Play Ball! After months of idiocy, schedule is in place & camps open July 1st

[IU Hawks fan]

65% of revenue last year came from television.

Now owners are crying poor without the gate? GMAFB

 

[PG Canuck]

This entire thing is f***ing ridiculous and is only hurting the sport everyday.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

The owners won’t say it but they’re probably fine with no season and the players not getting any money at all

It's a terrible TV sport, and I think a ton of folks can live without it on the TV even if they're just realizing it now.

 

[NJDevs26]

The owners won’t say it but they’re probably fine with no season and the players not getting any money at all

Well good luck trying to get the fans back after when you shut down over money and power in the middle of a global pandemic, when your sport was already losing the younger audience and trying to modernize things up with nonsense as it is.

These sides don't seem to understand how dire this is. They think just because baseball recovered in '94 they'll do so again. Well there are a LOT more ways for people to find entertainment and use disposable income 25 years later, and baseball needed a once-in-a-generation celebration (the Ripken streak) and steroid-aided hitters to get out of the hole the last one created. Not to mention again, the look of something like this during a global pandemic is going to automatically turn people off just on principle.

It's a terrible TV sport, and I think a ton of folks can live without it on the TV even if they're just realizing it now.

The other thing that's particularly egregious about baseball ****ing around now is that there's literally nothing else on TV sportswise. The NHL and NBA are going to lay out till mid-late summer...why not be the first to come back or at least get an agreement with all the hype and goodwill to come with it? Right now people would even watch spring training games. Get your audience engaged before they get immersed in other stuff (which is gonna be coming down the pike soon after).

 

[AdmiralsFan24]

They really are about to go off the cliff, aren't they? **** them all

Oh God no. This is all on the owners. Hey Mike Trout, you're the best player in the world. You agreed to a collectively bargained contract. Now we're going to play half a season but we want you to take an 85% pay cut. The owners are 100% wrong here and can f*** right off.

 

[PanthersPens62]

I'm sure many of the 41 million unemployed people in the US would be more than happy to play for whatever salary Scherzer and his ilk determine to be so horrible. Get out of here with that tone deaf nonsense.

 

[John Price]

Would be surprised if they reach a deal at this point. Leave it to greedy ownership to derail a MLB season and put the game in jeopardy.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

f*** all the owners, I hope they all lose every last cent they've stolen from workers.

Report: David Price to pay each Dodgers minor leaguer $1,000 out of his own pocket - HardballTalk | NBC Sports

 

[AdmiralsFan24]

I'm sure many of the 41 million unemployed people in the US would be more than happy to play for whatever salary Scherzer and his ilk determine to be so horrible. Get out of here with that tone deaf nonsense.

You agree to a job that pays you $100,000 but Covid shuts down your business for half the year. You would still expect $50,000 for the work you provide, right? So how would you feel if your boss asked you to work for $15,000 instead? I'm guessing you wouldn't be too happy.

 

[FourRings]

I have to be on the players' side until the owners' financial reports are released. It's very easy to claim that you're losing a ton of money and ask for "a share of the burden" when you don't have to back up exactly how much is being lost. Not to mention these are the same people that are charging me $15 for a Bud Light and $8 for a hot dog that probably cost them $0.25 to produce so they can f*** themselves.

I don't feel pity for the players though. It's not a good look to make this about money when over 40 million people are out of work in the US alone.

A fair proposal? Defer payments to the pro-rated amount.

 

[PanthersPens62]

You agree to a job that pays you $100,000 but Covid shuts down your business for half the year. You would still expect $50,000 for the work you provide, right? So how would you feel if your boss asked you to work for $15,000 instead? I'm guessing you wouldn't be too happy.

You are talking apples & oranges. I understand the concept & I agree both sides are at fault. First off, I already had my hours cut by 20%. I am happy to still be employed. Greg Cote of the Miami Herald had a great article today explaining why both sides are at fault. He used the Mike Trout example.....Trout would make $6 million instead of $19 million, or $70,000 per game, Excuse me if that garners no sympathy from an hourly worker such as myself. Now I do feel bad for the minor leaguers this affects.

 

[solventless710]

f*** both the players and owners. Complete turnoff to hear the bickering between both sides being made public while millions of Americans are struggling to put food on the table and pay rent/mortgage. Like, shut the f*** up. Just go ahead and cancel the season. Hockey and basketball will be returning shortly, and September football will roll around before you know it. Baseball, already on the decline, won't exactly be dearly missed. Perhaps Blake ''BRO I'M RISKING MY LIFE'' Snell can recoup some of his lost pay through twitch donations. Poor guy.

 

[NJDevs26]

re: the tiered paycuts it just looks like bad form to try to split the union (especially since the players will never accept it anyway) but it's not like it's something unprecedented. You think some secretary in the commisioner's office is taking the same paycut Manfred is while this is going on?

And the players can't complain about risking life and limb to play when they want 30 more games and to chance playing later in the year running up against a possible second wave, just to recoup more money. You can't ever complain about safety when you've already shown what your primary motivation is.

A fair proposal? Defer payments to the pro-rated amount.

If baseball labor against management was a functional working relationship you'd think they could eventually get there. But players (unless they're signing for Scott Boras's Nationals) treat deferrments as paycuts too, heck they treat pro-rated as a paycut let alone a deferrment.

 

[John Price]

 

[John Price]

 

[Unholy Diver]

The NBA and NHL have already played and been paid for 3/4's of their seasons, so the owners have a lot less reason to hold the players ransom and the players thus far seem a lot less combative.


I stopped attending Pirates games two years ago due to the lack of trying/lack of investment by the ownership, but I still have watched most games on tv, if they fail to come back and play this may be enough for me to completely divorce myself from MLB, it will be easier this year since the NHL playoffs will be running through the summer and the EPL is back in 3 weeks so there will still be plenty of sports to watch

 

[LeHab]

Counter proposal

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

 

[spintheblackcircle]

 

[John Price]

 

[John Price]

my thoughts

 

[John Price]

 

[John Price]

 

[KevFu]

You are talking apples & oranges. I understand the concept & I agree both sides are at fault. First off, I already had my hours cut by 20%. I am happy to still be employed. Greg Cote of the Miami Herald had a great article today explaining why both sides are at fault. He used the Mike Trout example.....Trout would make $6 million instead of $19 million, or $70,000 per game, Excuse me if that garners no sympathy from an hourly worker such as myself. Now I do feel bad for the minor leaguers this affects.

I understand completely the view that MLB players can afford to sit at home and ride this out, and therefore shouldn't be haggling over millions, etc, etc.

However, the same "greedy players" argument applies to the greedy owners, tenfold or more.

The players have no means of recovering their losses, the owners do. The owners made $10.5 billion in 2019, a profit of $1.5 billion. So losing 40% of their revenues without fans ($4.2 billion), is money they could make back within three years at a $1.5 billion profit margin.

It's also worth noting that the owners made record revenues, record profits in 2019... Revenues were up $400 million, but attendance actually WENT DOWN in 2019, costing about $20 million in gate receipts. The owners are always fine, and the value of franchises go up.


If the players take a SECOND paycut after agreeing to the pro-rated cut, they have no means of getting that money back over their careers. In fact, next year's free agent spending is going to go way down because teams have lost revenue in 2020 and won't spend as much to make their team better. This is going to cost the union a lot of money going forward.

And it's MLB's problem of losing fans to other sports, and missing an opportunity to create new fans by coming back when no one has any content to watch. They may have already missed that chance.

 

[John Price]