The Players and Owners are taking a massive risk with this lockout. The 1994 labor situation with MLB really soured the fans' mood for baseball for several years. The game is on pretty good footing right now... and for both sides -- just look at how much has been spent on free agency so far in this abbreviated offseason. Why mess that up?
If MLB revenues start declining as a result of this, those teams with long big contracts will suffer the most.
Took the steroid era and chicks dig the long ball for fans to return in big numbers In the world we live in today fans are much more fickle too, people are even more emotional. If MLB loses games over this, to some extent even spring training games, the push back from the fans will be enormous and both sides will suffer
This has been the expectation for quite a while. Pressure won't start to build until end of January, but already they've cancelled the winter meetings they've got Rule 5 Draft next week which may or may not happen.
Only if MLB cancels the season, playoffs, WS. Even if spring training was delayed and a partial season happened, everything would be fine at the end of the year. Cancel the season and all hell breaks loose… and that won’t happen. That is what hurt baseball in 1994.
I don’t care. I’m not for anyone but baseball. I want a fair playing field at the end of the day. I don’t want a system that helps teams like the Dodgers who have a tv revenue deal of over 200 million a year. Pirates deal is closer to 40 million. Impossible to compete year end and year out with that type of disparity.
Yep, the Pirates used to be contenders every year before this system was setup. I'm for leveling the playing field.
The NFL has revenue sharing and they are all filthy rich. Football is different though because fans are willing to watch scabs play and player's careers are relatively short, so they pretty much had all the leverage to institute a system where the owner all win.
Especially the Dodgers and Yankees. There is a reason they always have a shot at a World Series. Dodgers have 239 million in tv revenue. Dodgers could easily without breaking a sweat field a 350 million dollar team. Brewers by comparison have a 28 million dollar deal. Astros tv deal is 70 million.
