Did anybody see the owners news conference?

"I have spent more than my fair share of time at the ballpark. A good deal of the tickets are sols as season tickets. In the diamond club people buy 4 seats for the season at $200 a night. That's the only way they are sold. In any event, most of the lower level along the baselines and the club seats are sold as season tix. "


But they still average low attendance numbers, even with their nifty new stadium. Maybe if McClane invested in the product, more fans would go.


"Larry Walker, et al are from the Carribean. I had no idea. "

Most of their newer draft picks (1990 and on) have busted. They are the team that got ruined by the first strike. The reason they can't compete is because of fan loyalty, or lack thereof.

 

But he'll do it. You just don't understand Steinbrenner. And as long as you don't, you'll never get the full scope of the Yankees.

Actually, it sounds more like you're delusional than anything else. You have no grasp of business. It's easy to spend when you're *still* making a profit, NOT due to loyal fans, NOT due to attendance, but due to a local TV deal that is there because your city is 10 times as large as most other cities.

If you were so confident in the Yankees ability to succeed under a fairer system, you wouldn't be so opposed to it. There are a number of teams with better farm systems than the Yankees, with the Astros and A's being right at the top. Look at any minor league publication and look who leads the minors in talent both at the minor league level and coming to the majors year-in and year-out.

BTW, the unloyal fans of the Astros, and the loyal fans of the Yankees are the biggest reasons for the disparity.

You also apparently have no grasp of revenue structures either. Astros are mid-market, period. The TV market (not the Astros in particular - TV across the board) is around #10 in the nation. That puts them right in the middle of the local revenue structure. Now, if you'd like to propose a way for the Astros to generate an extra $100MM a year, feel free. I'm sure Drayton would be thrilled.

 

http://baseballprospectus.com/news/20020815zumsteg.shtml

Here's a slick and very unique revenue sharing proposal. Rewards teams that try to generate revenues rather than letting small crappy teams just feed off of free money.

Some of the numbers in terms of current revenues / person were interesting as well.

 

"There are a number of teams with better farm systems than the Yankees, with the Astros and A's being right at the top."

That might be because they trade away a lot of prospects. Its amazing the Yankees keep their system at a top level even with all of the trades.

"You also apparently have no grasp of revenue structures either. Astros are mid-market, period. The TV market (not the Astros in particular - TV across the board) is around #10 in the nation. That puts them right in the middle of the local revenue structure. Now, if you'd like to propose a way for the Astros to generate an extra $100MM a year, feel free. I'm sure Drayton would be thrilled."

#10 in the nation isn't in the middle. Thats the upper third. I'll say it now and I'll say it again. The Texans are the worst thing to happen to the Astros. Houston can't support 3 major teams (they can in theory--but it just won't happen), as they are near the lower side of fan support in the sports world.


I found this funny from the article-Cleveland, where they built a baseball-mad town out of nothing, gets $25MM for their good work.

Cleveland isn't a baseball-mad town. It's the winner-drived Cleveland sports frenzy. If the team wins, they go. If they don't win...they don't go. It's not like that for the Yankees, Cardinals, and Red Sox. That per capita thing is garbage, too. The broad amount of people in NY skews that amount and the broad amount of Mets, Dodgers, and Giants fans do the same.

 

Since it has been discussed so much in the past that the reason the players have to strike is so that the owners can not implement their own system in the offseason.

My question is, can the owners still do this while the players are striking? Why not write off the rest of this season, implement their own system and say...

"Take it or leave it" to the players?

DD

 

Most of the stars would leave it, in a sport driven by stars.

 

They do draw well and are a team with alot of history. But, they are a small market. They don't spend as much as George, but I'm not sure they're in the top ten either. You do realize the Yankees need the Tigers and the Orioles, right?

And, you're not a Rocket fan are you? I know this topic has nothing to do with the Rockets, but you can stick that "I excuse you" comment up your ass.

 

If the Cardinals bring in monster amounts of money, then what the Astros bring in must also be a monster amount. According to Forbes, their overall revenue is almost identical. (And actually, the Astros bring in slightly more revenue overall).

And fan loyalty is the reason the Astros don't make $214 million in revenues per season? Basically those extra 5,000 fans per game that the Yankees average are worth $95 million?

And 5,000 fans per game is the difference between great fan support and low fan support? (And if Yankee Stadium only held 41,000 fans, would their attendance average be any higher than the Astros?) Of course, Cleveland isn't a good baseball town, either, so the difference between good and not good is apparently roughly 900 fans per game.

Here's an idea. Since Houston is such a bad baseball market, let's eliminate them and all the teams with average attendance lower than the Astros for the complete 2001 season.

That would leave a league that looks like this:

AL East
New York Yankees
Baltimore Orioles

AL Central
Cleveland Indians

AL West
Seattle Mariners

NL Central
St. Louis Cardinals

NL West
Colorado Rockies
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Francisco Giants

So, we end up eliminating 22 major league teams under that scenario. Of course, since Cleveland isn't a good baseball town, either, we should probably use their attendance level to make the judgement on which teams should stay or go.

Doing that would also eliminate the St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers, Baltimore Orioles and Colorado Rockies.

So we'd then have major league baseball like this:

AL East
New York Yankees

AL West
Seattle Mariners

NL
San Francisco Giants

I think it would be tough to make a good 162 game schedule out of that, especially with only limited Interleague play.

 

If this is so true, who won "Organization of the Year" last year? Oh, that's right. The Houston Astros. I know this because some of my co-workers got to go to the f***ing ceremony in New York, and I didn't.

Yeah, it's great when YOUR team is part of the dynasty. Basically, you've just said that "competitive product = bad." That's mindblowing. The freaking Bengals can talk about winning their division this year. Things are looking up for the Clippers. So .... what about the Tigers and Devil Rays? (When people talk bout the Texans making the playoffs, you know you've got a competitive game...) The only thing dynasties are good for is to garner bandwagon fans who employ the strategy of "Can't beat 'em, join 'em." It downright sucks. Who really wants to see the same team win over and over again (besides the hometown fans)? People lose interest very quickly.

Let's talk about the Yankees, shall we? Yankee Stadium holds 57,546 fans. Keep that in mind. What was their average attendance in 1995 (year before their current run)? 24,361 fans. Good for 12th best in the league. In 1996 (when they first started their current run), they jumped to an average of 28,848 fans. That's good for 10th best. What about 1997? They were 8th best with 33,082 fans. But wait. Why aren't they #1 in attendance? After all, they won the WS the previous year. They have 8 million people in the metro area to draw fans from. What's going on? In 1998 (the second year they won), they averaged 36,940 fans at the gate. That's 7th best. In 1999 (hey, they won again!), they averaged 40,658 fans. What? Two championships in a row, and they still can't sell out? They're only 5th in attendance and not 1st? What about 2000? 40,346 fans? Huh? Attendance went down?! THEY'VE WON 3 IN A ROW! They're still 5th best, attendance-wise, and can't sell out. What about last year? Wow, the Yankees are 3rd at 40,811 fans. What about this year? They're FINALLY #1. After 4 championships and 5 WS appearances in 6 years, they're #1 in attendance. That's what it takes for the Yankees to be #1??? Sad. Especially since there are 8 million people plus New Jersey to draw from. So, let's say the Mets take 50% of the people in NY (I gave you LOTS of lattitude there...). That's still 4 million people for the Yankees, and they can't sell out. Don't tell me about packed houses, because YOU don't got 'em, either.

By comparison: In '95, Houston had the 18th best attendance record. In '96, Houston was 14th best. In '97, Houston was 15th. In '98, Houston held onto 15th best. In '99, Houston jumped to 13th. In 2000, Houston climbed to 9th best (debut of Enron?). Last year, Houston had the 9th best attendance record again. This year? They're in 14th place (and yet still ahead of Anaheim, Oakland, Cincinnati, and Minnesota, who are all bucking for postseason invites). Clearly, Houston, who has never won a postseason series, is holding on strong, attendance-wise. Granted, we're a fickle bunch, but our attendance record is respectful. From '95 to '01 (2002 is still not over yet for record purposes), we've grown from 19,208 fans (in a post-strike year) to 35,855 fans. That's a gain of around 86%. In that same time period, the Yankees gained around 67% more fans, and they have the benefit of 4 world champions and 5 World Series appearances (while we have a new ballpark and several humiliating first round playoff exits).

So... the Yankees are the standard for attendance, huh?

 

But wait! There's more!

From the period of 1995 to 2002, the Yankees payroll jumped from $58,165,252 (still #1 highest at the time by $9,425,616) to $125,928,583** (highest by $17,562,523!). That's a payroll increase of around 116%. Similarily, the gap in payroll between #1 (Yankees) and #2 (then Baltimore, now Boston) jumped around 86%! That's just between the first 2 teams, too!

