Players and Owners far apart

[DMVol]

3 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

You're an atty right?   Whats the old adage about not signing until you've read the fine print?   Now, try imagining a situation where you're being asked to sign something and being told -- BTW, we are going to keep the fine print hidden -- just trust us.

That's the world MLB players have been living in..   This isn't just about the pandemic to them, this is about the last few years and a system that they know is completely one sided.

What I do is irrelevant....I am trying not to be an advocate for either side, that's my day job....if you want to put your advocate hat on, that's fine....my agenda is to get a fair deal done and play ball....and I'm not sure either side is trying very hard to do that....btw, I am also a Mediator, so maybe it shows.....

[Blarg]

42 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

The only real question is how bad they will fuck this up.

When you have Manfred that can't even penalize blatant cheating and the Union demanding full pay with no regard to real finance, baseball is going to fuck this up. It will be a team effort. 

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

If I were an MLB player I would want to get paid my agreed upon salary or in this case whatever I thought was fair depending on how many games would be played.  That said all of the major professional sports have benefited from large increases in team values over the last 20 years which has benefited the players as well.  Many MLB, NHL and NFL teams have tripled in value over the last decade, NBA teams have in some cases increased 6x in value over the same period and Arte's investment is worth 9-10x what he paid for it under 20 years ago.  I say more power to both the owners and players but it shows the growing financial divide between fans and the leagues.  Whatever happens across all the major leagues they can still make money and be profitable but if they get too greedy it's going to backfire sooner or later especially when spending money on sports for fans is a luxury.  Get too greedy and that's going to have long term implications that will take years to recover from. 

[Claude]

15 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

You're an atty right?   Whats the old adage about not signing until you've read the fine print?   Now, try imagining a situation where you're being asked to sign something and being told -- BTW, we are going to keep the fine print hidden -- just trust us.

That's the world MLB players have been living in..   This isn't just about the pandemic to them, this is about the last few years and a system that they know is completely one sided.

If they can’t live on that, F them.

The average salary for a player in the MLB stood at 4.36 million U.S. dollars in 2019.

[Inside Pitch]

Just now, DMVol said:

What I do is irrelevant....I am trying not to be an advocate for either side, that's my day job....if you want to put your advocate hat on, that's fine....my agenda is to get a fair deal done and play ball....and I'm not sure either side is trying very hard to do that....btw, I am also a Mediator, so maybe it shows.....

Sorry did you take offense?  That wasn't my intention so much as I was trying to appeal to your understanding of situations like this.   

But fine --  what we do doesn't matter but it seems your stated agenda of seeking a fair deal is ignoring the one sided nature of this particular situation while my "advocating" is trying to actually be fair...    Sorry, but there is nothing equitable about this...   That's the core of this entire BS and it's anything but a new problem.   The pandemic is working out as a nifty little smokescreen for something thats been festering for a long ass time.

Tell you what, I 100% agree that it doesn't appear either side is trying very hard to get a deal done, but maybe they would if both parties laid all their cards on the table.  

[Blarg]

29 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

Why can’t the governors allow 33% of seats occupied at the games?   That should pretty much insure two empty seats out of every three, which has to be close enough to 6 feet?

You want to be the socially distanced guy cheering from the Uecker seats? How about the usher that has to tell people they can't sit in their season tickets seat because there are too many people who in those rows. I'm sure the Diamond Club ticket holders would be happy to sit in the view level. 

You can't simplify the solution to fans participating.

 

 

[yk9001]

2 hours ago, floplag said:

Baseball used to be about the fans.

What year was that?

[Inside Pitch]

5 minutes ago, RendZone said:

If they can’t live on that, F them.

The average salary for a player in the MLB stood at 4.36 million U.S. dollars in 2019.

Make sure to hold up a sign that says F them next time you're at a game.    

[Inside Pitch]

3 minutes ago, yk9001 said:

What year was that?

I believe it was 18never.

[Blarg]

2 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Make sure to hold up a sign that says F them next time you're at a game.    

Claude did come up with the Hamiltown sign.

[Claude]

7 minutes ago, yk9001 said:

What year was that?

If the fans decided to just forget about baseball, stopped attending, stopped watching,  buying their products and paying to watch them on TV, MLB would be out of business. They’ll never admit it but it’s true. 

Edited May 28, 2020 by RendZone

[Claude]

4 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

next time you're at a game.    

Just leave it at that.

[Claude]

6 minutes ago, Blarg said:

Claude did come up with the Hamiltown sign.

I misspelled HAMILCLOWN. My bad.

[DMVol]

19 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Sorry did you take offense?  That wasn't my intention so much as I was trying to appeal to your understanding of situations like this.   

But fine --  what we do doesn't matter but it seems your stated agenda of seeking a fair deal is ignoring the one sided nature of this particular situation while my "advocating" is trying to actually be fair...    Sorry, but there is nothing equitable about this...   That's the core of this entire BS and it's anything but a new problem.   The pandemic is working out as a nifty little smokescreen for something thats been festering for a long ass time.

