonest, evil, etc. It's all pretty standard labor dispute stuff, it just plays out on a bigger stage.

It's the last time I'll bring it up, because clearly you're quick to criticize without bothering to first read carefully. I think every single post I've written said, luxury box leases, lower bowl season ticket packages, group outings will still happen regardless of any labor dispute. It's not as if the stadium is going to sit empty. The point is the fans who pout and say a labor dispute turns them off, will be relatively insignificant to the owners in the grand scheme of things. [ The Brewers per game attendance dropped about a third in 1995 (per game attendance was approx 15,000) from where it was in '94 before the strike (approx 22,000 per game). By 1998 things had returned to normal and the Brewers had their biggest year for total attendance since '89] Moreover, the fans who decide to "stay away" are not likely to abandon baseball, or Brewers baseball all together, and as such will continue pouring money directly, or indirectly, into the team's pocket thereby making any temporary drop in paid attendance even less of a detriment. Call them baseless, crazy, or whatever that's your prerogative, there's plenty of information available for anyone who wants to look establishing them as fact. The players' proposals for a new CBA increasing minimum salaries, players qualifying for arbitration sooner, changes to revenue sharing, raising the luxury tax level and penalizing teams for rebuilding/tanking, will only make it harder for teams like Milwaukee to compete with the big boys. I'm fine with the owners losing games if it means the Brewers won't become even more of a second class organization. I'll just find something else to occupy my time until the season eventually starts up.

No tickets = no parking = no beer = no team store = no food, the margins on all of which are enormous. Based on the post a coupe before mine, $150 million sounds like I undershot it probably by $30-$40 million in a good season. Biz Insider projected lost revenue at $178 million. https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2020/10/07/mlb-projected-gameday-revenue-lost.html So yeah, I guess "there is a way." Seriously dude, just admit you were WAY off on this. I'm sorry, but there is no way you believe it. Advertisers use formulas to price out the value of a listener and for a 620 broadcast it is likely pennies on the dollar. And you continually have made this ridiculous comparison that it somehow equates to a a guy taking 4 people to the park and spending $130 directly with the club. They may as well close the stadium forever and save on the massive operating costs because everyone will just watch on TV or buy shirts at Kohl's. After all it makes no difference if they come and the money isn't significant. We could also just go directly to the source, but I mean, we do have Jopal's vague analysis completely devoid of any real numbers. “Without getting into specifics, it’s significant dollars that we are losing this year,” Brewers President of Business Operations Rick Schlesinger said during a press conference held outside of Miller Park on Monday morning. But I'm not , I said "pure ticket sales." All someone has to do is a little math. With their average ticket price ($28) multiplied by capacity (41,900) comes out to 95 million dollars, if they sold out every game, which the Brewers have never come close to doing. Keep in mind, the Yankees and Dodgers (or any other team) do not come to Milwaukee for free. All teams pay a portion of their ticket revenue (not to mention all the subsequent beer, hot dog and parking money) to the other 29 teams in the league. The National TV revenue PER TEAM is close to 100 million dollars which is the bread and butter for teams like the Brewers despite rarely being on National TV. But let's not stop there, there is MLB Advanced Media (of which the Brewers have a 1/30th ownership interest). Besides just online baseball content; if you've streamed golf, NCAA basketball, NHL hockey, HBO Now, ESPN+ those are all clients of MLBAM. Prior to its launch of its streaming service Disney purchased an ownership interest in a MLBAM subsidiary for a cool 1.5 billion dollars. Again, there is no need to take my word for it. This information and much more is out there for anyone who wants to do a google search. As I said earlier it isn't 1950; there is a reason that even teams like the Brewers have a cadre of folks with MBAs working for the team on the business side (and it isn't to upsell Loge Level tickets instead of Terrace Reserved to Gary from Menomonee Falls). As someone else pointed out, the fans are irrelevant to the labor dispute between the owners and players. "How can they do this to the fans" is a sympathy chip, and for the small portion who swear they're not going to go to a game again, your favorite team is still taking a portion of your money in ways you notice or in ways you may not. Like I've said before, and others who have pointed out, the suites will be leased, groups will still go to the stadium, diamond box plans will sell, and parents who take their families to a game on the weekends during the summer will most likely continue to do so. Since it is is capitalism, there is no doubt they'd love to sell every single seat for every game ( and as many hot dogs, beers and Yelich shirt-seys as possible), but if attendance temporarily dips because certain fans stay home, I'm pretty sure the owners (and players) will shrug it off, and continue on with their business which is indisputably booming regardless of small trends in ballpark attendance.

