MLB: Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money

Interesting article in Newsweek concerning Major League Baseball Advanced Media (BAM). The investment was $75 million and by the end of 2007, each club will be fully reimbursed.

"Growing at a rate of roughly 30 percent a year, BAM now takes in about $400 million in revenue."

Ca-ching.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19196667/site/newsweek/

 

yet Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Florida and Kansas City are spending at 1999 payroll levels.

 

And anyone who pays to enter any of those teams' parks is asking for it.

 

I wonder how long until the other major sports turn to BAM for their leagues?

 

And who had a better value for their dollars last year than Florida?

 

this is an interesting article. i guess it's not newsweek's territory to explore what's happening with all that revenue and why teams like the above-mentioned can get away with what they're doing.

there is absolutely no reason why MLB can't institute a salary minimum (per team).

this has nothing to do with anything but if you go to the internet archive wayback machine you'll see that the web site mlb.com used to belong to a law firm (or consulting? i don't remember. i was playing around with the wayback machine a few months ago) with those initials. i hope the firm got a hefty payout when it sold the name.

 

The problem with a salary minimum is you can have a serious rebuilding program with a lot of core players in the 0-3 service time bracket, which means they're likely all making less than $500K.

If you have a minimum, you're telling a team they have to waste money to overpay for a shitty free agent (Sean Casey, Tomo Ohka mold) who won't help the team win and will just drain resources that could be applied to signing draft choices or Latin American players. Or eating up money that could be applied to the younger players as their service time and leverage grow.

Tampa Bay had some big spending spree several years ago where they signed lousy free agents and crashed as much as ever, just with a bigger payroll.

 

Don't you think, though, that most fans who attend games are casual fans. Getting tickets from businesses, waiting for 2-for-1 days, etc. It's why all those proposed fan strikes never work.

 

I'll forgive you because I'm sure you've never been to Kauffman Stadium.

 

The only baseball building where I forgive the pure, undistilled shittiness of the product, is Wrigley, for all the obvious reasons.

GREAT beef in the right Kay Cee restaurants, though.

 

Smasher's is the correct answer, as usual. Teams have natural rebuilding cycles and at certain points it's just as important to spend on minor-league system, scouting, draft picks. The problem comes in when teams pocket the money instead of addressing system-wide needs. Combine that with bad management and you have a disaster like Milwaukee in the Selig days or a team like Pittsburgh now.