Yanks get Mark Teixeira

[OldFatGuy]

I don't get the whole "no athlete is worth that much money" feelings I'm getting in this thread and I've gotten my whole life in various other situations.

I want someone to answer me one thing.

Why is NOT OK for the players to make dollars with lots of zeroes, but it's perfectly fine for owners to make dollars with even more zeroes. If Tex isn't making $180M, and the Yankees players aren't making $200M per year, then Hank is making another $200M per year. Why is that OK and it's not for Tex (or any other player) to make it?? I pay to watch the PLAYERS, not the OWNERS.

And someone mentioned communist above. Which is "more" communist, letting the free market work and players get the salary the free market will pay, or putting a forced "salary cap" limiting the free market choices?

Some odd arguments, I've gotta say.

[TheNamelessPoet]

I don't get the whole "no athlete is worth that much money" feelings I'm getting in this thread and I've gotten my whole life in various other situations.

I want someone to answer me one thing.

Why is NOT OK for the players to make dollars with lots of zeroes, but it's perfectly fine for owners to make dollars with even more zeroes. If Tex isn't making $180M, and the Yankees players aren't making $200M per year, then Hank is making another $200M per year. Why is that OK and it's not for Tex (or any other player) to make it?? I pay to watch the PLAYERS, not the OWNERS.

And someone mentioned communist above. Which is "more" communist, letting the free market work and players get the salary the free market will pay, or putting a forced "salary cap" limiting the free market choices?

Some odd arguments, I've gotta say.

OFG u have opened my eyes with the bolded statement. I recind my comments above on having a cap

[OldFatGuy]

OFG u have opened my eyes with the bolded statement. I recind my comments above on having a cap

LOL, I didn't mean to make you recind your comments, Poet ! !

I just thought using the word "communist" was a funny way of making the argument.

FTR, I too, think baseball needs to do SOMETHING about competitive balance, or competitive imbalance IMO. Yeah, last year Tampa became the one odd exception, while the Pirates and Royals remain the annual rule. It doesn't change the fact, and it is a fact, that baseball has a competitive balance issue.

I don't like the idea of "caps" because there real, and sole, purpose isn't to remedy competitive balance, it's to enrich owners. They can't "sell" the cap that way, but make no mistake, that's what the owner's love of a cap is for: to make them even richer.

My idea is probably a lot like communism too, in a way. IMO the way baseball (and all sports, mostly) runs as 30 different and extinct businesses is wrong anyway. In no other business, is it imperative that your "competitors" survive. No, IMO, sports like baseball should be run as one entity, with 30 branches. I would love to see it that way, with 100% revenue sharing for everything involving the games over air (TV, radio, internet), and teams can extinguish their revenues by home ticket sales and merchandise sales.

Then, with the revenues more evenly shared, let each branch decide to compete and bid on the open market for players.

I know it's never going to happen, but I think this makes the most sense.

As far as a salary cap, the only that's going to do is limit players making money and letting owners make more. That's the SOLE outcome of a salary cap.

And as for a floor in the current luxury tax system, I can certainly see that argument. It would certainly piss me off if I were Hank and paid the Marlins $20M in luxury tax money only so that owner could increase his bank account by $20M. That would piss me off to no end, thank you very much.

[OldFatGuy]

and teams can extinguish their revenues by home ticket sales and merchandise sales.

I can't believe I typed that.

[kenny1234]

I don't like the idea of "caps" because there real, and sole, purpose isn't to remedy competitive balance, it's to enrich owners.
....
As far as a salary cap, the only that's going to do is limit players making money and letting owners make more. That's the SOLE outcome of a salary cap.

First, a cap may or may not enrich the owners - it depends on where it is set. For example, the NHL salary cap is reset each year to be a specific percentage of league revenue (I think it is 58%). This percentage must be paid out in salaries - and a salary cap/floor system are part of making that work. Deciding on the percentage is what determines the profitability of a cap for the owners.

Second, you can call a salary cap communist if you want. And I wouldn't support one at all - if an owner such as Loria were free to move his team anywhere he wants - including into New York or Boston. What other business exists where your presence in a market means that no one else can move there? Why do the Nationals have to pay the Orioles if we are in a free market system? Baseball isn't a free market - the teams are not business competitors in any normal sense so the usual logic that an owner can do whatever he wants doesn't make sense.

[OldFatGuy]

First, a cap may or may not enrich the owners - it depends on where it is set. For example, the NHL salary cap is reset each year to be a specific percentage of league revenue (I think it is 58%). This percentage must be paid out in salaries - and a salary cap/floor system are part of making that work. Deciding on the percentage is what determines the profitability of a cap for the owners.

Second, you can call a salary cap communist if you want. And I wouldn't support one at all - if an owner such as Loria were free to move his team anywhere he wants - including into New York or Boston. What other business exists where your presence in a market means that no one else can move there? Why do the Nationals have to pay the Orioles if we are in a free market system? Baseball isn't a free market - the teams are not business competitors in any normal sense so the usual logic that an owner can do whatever he wants doesn't make sense.

Second, I know it's not a business as usual, I think I stated that, plainly.

And first, you can call it any way you like it, but there's one reason, and one reason only, that owners are for caps and players are against them. Players get less, owners get more.