First of all, 150 million dollars divided by 81 games and 41,900 (assuming every game is a sellout) comes out to approximately $45. According to the most recent information published the Brewers average ticket price is $28. Mathematically there is no way they’re making 150 million dollars in revenue on pure ticket sales. But you don’t have to take my word for it, the player agents and MLBPA argue all the time: despite owners crying poor with crappy attendance and or small market, when’s the last time one of them folded? The reason being they’re sophisticated multi-million dollar corporations with numerous diversified revenue streams. Coupled with a desire to keep people from knowing how much they have and where all their money comes from. But the point remains, the luxury boxes are still going to get leased regardless of any PR hit from a labor fight. The Diamond boxes season tickets are still going to sell. Group outings will still happen. Joe Lunchpail might be angry and skip taking his family to a game, but odds are he’ll still watch games on TV, and buy licensed merchandise regardless. Minimizing any real loss.

But it’s not. If you ran a business what would be more important: guaranteed revenue streams, or revenue streams that can fluctuate by non-controllable variables? Pro Baseball live and die on TV, Radio, Licensing rights for merchandise, Internet, Luxury Box Leases and season ticket packages . They have this money in hand before the season starts, if there is a rain out, the team is tanking, the team is a deadline seller, decimated by injury, bad luck whatever it doesn’t matter the money is in their pocket already. Ticket revenue is great, and I’m sure it’s 100% worth the hourly wages they pay their seasonal labor to push tickets n people. But no team in 2021 lives and dies on ticket sales. It just doesn’t happen. When has a team sucked for 15 years and gone out of business? Did the Brewers collapse in the 90s because they were terrible and drew 8,000 fans most weeknights? No. That’s the point, people who state they’re angry about the labor dispute and aren’t going to go to games, the owners didn’t need them to go to games to be successful. If one wants to protest the state of the game, unplug completely otherwise your still funneling money in their pockets.

The Facebook deal is only $30m and the YouTube one is probably close to $30m also. The Fox contract is $700 million a year, the ESPN contract is $700 million a year and TBS is $470m a year. The radio deals are going to be far less probably around $25-50 million a season. So if we add up all of the contracts that are known it is about $2.1 billion and the teams don't get 1/30th of this revenue as MLB also takes their cut. Since we don't know how much MLB is taking I am going to assume it is a 40/60 split with the league taking 40 and the rest being divided out to each team. That is only about $40m a year to each team and with the Brewers local TV contract that brings them to about even with the ticket sales. Tickets are the bread and butter for the Brewers and other small market teams. The media revenue is just not enough to sustain the team for the whole year when you add in players payroll, general payroll, minor leagues, spring training and other miscellaneous expenses. If you just look at player salaries then yes the media revenue is enough to sustain a team and the ticket sales are basically a bonus. I don’t know what it is you believe MLB, Inc does which they would be entitled to nearly a billion dollars a year in revenue but whatever. Like I’ve said, Professional baseball is a product and they have many ways to sell that product in 2022 as opposed to 1950. The reality is the players don’t care about the fans, they’re in it for the money. The owners don’t care about the fans either because the fans have already proven over the last 40 years they’ll continue to consume the product in one way or the other no matter how screwed up it is.

I don't believe this is the case for the Brewers. The Brewers still have one of the lowest TV contracts and I doubt their radio contract is much more and whatever the league gives to the team for the streaming on MLB.TV can't be all that much more than what their current TV deal is paying them. At best I think the broadcast revenue is covering about 40% of the teams operating expenses. I believe ticket sales, merchandising and other revenue aspects cover the rest. If the Brewers are depending on the broadcast revenues then they would be operating at a negative a rather large negative at that. Previously the Brewers were only getting about $30m a year from their TV contract the current deal I haven't seen any figures for. Lets assume they got a nice bump up and now bring in $50m a year. That won't even cover the teams player payroll for the year so yeah ticket revenue is far more important to a team like the Brewers than the Yankees or Dodgers who are getting paid nearly four times as much each year. Ticket revenue for the smaller market teams is extremely important as it is how they are able to close the gap and have a payroll higher than $60m a year. Some basic math here the Brewers average ticket price is about $40 and the Brewers average about 30k fans per game. Over a full season that is about $97m just on ticket sales. If you say the average attendee pays in total about $80 (parking, tickets, food and merchandise) per game that figure now doubles to about $200m. I don't see how you can claim the revenue from the media outpaces gate revenue as the numbers just do not match up. The Brewers would have to be bringing in about $200m+ to outpace the gate revenue. You’re leaving out the MLB contracts with Fox, ESPN, Westwood Radio, Facebook Live, YouTube etc. those pay MLB billions each year for games and the Brewers take 1/30th of those billions. Plus whatever their local contracts are in their market. I’m not sure how MLB licensed gear works, but I imagine they sell a license to Mitchell & Ness and the Brewers take 1/30th of that fee regardless if Mitchell & Ness makes a Brewers jersey or not. The team store is merely a double dip where the Brewers have already gotten the fee for licens8ng the items to the manufacturer and they are double dipping as the retailer selling it to the fan at their stadium. Again the double dip is great but their business model doesn’t depend on it to any great extent.

