MLB Heading To A Lockout

[premium1981]

"They're asking for a cost-of-living raise"

HAHA!

[NeedChapmans]

Originally Posted by trixstar

https://theathletic.com/3152480/2022...ort-right-now/

"They have the money."

That's what you say when one has no argument to make. I am happy to entertain the idea that the league is ripping off the players but it doesn't get very far when you compare their revenue structure to every other league, including the NBA.

What justification is there to say they make a touch more than the revenue share in the NBA (as a whole), but they need more? It's a very very very hard sell.

[Stech36]

Originally Posted by NeedChapmans

"They have the money."

That's what you say when one has no argument to make. I am happy to entertain the idea that the league is ripping off the players but it doesn't get very far when you compare their revenue structure to every other league, including the NBA.

What justification is there to say they make a touch more than the revenue share in the NBA (as a whole), but they need more? It's a very very very hard sell.

Yeah this is disgustingly pro player.

I’ve been more in the middle through this negotiation, but leaned more pro player once they caved on Saturday and the MLB still acted like their offer was ridiculous.

But an article like this is just gibberish

[pewe]

Originally Posted by Stech36

Yeah this is disgustingly pro player.

I’ve been more in the middle through this negotiation, but leaned more pro player once they caved on Saturday and the MLB still acted like their offer was ridiculous.

But an article like this is just gibberish

I feel similarly


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[JRX]

Originally Posted by NeedChapmans

"They have the money."

That's what you say when one has no argument to make. I am happy to entertain the idea that the league is ripping off the players but it doesn't get very far when you compare their revenue structure to every other league, including the NBA.

What justification is there to say they make a touch more than the revenue share in the NBA (as a whole), but they need more? It's a very very very hard sell.

There is nothing more phony than the nba's popularity. That league's pay structure only exists because espn is still in something like 80m homes. Nobody is watching regular season games start to finish. Their finals ratings also suck compared to decades ago. People watch highlights online and follow the reality show that is players. You want mlb to be more like the nba where guys quit on their teams and force trades?

[NeedChapmans]

Originally Posted by JRX

There is nothing more phony than the nba's popularity. That league's pay structure only exists because espn is still in something like 80m homes. Nobody is watching regular season games start to finish. Their finals ratings also suck compared to decades ago. People watch highlights online and follow the reality show that is players. You want mlb to be more like the nba where guys quit on their teams and force trades?

I used the NBA only to show the MLB pays on average 1.1% higher in revenue share. NFL is 4% higher, NHL 4.3% higher.

Bottom line here is that 41% of revenue is being given to the players. That number is larger than any number I'm aware of, in any sport, in any industry in this country. I manage a company and if I paid 41% of company revenues in salary, I'd be out the door tomorrow. AND it's even crazier when you consider that the 41% does not comprise all company salaries, just player salaries. How am I supposed to believe the players are getting a raw deal when it's probably the best deal of anyone, anywhere?

Secondarily, every negotiation ends with the players carving out that much more. When is it going to be enough? It's one thing to want to restructure how the revenue is distributed between the players but when you look over the last many CBA's, players have always come out with a higher cut overall (since I've been alive anyway). Is there a % where the owners get to say "no more"?

This negotiation doesn't seem fair to me from an objective point of view. Yes, you can make the argument that the owners are lying about all revenue and yes, you can probably still make the case that the players are being underpaid for what they bring in but those arguments don[t hold up when you compare the MLB to any other company in this country. Cuz players have it better than everyone.

[JRX]

Originally Posted by NeedChapmans

I used the NBA only to show the MLB pays on average 1.1% higher in revenue share. NFL is 4% higher, NHL 4.3% higher.

Bottom line here is that 41% of revenue is being given to the players. That number is larger than any number I'm aware of, in any sport, in any industry in this country. I manage a company and if I paid 41% of company revenues in salary, I'd be out the door tomorrow. AND it's even crazier when you consider that the 41% does not comprise all company salaries, just player salaries. How am I supposed to believe the players are getting a raw deal when it's probably the best deal of anyone, anywhere?

Secondarily, every negotiation ends with the players carving out that much more. When is it going to be enough? It's one thing to want to restructure how the revenue is distributed between the players but when you look over the last many CBA's, players have always come out with a higher cut overall (since I've been alive anyway). Is there a % where the owners get to say "no more"?

