Obviously they can't do it, or they would have already (minus Clemons, they just resigned him). My point was that that portion of their payroll is not helping them. They are not gaining a competitive advantage for all of their overpaid garbage. That isn't even counting the players that are good but still grossly overpaid, like a Derek Jeter. Other teams have grossly overpaid garbage too -- see Richard Hidalgo. The difference is that the Yankees can just collect overpaid garbage. Other teams actually have to be smart. If the Yankees had to trim payroll by $50 million, who's to say they would have made the right decisions? They've never had to because they can just sign everyone and let whoever doesn't work out rot on the bench. Other teams don't have that luxury.
Also, those players StupidMoniker mentioned could very well help other teams, but can't. I wonder if the new free agents are getting dental plans.
1. The second, less-popular team in a market usually has a harder time getting anywhere near as large a broadcasting contract. There is a significant portion of the Chicagoland area who would rather watch the Cubs lose than the White Sox win. This is also true of the Mets, who could not pay $164 million for a payroll because they don't make that much in total. The Angels, while they could spend as much money as possible being owned by a huge corporation and all, do not have the revenues to support a $164 million payroll even though they are, marginally, in a market with that many people. Things are worth what people will pay for them. The Angels just aren't as popular as the Dodgers and could never get their broadcast contract. Just like the Clippers couldn't walk in and say, "Well, the Lakers get this amount, we want the same." 2. You are far overstating the value of the Rangers' TV contract. Their total revenues are not high enough to support a $164 million payroll. Their current $20 million per year deal is also split between the Rangers and Stars (with a larger portion going to the Rangers). The Yankees made more than twice that under their old deal that expired. Their earnings through the YankeeNets' YES Network is harder to pin down, but their total revenues are at least $40 million higher than any other team in the League. Even as far back as 1996 when the Yankees were just starting their current run of being good again after so many years of being bad, the Yankees' still had twice the broadcast revenues of any other team (which would tend to downplay that whole "winning is what's important" in terms of team revenues. The Yankees hadn't been winning, yet they still had double the broadcast revenues of any other team). I don't blame Steinbrenner, either, because he is just playing by the rules set forth my Major League Baseball, but it's completely false to pretend that anyone else can play the game the same way. You have to make a lot of false assumptions to get to that point.
Excellent post, thanks for digging up the broadcast numbers. The economics of baseball are a mess, and there's no desire by the MLBPA to address the issue in a meaningfull manner (i.e. an NBA-style salary cap and revenue sharing).
If they can't fix the revenue issues then baseball just needs to move two more teams to New York and eventually that'll bring down the Yankee bankroll some. Yeah... the New York Expos and the New York Devil Rays.
Thats the smartest thing I have read in this thread. That and what ROCKSS posted. Just because other owners choose to put money in their pockets or spend it on other vertnures (a la the Det Tigers owner who soends a fortune on the Red Wings and nothing on the Tigers)instead of spending it on their team, its not Steinbrenners fault.
Your right - I've got Spring Training tickets to the Yankees/Blue Jays - and you really don't believe that I'm going for the Blue Jays? I'm a baseball fan and if all the tickets cost the same, why would I spend it on a couple of "up-and-comers"? By the way, the tickets were very hard to get - I had to go to a Blue Jay home game to get them and even then I had to get them very early and almost had to sit on the Blue Jay side. It was the only game the Blue Jays were selling out.
