Jan 13 2009
Has Major League Baseball Hit the Wall?
With one fell swoop, the New York Yankees set a spending standard that can’t be matched by any team in baseball. Over $400 million for three players. Mark Teixeira, formerly of the California Angels briefly, CC Sabathia, formerly of the Milwaukee Brewers briefly and AJ Burnett of the Toronto Blue Jays. They get to join Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, their contracts worth over $400 million between the two of them, to give the Yankees a seasonal salary of just under $92 million. Contrast that with the Florida Marlins. Their total payroll is a paltry $27 million. Does it now take this kind of money to win? The 2009 season should give some indication if the Yankees return to the playoffs after missing them for the first time in thirteen seasons this past year. But the Brewers reached the playoffs for the first time since 1982 and one of the contributing factors was increasing their payroll from about $30 million to $90 million over the past five seasons, still not even on the radar screen with the Yankees or the Chicago Cubs or the Boston Red Sox for that matter. The Cubs and the Red Sox are behind the Yankees but considerably higher then the other organizations in baseball and both playoff teams this past year.
The point is most cities cannot support a team for the price tag that the Bronx Bombers are setting. They haven’t won a World Series since 2000, so even though it doesn’t guarantee a championship, their willingness to spend so much more than anyone else limits the level of talent available to their competitors and frankly ruins the game. A salary cap is a no brainer after this recent barrage. The scale is broken and public access becomes more limited because of the ever increasing ticket prices. There aren’t enough economically exclusive people who love baseball to continue to support this sky is the limit economy.
Pro football has just completed its most competitive season because of the equity created by a salary cap. Even though competitive equity creates more game tension among fan supporters from each team when no one so completely dominates the season like recent Patriot teams, the reality is that it creates more interest because games are consistently competitive. More interest creates more revenue for everyone involved.
Greed will always eventually ruin the party and even though we live in a free market economy, inherent in its success is the responsibility of the players competing in the board room. Without personal responsibility, and interest in the integrity of the game, the greedy should forfeit their freedom and be held in check or the entity dies. Gentlemen, please don’t ruin the greatest game ever, America’s pastime, by giving in to the combined greed of owners, players, and of course agents. “Say it ain’t so Joe. Say it ain’t so!”
