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June 29, 2004
Agreeing With Angelos
The Washington Post has just completed a three-part series on the way Major League Baseball works behind the scenes, and why the way they do business is conspiring against the Washington area ever getting another ball club of its own. It's an exhaustive examination, and confirms a lot of what I've written here before, including that the presence of a team in the Washington area would devestate the Orioles broadcast television revenues. Part I: Bud Selig, Milwaukee and Miller Park Part II: The Saga Of The Expos Part III: Bud Selig and Peter Angelos Buried inside Part III of the series, is a passage all sports fans who like to take side in labor wars ought to pay close attention to: "The more he dealt with players, and the longer he was in the game, the more he understood [that] these aren't dock workers," said one executive who worked under Angelos during this period and requested anonymity because he still does business with the Orioles. Time and again, I've seen owners of sports teams demonized for their unending greed and avarice, taking advantage of the poor players who, after all, are the stars of the game. But what we need to understand, no matter what the sport may be, that labor disputes in this area are normally between the haves, and the have mores. Any resemblance to traditional labor negotiations are entirely coincidental. UPDATE: Welcome to readers of David Pinto's Baseball Musings. I'm glad you're here. Though we mostly cover the NHL here at Off Wing, we try our hand at any and all sports. And since we're based in Washington, D.C., we've been following the saga of the Expos quite closely over the last two years. One point for David -- in reference to my comment about television revenues and the Orioles, he says that the Birds would have nothing to fear from a Washington-based team as long as that team wasn't given exclusive rights to the television markets the Orioles now serve. I'm afraid I have to disagree. If neither Baltimore nor Washington had a team, which metro area would you choose to locate it? Despite the fact that the Federal government considers the two cities to be part of the same Metropolitan Statistical Area, folks who live here know that we're pretty much two separate and distinct metro areas. And from the perspective of a television advertiser, the Washington area is far more attractive. Compared to Baltimore it's better educated, and far more affluent. Drop a ball team in D.C., and all of a sudden those regional advertisers have another option. Supply of ad space will rise, the price will fall -- and the Orioles will experience downward pressure on a formerly ancillary revenue stream that they've come to count on. David's comparison with the New York area is inexact as well. Not only is it far larger than Baltimore-Washington, but there are a number of discrete areas where each team is dominant in terms of fan base (the Mets have always been stronger on Long Island, while the Yankees absolutely dominate North Jersey). But here, the two teams will immediately compete for the same set of affluent fans and the same television advertisers.
Eric
06:57 AM
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» Washington, Selig and the Expos from Baseball Musings Tracked on June 29, 2004 11:29 AM CommentsI saw part of yesterday's Post story, where they again trotted out the "baseball is exempt from the antitrust laws, and that's the source of their power" argument. The mainstream media never seems to realize that baseball doesn't have a legal monopoly--only an exemption from prosecution. The union has the monopoly. Say there's a strike, and a group of "middle class" players want to cross the picket lines. Federal law prohibits them from forming their own union or negotiating without a CBA. The union "owns" their bargaining rights in perpetuity, unless a majority votes to decertify the union. That's not democracy, that's mob rule. The real source of the owners' illegitimate power is publicly-financed ballparks. In the absence of government intervention, it would be substantially easier for a rival baseball league to form and compete with MLB if economic circumstances warranted it. But who will put up the private capital to compete with government-built stadiums? Just look at how long it took for a private space flight to get going in the face of NASA's publicly-financed dominance. Posted by: at June 29, 2004 11:06 AM Sorry, but they're going to DC. I live in Las Vegas, and unless they're going to play IN MY BACKYARD, there's no place for them to play. It's questionable whether the market can support MLB, and besides that, it's highly doubtful the sports books would turn off betting on baseball. The alternative may be Portland, I guess. Good for them. But no matter what Angelos says, I believe the Expos are going to DC. Posted by: at June 29, 2004 12:36 PM "Time and again, I've seen owners of sports teams demonized for their unending greed and avarice, taking advantage of the poor players who, after all, are the stars of the game." Citation(s)? And it's not like the players never get demonized. My own sense is that, true, sportswriters tend to defend the players against this demonization; but generally I think they make sure to point out that it is a bunch of rich dudes fighting. "But what we need to understand, no matter what the sport may be, that labor disputes in this area are normally between the haves, and the have mores. Any resemblance to traditional labor negotiations are entirely coincidental." And? Look, we all know that it's not 1970. Player/owner disputes are no longer questions of justice, just questions of how to divide the pie. But I'm still willing to be biased in favor of the group whose skills I pay to see, not the group who pulled off the Jeffery Loria sweetheart deal, the attempted Carl Pohlad contraction payoff, etc. Posted by: at June 30, 2004 12:46 AM You'll actually see more sports reporting sympathetic to the owners than the players. After all, the local sports franchise owner will be around longer for said journalist to deal with than athlete playing for that franchise. The number of times owners have been called "stingy" probably doesn't come anywhere close to the times players have been called "greedy." If athletes are similar to actors, why can't teams be responsible for payroll -- no luxury taxes, salary caps -- in the same way studios are in entertainment. Angelos and his fellow owners can't have it both ways, at least not in terms of credibility. Posted by: at June 30, 2004 02:08 AM Post a commentThanks for signing in, . (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |