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The NFL has the advantage of a very short season, allowing them to hype every single game and monopolize Sunday afternoons. Really that’s maybe it. But what advantage does the NBA, which has a lengthy schedule involving multiple games a week and has numerous teams in “small market” cities like Portland and Charlotte that just don’t have the same competitive issues as MLB? I don’t get your reasons here…

They are a crapshoot when you get in. But when you own the Pirates and have a payroll of non-competitive players whose aggregate payroll is less than your share of competitive balance revenue, you'r e just intentionally producing a flop and cashing in on it. These small market owners have been all but proudly announcing this all through the negotiations. "Don't raise the tax limits and cut into the revenue I get without having to do anything!!"

And promote who? You need a team to replace them in MLB. It works in English soccer leagues because they have multiple professional leagues not affiliated with each other in any respect. It might work in Japan, where struggling NPB teams get sent to the lesser PCL (do they do thuis already? I don't know.) But MLB is not set up for this with another competitive league. Sending the Pirates to the PCL (their team plays in the Inetnatonal League I believe) is really just sending them to thier room without any dinner for a season. And then what do you do when they dominate the PCL, which they will? Send them back to MLB and punish someone else?

THe problem with trying to add relegation into MLB is that there is no "lower league" to bring teams up from. The minor leagues are all affiliated with the MLB teams they would be replacing. If the Pirates and Tigers were to be relagated, where do they go? CAn't send them to AAA. The Pirates already frequently bring up their AAA team to play in MLB as it is. So where? The Atlantic League? The Nothern League? And MLB sees the debuts of the Kentucky Wild Health Genomes and the Lake County Corndogs? (Yes, mvp78, I did use this as an opportunity to mention the Wild Health Genomes again.)

The Competitive Balance Tax has been an abject failure in its goal to produce more balance on the playing field. It's turned numerous owners into Max Bialystock, realizing they can make more money by producing a flop than producing a hit...

Why can't you compare MLB to the NBA or the NFL? The Walmart/KMart analogy falls short on me. Those are rival businesses competing for your retail dollar. If KMart disappears (which they did), Walmart can still continue (which they are doing). If Amazon wipes out Walmart and every other retailer (which they are trying to do), Amazon won't disappear in the aftermath. But MLB needs multiple teams to produce a product. If 29 MLB teams collapse, and only, say, the Baltimore Orioles survive as the last remaining MLB team, they won't enjoy the same monopoly Amazon is striving for. Who are they going to play? Who outside of Baltimore will care? MLB is one business competing for your entertainment dollar. It's a singular corporation, not 30 little corporations. And there are multiple corporations that have a heavily profitable division or divisions carrying several lesser profitable ones. The competition for the Red Sox isn't the Yankees. It's Netflix. It's HBO. It's MGM. It's the NBA. It's the NFL for part of the year. Heck, it's Jelle's Marble Runs if that spins your wheels. It's not other baseball teams; it's any other source that can divert your attention and ultimately your money elsewhere where you might find entertainment and satisfaction...

The really weird part is how many people think the players are on strike and therefore being greedy. It’s kind of amazing how it drifts that way…

Of course they’re not a big issue. The only teams they affect are the ones that don’t care about them…

Or that

I think it is moving that way somewhat, and such owner-centric comments are somewhat relevant, maybe tangentially. But I think maintaining the baseball theme has to be somewhat essential around here, and therefore at a minimum they would benefit from some context…

The CBA really needs a clause that if your payroll is below your allocation from revenue sharing for X consecutive seasons, you should not be eligible to receive revenue sharing.

I don’t think the union too interested in the owners money from non-baseball events. And not every owner owns the stadium…

Maybe. Looks like 3 guilty verdicts plus a settlement…

The owners just cancelled games and told the union that the games the owners are cancelling will not generate pay for the players. Despite the existence of contracts and lack of a strike. Not only are the owners doing anything they want, they’re blaming the union for it…

Three times before for collusion…

I think we can all agree that there is a baseball team in some league actually named the Kentucky Wild Health Genomes and that is spectacular…

Get a podcast…

Right. Not a compliment. Just not in negative sense and nothing wrong with it and all your favorite announcers fit the bill, but therefore anyone in this category must go…

Right. So “hometown yuckers” is a compliment, but their absence, to use your words, will be a “refreshing change.” Yeah most of us are sick of all those things we like.

I’d blame both sides, but one of them is trying to negotiate while the other is just shutting stuff down as they walk away from the table, and then blaming COVID…

The owners have more expensive and therefore better lawyers. I.E. they can do what they want…

Please God, no! What is the logic here? Shaughnessy wasn’t available?

But if they create a scab league, you won’t get any players with union aspirations. So it’s not like Casas and Bello come play for the Red Sox, but we might get Kyle Hart and Devlin Granberg…

Absolutely Manfred is a puppet. And not a very good one. His speech about the state of baseball revenues suffering “over the last 5 years” due to the pandemic was ridiculous on multiple fronts. Not only was only one season affected, MLBs revenue grew over the previous 4 season to a record $10billion in 2019 while the aggregate payroll of the players was actually shrinking…

I don’t care if the owners only care about money. (What business owner doesn’t?), but if that’s the case get your product together so you can make some. If they want to save money, learn to say “no” once in a while. No one put a gun to Chris Young’s head and said “Give Corey Seager $325 million or else!” Sign the CBA and live with the repercussions of being cheap. I’m fine with that. But don’t line yourself up with a $220 million dollar payroll and then tell the players “you need to stop me from doing this!”