This is all pretty simple stuff. Brewers/and MLB sell their broadcasting rights to broadcasters. The price paid is usually driven by the viewership/ratings etc. the broadcasts get. True it doesn’t cost you a thing to listen to the radio, but the amount of listeners absolutely effects the money they charge for those rights. It is fact that broadcast revenues are up across the league, as are team payrolls, while someone else pointed out paid attendance is actually down. Moreover, broadcast revenues far outpace what teams take at the gate. Clearly, if teams were dependent on gate receipts to survive you’d never see a team tank or sell at the deadline. At the ballpark, concerts, luxury suite leases and 81 game packages in the premium seats are what make up the bulk of their revenue (Again simple math, they cost the most and are usually the most filled in sections). I assume most of the suites and Diamond box tickets on a day to day basis are purchased by businesses who are able to write the cost off as entertainment on their taxes, and will continue to be buyers despite any labor strife. I’m sure the teams would love to sell out every game all year it just means more revenue in their pocket. However, in the grand scheme of things the traditional family of four who go to a couple games a year and buy hot dogs, beer and t-shirts don’t likely make up as large a slice of the revenue pie as one would think.

If the business model was dependent on ticket sales the Brewers along with many other small market clubs would have folded 30 years ago. There are many ways to consume the product and I don’t think it matters as much to Attanasio as many think of you buy a ticket, watch the game at home on TV, listen on the radio, watch it at a bar, stream it online, or buy new brewers gear. You’re still consuming his product. I don’t think any posters here are saying “I’m done with baseball I don’t care and am not going to watch, listen, or follow it”. Fans are irrelevant in the discussion between owners and labor as they’ve already proven they’ll consume the product regardless

Because fans are the customer. Example, if you were making widgets and your factory stopped making them because of a labor impasse. Shouldn't mgmt and labor keep in mind that ABC Company that buys all of their widgets may start buying some widgets from a competitor if the impasse lasts too long? At least smart people would. Heck, ABC Company may end up switching to the pro bowler tour or something. Baseball's popularity has been consistently waning for the last 50 years and yet it remains a multibillion dollar entertainment industry. I don't think they're too worried about the "fans" when they just sold their broadcast rights for a handsome raise. The consumers of their product have proven they will keep coming back for more regardless. People can grumble about not going to the games, but when spring rolls around they'll pick up a new hat or shirtzee for the newest player and dial up the games on TV all which pour money into their coffers.

But both sides know fans who say they "don't care" or or don't want to go to as many games, are still likely to consume their product one way or another once the season eventually starts. That is why the broadcast contracts are already worth billions and keep going up and up. Maybe if the Corporations who write off the luxury suite leases as "entertainment" on their taxes all abandoned their leases it would be significant; but Joe Lunchpail watching the games at home as opposed to in the Loge section in today's world doesn't mean too much to MLB.

Before the "lockout" baseball in fact had the longest period of labor peace amongst all the major American professional sports leagues. As for a work stoppage, that's usually how it goes with well organized and powerful unions ( eg. The Chicago Teachers Union goes on strike every time their contract expires). It's really irrelevant that the owners instituted a "lock out" because without a Collective Bargaining Agreement in place the players would have gone out on strike before pitchers and catchers were due to report anyways. It is the same as any other unionized capitalist industry: labor argues they're not being treated fairly and just want what is fair (a bigger slice of the pie), and the Operators argue labor already has a great situation and an even bigger slice of pie would hardly leave any pie for themselves.