This negotiation doesn't seem fair to me from an objective point of view. Yes, you can make the argument that the owners are lying about all revenue and yes, you can probably still make the case that the players are being underpaid for what they bring in but those arguments don[t hold up when you compare the MLB to any other company in this country. Cuz players have it better than everyone.

You cannot compare salaries for professional athletes to other jobs. First of all regardless of how great you think you are at your job, you're far more replaceable than a pro athlete. And that includes at the ceo level. Second, nobody is buying a product because of the employees. With sports, the sole reason you're there is because of the players. Nobody cares who the owners are. They care about the team, not the guy who inherited it.

[NeedChapmans]

Originally Posted by JRX

You cannot compare salaries for professional athletes to other jobs. First of all regardless of how great you think you are at your job, you're far more replaceable than a pro athlete. And that includes at the ceo level. Second, nobody is buying a product because of the employees. With sports, the sole reason you're there is because of the players. Nobody cares who the owners are. They care about the team, not the guy who inherited it.

I also compared them to all other professional athletes. MLB pays their players the highest % of the gate. NBA, NFL, NHL all similar in terms of revenue share but MLB the highest.

Seems fair.

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by Stech36

Yeah this is disgustingly pro player.

I’ve been more in the middle through this negotiation, but leaned more pro player once they caved on Saturday and the MLB still acted like their offer was ridiculous.

But an article like this is just gibberish

Those demands that they "caved" on were never going to be met. They knew that a year ago, but they asked anyway. If someone works a regular job and says they want a raise, plus a Porche, you cannot applaud them for dropping their request of a Porche. It shouldn't have been part of the negotiations to begin with. It continually circles right back to what I have been saying the entire time. They were asking for too much to begin with. They didn't want to improve things for the players. They wanted to stick it to the owners. There is a difference.

[pewe]

Originally Posted by JRX

You cannot compare salaries for professional athletes to other jobs. First of all regardless of how great you think you are at your job, you're far more replaceable than a pro athlete. And that includes at the ceo level. Second, nobody is buying a product because of the employees. With sports, the sole reason you're there is because of the players. Nobody cares who the owners are. They care about the team, not the guy who inherited it.

If the pro athletes aren’t replaceable, then why are they belly aching about some teams successfully replacing high paid players with lower paid (and lower skilled) alternatives, and winning while doing so???

BTW you may be overestimating how easy it is to replace some people at work. Between institutional and cultural knowledge, system / technical direction knowledge/leadership, and things like customer/partner/channel relationships, it is challenging to lose some employees. It’s unlikely to quickly / successfully replace them with someone, even if that other someone has same problem better intrinsic capability - between time to find a candidate, to time to ramp them up, you can lose significant momentum in whatever that lost person owned for a year or more.


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[splitrockgamer]

Originally Posted by JRX

You cannot compare salaries for professional athletes to other jobs. First of all regardless of how great you think you are at your job, you're far more replaceable than a pro athlete. And that includes at the ceo level. Second, nobody is buying a product because of the employees. With sports, the sole reason you're there is because of the players. Nobody cares who the owners are. They care about the team, not the guy who inherited it.

I don't really agree with this premise. Are people not going to buy cubs jerseys this year because all of their players were traded away? Just my opinion, but I think a fan or two might tune into a cubs game this year. I think you're WAY undervaluing the brand power these franchises have, especially in baseball. We all know it from a card prospective, Bobby Witt Jr is worth 10x if he has pinstripes on..Even if the MLB said alright we are grabbing scabs they probably wouldn't even lose much market share because the jerseys are who most fans cheer for.

[pewe]

Originally Posted by NeedChapmans

I used the NBA only to show the MLB pays on average 1.1% higher in revenue share. NFL is 4% higher, NHL 4.3% higher.

Bottom line here is that 41% of revenue is being given to the players. That number is larger than any number I'm aware of, in any sport, in any industry in this country. I manage a company and if I paid 41% of company revenues in salary, I'd be out the door tomorrow. AND it's even crazier when you consider that the 41% does not comprise all company salaries, just player salaries. How am I supposed to believe the players are getting a raw deal when it's probably the best deal of anyone, anywhere?

Secondarily, every negotiation ends with the players carving out that much more. When is it going to be enough? It's one thing to want to restructure how the revenue is distributed between the players but when you look over the last many CBA's, players have always come out with a higher cut overall (since I've been alive anyway). Is there a % where the owners get to say "no more"?

