After a unanimous decision, MLB owner’s gave Commissioner Bud Selig a three-year extension through the 2012 season.
This positions Selig to become the second-longest-serving leader behind Kenesaw Landis, MLB’s first commissioner, who served from 1920-1944. The owner’s certainly didn’t vote Selig an extension for his testimony before a congressional committee criticizing baseball for its steroids problem.
Selig pushed for interleague play and got it; he pushed for wild cards in the postseason and got those too. Now he’s predicting more change.
“By the time I leave, you won’t recognize the sport,” Selig said in an interview with the AP.
MLB’s labor contract runs through the 2011 season and its national television deals with Fox, Turner Broadcasting and ESPN run through 2013. According the AP article revenue was $1.66 billion when Selig became acting commissioner. It topped $6 billion last year and is projected to top $6.5 billion this year.
That’s why the owner’s extended Selig’s contract. Don’t stir pot when the game has never been healthier financially.
However, baseball needs a jolt. I’m talking about dramatic change that would alter the game. MLB needs to take after the other three major professional sports and adopt a salary cap.
Currently baseball has a luxury tax, which is just egregious appeasement for pious fans. It’s a smokescreen, because it taxes only the Yankees and sometimes the Red Sox, redistributing some sums to lower echelons of baseball.
The only way to ensure long-term health of baseball is to take after the NFL and force teams to compete within the same monetary means. Today’s baseball operates like European football. There’s the premiereship, which could be called the American League, and then there’s the ‘B’ league, which could be called the National League.
Creating a more even keel competitiveness would benefit the whole sport. But that’s not going to happen, especially with Selig in charge, a commissioner who has presided over economic boom, only because he left steroids alone.
4 comments:
I think the change that's needed in baseball is a salary cap. I have long been a supporter of salary caps and how they have impacted professional sports, and long for the day that MLB takes a stand against the same tired franchises and their grossly overpaid players and forces them to compete as overall organizations rather than simply as four or five collections of the best talent in the land vs. all the other losers.
For the love, spread the talent around. If each franchise was forced to have 1 or 2 all-star players instead of 8 or 9 like the Yankees, Red Sox & Co. baseball would be far better for it.
Look at how that kind of excitement has fueled the NFL past MLB in almost every revenue category. Also, look at how that kind of excitement in the NBA has led to some of the best postseason basketball in decades. And, although it isn't strictly revenue driven in terms of individual salaries, look at how exciting NCAA football has become with last season's unexpected injection of parody. Yeah, I used the dreaded "P" word. Baseball thinks it's making money now, but could you imagine how amazing the game would be if 85-90% of its games were actually COMPETITIVE?!?
So, as I was reading this column, I was becoming more and more frightened. You dropped the quote from Selig from an AP article about how we wouldn't recognize the game when he was finished with it and I was so afraid you were going to call for Selig to adopt instant replay...I am so glad you didn't.
I agree that a cap is needed. The money that players can get is ridiculous. The reason I hate A-Rod is because of his agent for goodness sake. Johan Santana's contract with the Mets is going to be absurd. They're talking about paying a pitcher $160 million for what, 120 starts? That is ridiculous. Anyway, I fully agree and I hope you never call for instant replay in baseball.
I HATE Selig. He's the reason for the decline in baseball if you ask me.
I agree with the salary cap issue. It's just not that exciting to watch the same 5 teams battle it out year after year. I predict that we will see a decrease in viewership of the superbowl this year because it's the Patriots AGAIN. Not that it's not exciting, but let's face it, if you're not from boston, you're probably tired of the same team making it into the playoffs again and again. If you are turning in chances are it's for the commercials or hoping that the Giants acutally beat the "unbeatable team" in this big game.
On the other hand the reason that college football was so exciting this year was because for weeks on end the number 2 team in the country got beat! Games like Michigan v. Apalachan State didn't turn out the way they were supposed to and that was exciting! The problem with baseball is the purses of the "big market" teams are so huge that the only chance of having a "small market" competative team is to have a bunch of super hot rookies that haven't been stolen away by huge contracts yet (ex. the Marlins winning the World Series). That and Boston finally outspending their competators to win are the only memorable world series events in recent history. Wouldn't it be much cooler if every year some other team could be awesome?
Sure Selig has made sure that baseball is making money, but with an NFL type salary cap and revenue sharing plan, the possibilities of baseball money are endless. It's too bad the owners are too short sided to realize this.
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