[ohms_law]

And again, the players are just as much a business entity as the teams are anyway. All of the attempts to draw parallels between our individual salaries and a baseball (or football, basketball, or hockey for that matter) players contract are fallacious.

[Arctic Blast]

I don't get the whole "no athlete is worth that much money" feelings I'm getting in this thread and I've gotten my whole life in various other situations.

I want someone to answer me one thing.

Why is NOT OK for the players to make dollars with lots of zeroes, but it's perfectly fine for owners to make dollars with even more zeroes. If Tex isn't making $180M, and the Yankees players aren't making $200M per year, then Hank is making another $200M per year. Why is that OK and it's not for Tex (or any other player) to make it?? I pay to watch the PLAYERS, not the OWNERS.

And someone mentioned communist above. Which is "more" communist, letting the free market work and players get the salary the free market will pay, or putting a forced "salary cap" limiting the free market choices?

Some odd arguments, I've gotta say.

First off, show me where a cap being in place has limited the ability of star players in football OR hockey to get massive dollar figures? It hasn't.

Secondly, and this is a general question, why is the WRONG for the owners apparently to make money? News flash...if they don't see a chance to profit, they aren't going to want to be owners for very long. If you want GOOD owners, ones who won't pull the crap that a Jeffrey Loria pulls, you need to give them an incentive to BECOME an owner in the first place. Cost certainty is a pretty nice incentive.

[OldFatGuy]

Secondly, and this is a general question, why is the WRONG for the owners apparently to make money?

I never said it was wrong for the owners to make money. I said I sense in a lot of these discussions that somehow it's wrong for the players to make obscene amounts of money, so therefore it must be ok for owners to make obscene amounts of money. I don't get that. I pay to see the players, not the owners. And the owners should make money. Baseball is raking in the dough.

I just don't get the anti-player attitude in comments like "No athlete is worth $25 million per year." Yet I never see the same comment of "No owner is worth $25 million per year."

Frankly, I'd only need to make $25 million for one year, and I'd be happy for life. But just as frankly, if all the top players "only" made $10 million per year, then the owners would be making the extra $15 million per year. Why is that not just as obscene?

To me, if the game is going to rake in obscene amounts of money (and it is), and the reason it rakes in these moneys is because of the players (and it is), then it should be the players that make the obsence amounts. If an owner, which doesn't require a great deal of skill other than just being rich to start out with, makes $10 million per year just being an owner, what's wrong with that? Why should he get the extra millions/billions that come in if the players don't get it?

[HoustonGM]

First off, show me where a cap being in place has limited the ability of star players in football OR hockey to get massive dollar figures? It hasn't.

Which just goes to show, in baseball, how will it help the small market teams? They won't suddenly decide to spend more. It might make lesser players more affordable, but that's not what everyone's whining about anyway.

As for the second question, what OFG said.

[Arctic Blast]

Which just goes to show, in baseball, how will it help the small market teams? They won't suddenly decide to spend more. It might make lesser players more affordable, but that's not what everyone's whining about anyway.

As for the second question, what OFG said.

It allows the STAR players to make star money...and frankly, that has never ever been the problem. Stars generate income for a franchise. What HAS become the problem is B-Grade players getting A-Grade contracts. THAT is where things tend to help smaller market teams. Seriously, is AJ Burnett an ace? No. Yet he's now making ace money.

As for the owners, as I've said I'd also like to see some rules put in place for them. Hell, call it a 'Betterment of the League' policy. If you aren't putting resources in to your team, you'd better damn well have a reason like a lack of fan support. And if THAT'S the case, and has been for some time, move the damn team. If, however, it's because you're taking revenue you ARE making from fan support and putting it all in the bank, see ya, you lose your franchise.

Also, they're entitled to make as much as they can, but with one caveat...no more bitching and whining like a sucky little 6 year old that 'the taxpayers' need to buy you a freaking stadium. Use the money that the taxpayers have ALREADY given you by buying tickets and everything else at your sporting events. Hell, if you wanna get government sanction to put a small sales tax on tickets, etc., that's fine, but 100% of it HAS to go towards a stadium fund. No more BS, though, with public money building a pro sports facility.

[HoustonGM]

It allows the STAR players to make star money...and frankly, that has never ever been the problem. Stars generate income for a franchise. What HAS become the problem is B-Grade players getting A-Grade contracts. THAT is where things tend to help smaller market teams. Seriously, is AJ Burnett an ace? No. Yet he's now making ace money.

He's not making ace money, though. The standards have changed. A true ace now makes upwards of $20 million on the open market - see C.C. Sabathia and Johan Santana.

Basically agreed with the rest of your post, though.

[Arctic Blast]

Just to be totally clear here, I'm not totally lined up against what a lot of you are saying. I would just prefer to try to find a system where every team truly CAN be on an even playing field...it's up to them to make the right choices. If they don't, they fail...but they don't 'fail' because their three best players come up for free agency and they simply can't keep up with the big boys, so they lose 2 of them. I guess that when it comes to sports, I'm a Commie.

Well, that and it makes it much easier to point out the true idiot GM's and mock them endlessly.

[HoustonGM]

I definitely agree with that. I just don't think that a salary cap is the way to do it.

[Arctic Blast]

I definitely agree with that. I just don't think that a salary cap is the way to do it.

Okay, well I'm definitely open to hearing alternatives.