This negotiation doesn't seem fair to me from an objective point of view. Yes, you can make the argument that the owners are lying about all revenue and yes, you can probably still make the case that the players are being underpaid for what they bring in but those arguments don[t hold up when you compare the MLB to any other company in this country. Cuz players have it better than everyone.

Players take >50% of the league revenue. MLB takes 80% of that, for sure, but the other 20% that goes to MiLB is still revenue taken by players.


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[JRX]

Originally Posted by pewe

If the pro athletes aren’t replaceable, then why are they belly aching about some teams successfully replacing high paid players with lower paid (and lower skilled) alternatives, and winning while doing so???

BTW you may be overestimating how easy it is to replace some people at work. Between institutional and cultural knowledge, system / technical direction knowledge/leadership, and things like customer/partner/channel relationships, it is challenging to lose some employees. It’s unlikely to quickly / successfully replace them with someone, even if that other someone has same problem better intrinsic capability - between time to find a candidate, to time to ramp them up, you can lose significant momentum in whatever that lost person owned for a year or more.


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That's why god invented consultants. Regardless of how much institutional knowledge you think you have you're still replaceable.

[Silent George]

Originally Posted by Stech36

Yeah this is disgustingly pro player.

I’ve been more in the middle through this negotiation, but leaned more pro player once they caved on Saturday and the MLB still acted like their offer was ridiculous.

But an article like this is just gibberish

Agreed. The article sucks and ends up hurting the cause because it’s so easy to see through.

And it would have been so easy to write a good pro-player article with all that’s happened lately.

Makes me think he doesn’t actually understand the negotiations, and just wants to pick a side - or he thinks his readers are too stupid to understand.

[Stech36]

Originally Posted by premium1981

Those demands that they "caved" on were never going to be met. They knew that a year ago, but they asked anyway. If someone works a regular job and says they want a raise, plus a Porche, you cannot applaud them for dropping their request of a Porche. It shouldn't have been part of the negotiations to begin with. It continually circles right back to what I have been saying the entire time. They were asking for too much to begin with. They didn't want to improve things for the players. They wanted to stick it to the owners. There is a difference.

I agree, but they went from a ridiculous proposal to a reasonable one and were still met with outrage from the owners. (According to some sources). Adding playoff expansion and advertisement patches to the uniforms should lead to more revenue going to the players. It will make the teams much more money.

[pewe]

Originally Posted by JRX

That's why god invented consultants. Regardless of how much institutional knowledge you think you have you're still replaceable.

Sounds like some shoddy consulting… in my experience, the harder issue is keeping the good employees. Good consultants that are right sizing or combining organizations identify key talent, and emphasize retention as the first goal. It’s why acquisitions and reorgs usually have a ton of retention bonuses and earn outs for key employees. You lose those people, and you’ll often have dug a hole too deep to recover from.


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[Silent George]

Originally Posted by pewe

If the pro athletes aren’t replaceable, then why are they belly aching about some teams successfully replacing high paid players with lower paid (and lower skilled) alternatives, and winning while doing so???

BTW you may be overestimating how easy it is to replace some people at work. Between institutional and cultural knowledge, system / technical direction knowledge/leadership, and things like customer/partner/channel relationships, it is challenging to lose some employees. It’s unlikely to quickly / successfully replace them with someone, even if that other someone has same problem better intrinsic capability - between time to find a candidate, to time to ramp them up, you can lose significant momentum in whatever that lost person owned for a year or more.


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This isn’t happening. The closest it comes is complaining that a team like Tampa gets an enormous amount of revenue sharing, in theory to help them compete, and then doesn’t use that money on players to compete. That’s far different from what you’re positing.

The second closest is about teams tanking. Baltimore chooses not to compete at all while higher skilled players sit on the market.

1) it bothers me that I’ve heard players bring up Tampa in particular. Tampa is winning and while they are winning they clearly still can’t draw an attendance. Tampa management should be praised for their competitiveness, signing Franco long term, etc. it would be way too easy to not sign anyone and wait out the Tampa clock if no one is going to show up either way.

2) tanking sucks, and needs to be addressed, and I don’t think the latest proposals come close. It’s not going away. But purposely losing is a bad thing in any sport. We’ve all seen who the villain was in Major League.