When we expand it to the entire league in 1995, the gap between #1 (Yankees) and last place (Expos) is $45,048,695. The gap this year between #1 (Yankees) and last place (Devil Rays) is $91,548,583. The gap widened by 103% in that time frame!!!

Can baseball really expect to stay competitive with this disturbing trend?

By the way, The Astros, in 1995, had a payroll of $33,614,668 (good for 16th place). In 2002, it's $63,448,417** (14th best). While the Yankees increased their payroll by 116%, the Astros' payroll increased 88.6%.

**beginning of season payroll outlook

 

Here's something else about the Yankees attendance. If Yankee stadium in 2001 had the same capacity as Minute Maid Park, the Yankees would've had an average attendance smaller than what the Astros posted at Minute Maid Park for 2001.

(I came to the numbers by figuring the Yankees attendance as 40,950 - the official capacity at MMP - for each game they had with attendance higher than that number and figuring the actual reported attendance for games where attendance fell below 40,950. I came up with an average attendance of 35,706 for the Yankees using that method, which is 174 fans per game fewer than the Astros put up in 2001.)

 

mrpaige, and when the novelty of Seattle and San Fran's new parks wear off, they're attendance will drop as well. Also, when Bonds leaves, attendance may drop as well. Both Seattle and San Fran could suffer attendance decline if their performances wane (which is possible).

This leaves us with:

AL East:

New York Yankees. I guess George can have intrasquad scrimmages for his own amusement.

 

On the same token as player payroll, look at total revenues. The Yankees revenues for 2001 were $152 million higher than the lowest revenue team (or roughly 241% higher) and $96 million higher than the league average (or roughly 81% higher). They were also $46 million higher than the next highest team (the Mets) and $49 million higher than any non-New York team (or nearly 30% higher).

But it's the whole issue of revenues and revenue sharing which makes me wonder why the bother with the schemes they're currently talking about.

Let's say there really was a payroll tax at $102 million and that no team decided to cross that line, would that really help Kansas City or whoever field a better team? There would still be large payroll disparities because the smaller revenue teams still won't have the revenues to really upgrade their payrolls to anywhere near the levels the elite teams would still have.

Think about it, the average revenue is $119 million per team. If there was an effective $102 million cap on payroll, with complete revenue sharing, no team would likely be able to hit the cap without losing money overall (I don't currently know of any teams that have non-player payroll expenses of less than $17 million). And that would be with equally shared revenue.

Here in the real world, it would merely mean that the low-end teams would remain low-end teams. The only thing this would appear to do is r****d the payroll of the Yankees (assuming they wouldn't breach the cap and pay the tax) and a couple of other teams who are just barely over that ceiling right now.

I mean, I realize having a payroll gap of $68 million is better than a payroll gap of $91 million, but would it really make all that much difference in the competitive balance in the league overall (assuming a correlation between payroll and success on the field, which is not really necessarily related)?

Seems to me there needs to be some way to share revenues more evenly (get each team as close to that $119 million average as possible) or at least make the cap significantly smaller. I'd say roughly $83 million and let teams with revenues that can't support anything near that either find a way to increase revenues (new stadiums or whatever) or move to areas that would allow higher revenues to support that level of spending.

But I realize neither of those things is going to even come close to happening.

 

Let's say there really was a payroll tax at $102 million and that no team decided to cross that line, would that really help Kansas City or whoever field a better team? There would still be large payroll disparities because the smaller revenue teams still won't have the revenues to really upgrade their payrolls to anywhere near the levels the elite teams would still have.


Part of this is in the revenue sharing side. Another part of the luxury tax though is that if there's a cap, maybe other teams are willing to challenge the top teams. For example, Tampa Bay has *no* reason to get to a $60 MM payroll, because if they were able to field a competitive field, the Yankees would just go to $150MM or $180MM. If Tampa Bay can be sure that the Yankees will stay at $120MM, they might at least be willing to try to compete.

Large revenue clubs will still have a major advantage, but the advantage will have a top-end cap at least. Right now, there's no point to even try because if you spend more, your opponents will just spend more also.

 

Hey, now I'm kind of rooting for a strike:

http://msn.espn.go.com/mlb/news/2002/0817/1419334.html

If the players strike, the owners may just screw it and go for a salary cap. That would kick ass.

 

See, though, all I keep hearing about is the payroll tax and not the other revenue sharing, at least recently. I had begun to think that the 50% revenue sharing was no longer part of the negotiations.

With that, I more see the point (as well as with Major's point, too).