Tell you what, I 100% agree that it doesn't appear either side is trying very hard to get a deal done, but maybe they would if both parties laid all their cards on the table.  

Not offense taken, I just don't think it is that simple....baseball owners aren't the only private employers who won't open their books....That's pretty routine...I admit that not opening the books makes it difficult in this particular situation but I don't think it means a deal can't be done. Just not sure that either side is trying very hard, with a new CBA  just around the corner.....If they don't make a deal, the fallout for both sides won't be pretty....and it shouldn't be....

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

14 minutes ago, Randy Gradishar said:

Really it comes to the fact that the players are just trying to honor their agreements, and the owners are trying to fuck them over fan attendance. Even Derek Jeter never had the balls to try that before, so why now?

You've mentioned this more than once but agreements seemed to go out the window for this season when the stay in place orders resulted in the season not starting.  Perhaps I've missed it but through what I've read there's been no mention of the owners being liable for the salaries or the players liable to play unless they reach an agreement outside of what the league agreed to pay players while they aren't playing.  Even if either side had any kind of recourse that would only make the entire situation more contentious and put them on a terrible path with the CBA expiring December 2021.  Neither side has tried any of this before because it's uncharted territory. 

[Stradling]

37 minutes ago, Blarg said:

This is not apples to apples comparison. The money that even MLB minimum players get is well beyond executive salaries. The money the mid tier and top tier gets is staggering. At some point their accountability comes into question given the frivolity of their occupation. Baseball and all sports are frivolous ventures for public amusement. 

Yes.  

[Stradling]

19 minutes ago, RendZone said:

If the fans decided to just forget about baseball, stopped attending, stopped watching,  buying their products and paying to watch them on TV, MLB would be out of business. They’ll never admit it but it’s true. 

No shit.  Just about every single one of us work in an industry where that would be the case.  If people stopped going to INO I would be out of a job.  If people stopped watching ABC Blarg would be out of a job.  If people stopped suing the lawyers would be out of a job.  Of course all of the players and owners know this and if told it was going to happen, they would admit they would be out of business.  

[Inside Pitch]

As bad as this tweet may seem -- this is pretty common at draft time every year.   Going to be interesting if this gets Rosenthal'ed into something bigger.

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

42 minutes ago, Randy Gradishar said:

But just logically, why should fan attendance affect player salaries when it never has before? In 2018 all I heard was that baseball was fine due to TV contracts.

Depending on what you read or believe ticket sales account for about 1/3 of MLB revenue.  Regardless of exactly how much they account for revenue isn't all due to TV contracts but that appears to be the biggest piece of it while teams have different agreements with the top 5 teams bringing in almost 5x as much as the bottom 5 before the impact of revenue sharing.  The revenue sharing component which is made up of national television rights, merchandising, streaming, luxury tax, etc. all of which is impacted by the current situation.   

39 minutes ago, Randy Gradishar said:

The Angles increased in value tenfold in the time it took a player to pass ARod in nominal pay.

Obviously an oversimplification, but it seems hard to believe that player salaries have followed the same curve as owners' income.

Revenues are going to be the primary driver of budgets while some teams choose to have low payrolls like Tampa who according to Forbes had a higher operating income than the Yankees last year.  According to various sites comparing 2010 to 2019 total team salaries increased by 50%, the average salary increased by 45% and revenues increased by 70%.  Take all of that for what it's worth because as others have mentioned no one besides the owners have the full picture.  That said like any private business they aren't required to give their employees any more than what's agreed to and in the case of MLB that's where the MLBPA and CBA.  I don't take either side but both seemed to have done pretty well over the last 10 years and it's better than the average fan can say. 

[Angels in 2030]

Owners will ultimately win in this game because there's only 30 of them and they know how to keep their mouth shut.  They also have other businesses to run, operate and make money in.  They know that there are just way too many players who can't help themselves but to verbally crap all over themselves in these situations and put public opinion in their corner.  And eventually, Joe Public will start complaining saying dumb things like if they can't be happy playing for X millions then F-them.  Meanwhile owners are laughing in their mansions and playing on secret price increases to parking, peanuts, beer, dogs, etc.  It's just a matter of time.     

[Claude]

 

[Claude]

The whole situation is crazy. I can’t blame the owners and I can’t blame the players. I just hope that if and when they eventually do return that they can do it amicably. They really do need to be on the same page to make sure that the future of baseball is a greater product than it was.

Edited May 29, 2020 by RendZone

[Lou]

I find it interesting that the amount of money the owners make in other sports is never huge deal.

[Lou]

9 hours ago, Randy Gradishar said:

The Angles increased in value tenfold in the time it took a player to pass ARod in nominal pay.

Obviously an oversimplification, but it seems hard to believe that player salaries have followed the same curve as owners' income.

Owners invest a ton of money for the opportunity to make more money. 

[Lou]

12 minutes ago, Randy Gradishar said:

And NBA salaries have been exploding in recent years, while MLB contracts have seemingly been going down.

Trout getting Trevor Cahill money is a joke.

NBA owners pay  fewer players in their organizations. 

Try using total salary costs.