[JRX]

Originally Posted by pewe

Sounds like some shoddy consulting… in my experience, the harder issue is keeping the good employees. Good consultants that are right sizing or combining organizations identify key talent, and emphasize retention as the first goal. It’s why acquisitions and reorgs usually have a ton of retention bonuses and earn outs for key employees. You lose those people, and you’ll often have dug a hole too deep to recover from.


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You're missing the point. Do companies want to retain key people, yes. However, if you think you're untouchable because you have institutional knowledge i.e. "they can't run this place without me, they would never fire me" you're going to be in for a rude awakening one day.

[pewe]

Originally Posted by JRX

You're missing the point. Do companies want to retain key people, yes. However, if you think you're untouchable because you have institutional knowledge i.e. "they can't run this place without me, they would never fire me" you're going to be in for a rude awakening one day.

I was just trying to assuage the notion that pro players are somehow less replaceable than employees in other professions. There would be pain for some losses in both places. There are also some players in baseball, and employees in other jobs, who are more expendable.


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[pewe]

Originally Posted by Silent George

This isn’t happening. The closest it comes is complaining that a team like Tampa gets an enormous amount of revenue sharing, in theory to help them compete, and then doesn’t use that money on players to compete. That’s far different from what you’re positing.

The second closest is about teams tanking. Baltimore chooses not to compete at all while higher skilled players sit on the market.

1) it bothers me that I’ve heard players bring up Tampa in particular. Tampa is winning and while they are winning they clearly still can’t draw an attendance. Tampa management should be praised for their competitiveness, signing Franco long term, etc. it would be way too easy to not sign anyone and wait out the Tampa clock if no one is going to show up either way.

2) tanking sucks, and needs to be addressed, and I don’t think the latest proposals come close. It’s not going away. But purposely losing is a bad thing in any sport. We’ve all seen who the villain was in Major League.

My point is some players are sore that strategies have changed, and reduced their value. Folks like Tampa, A’s, Red Sox, etc. are identifying that an average player with tenure that might cost $5MM+ /season can be replaced with a couple cheaper players that have holes in their game, but are used in a focused fashion to just emphasize their strength and limit exposing their weakness.

The one thing I’m surprised hasn’t been focused on as much for players: roster size. If they want to be paid more, they should have focused on reversing roster size increases. Those increases are the greatest contributor to lower salaries. In fact, owners should try to get a couple more player slots, and they could use the specialist strategy even more successfully, I bet, and further lower cost to get to similar or better outcomes.


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[maconithappen]

Originally Posted by regularp

Miami, Tampa, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Oakland would be the teams to watch.

One of the two Florida teams would be my guess if it happens.

Tampa and Oakland would be first that come to mind. I just can't figure out why Florida and California teams struggle like this. They're baseball states!

Originally Posted by premium1981

"They're asking for a cost-of-living raise"

HAHA!

Poor things. Just can't make it these days.

[Boo]

First week of games will be canceled tonight/tomorrow, no matter what the posters on BO have been saying for weeks.

[Silent George]

Originally Posted by pewe

My point is some players are sore that strategies have changed, and reduced their value. Folks like Tampa, A’s, Red Sox, etc. are identifying that an average player with tenure that might cost $5MM+ /season can be replaced with a couple cheaper players that have holes in their game, but are used in a focused fashion to just emphasize their strength and limit exposing their weakness.

The one thing I’m surprised hasn’t been focused on as much for players: roster size. If they want to be paid more, they should have focused on reversing roster size increases. Those increases are the greatest contributor to lower salaries. In fact, owners should try to get a couple more player slots, and they could use the specialist strategy even more successfully, I bet, and further lower cost to get to similar or better outcomes.


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The union doesn’t seem to understand what they are doing in negotiations at all, they are mad about the last contracts and yet kept the same leadership.

[hairysasquatch]

Originally Posted by Boo

First week of games will be canceled tonight/tomorrow, no matter what the posters on BO have been saying for weeks.

But I had staked everything on what BO posters have said.

[PaperAddict]

The only people I feel for are the minor leaguers.

The players should be grateful that there are owners that have invested in teams, without it the players don’t have a pot to piss in. If you want shares than buy a franchise. Just the way it is. As it stands now they’re under contract, go to work. Surprised they can’t get sued for that.