http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ys-forbesoverpaid071009&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Are baseball players overpaid? Sure they are (at least most of them). The New York Yankees alone owe a payroll in 2009 of over 201 million dollars. This is actually down 8 million dollars from last year, but is almost double their 2000 season payroll. As a comparison, when George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees from CBS in 1973, he paid an astonishing 10 million dollars (keep in mind: Alex Rodriguez is pocketing 32 million dollars from the Yankees this year).
Also, by comparison, the Florida Marlins owe a combined payroll of just under 37 million dollars. The Pittsburgh Pirates payroll is just under 49 million dollars.
Let’s take a trip back in time …
In 1975, the Major League Baseball Players Union created a test case situation, when two players opted to play one year without a contract, and declared themselves free agents. Up until this point, all Major League players were subject to what was termed the “reserve clause”. That is, once they signed a contract with team, they were forced to reserve their services for that team after the contract expires. In other words, when the contract expired, they could not deal with other teams, and other teams could not approach them: they could only deal with their original team. As you might guess, this gave team owners tremendous leverage in dealing with players. Players who did not want to deal with their current team were free to lave and not play, but could not deal with another Major League team.
In 1975, the grievance filed by the two players resulted in an end to the reserve clause, as the neutral arbiter sided with the players in that the reserve clause was an unfair way to deal with players. The owners argued that if there were no reserve clause, the best players would always be signed by the teams with the most money.
Sound familiar?
As a result, in 1976, the owners and players’ union wrote a new rule, which refused a player free agency until they had played 6 years. The rules have been rewritten a few times since then, however, it has remained relatively the same.
Not surprisingly, in 1977 and 1978, the New York Yankees won their first World Series since the early 1960s. George Steinbrenner went out and purchased players like Reggie Jackson, Goose Gossage, Bucky Dent, and ran roughshod over the league.
You might guess that the solution is simple. Even on radio, many of the talking heads say to not blame the players for trying to make all the money they can (and I personally don’t), because it is the owners who voluntarily offer the money and pay the salaries. If the owners simply refuse to offer and pay, the salaries will go down.
The problem: the owners tried that and got hauled into court.
In the early-mid 1980s, the owners engaged in what is referred to as the era of collusion. During this time, as players reached free agency, and started dealing with other teams, owners either refused to meet the minimum offers from the players, or offered salaries so low that it more or less forced the players to sign for more “reasonable” salaries with their original teams. The owners were accused of fixing the outcome of seasons by restricting player movement, not to mention refusing to negotiate in good faith. Not surprisingly, this created an era of bad feeling between the players and owners, which likely led to the players strike in the early 1990s.
So here we are: we have finally reached the point where the best players are for the most part ending up on the richest teams (Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, Angels, Dodgers), there has been a corresponding increase in the value of teams (the Yankees are valued around 1.5 billion dollars; the Cubs just sold for a vastly overpriced 900 million dollars). Oh yeah, the cost of going to a baseball game has skyrocketed (the top seats, excluding luxury-type suites, at Yankee Stadium are $325 each).
So, where do we go?
It is clear that there needs to be the following in baseball:
1. Owners must have a minimum payout to the players. They already do, though this may need to be adjusted up. There is something wrong when teams have combined payrolls that are only slightly higher than the salary of one player somewhere else in the league.
2. There needs to be a negotiated salary cap, as exists in the NBA and NFL. If player salaries continue to spiral out of control, then we are seeing the beginning of the end of the game. We are already seeing national media all but refusing to cover teams not in the biggest markets. Why? Partially because in the smaller markets the interest in the game is waning because of an inability to land bigger stars and perform well, consistently (sure, teams like the Tigers occasionally make the World Series, but this is more about happenstance than consistency).
What is the problem? The players have repeatedly stated they will not submit to a salary cap. With teams experiencing an inability to succeed and draw fans, there has been talk of contraction (meaning several players losing a job). The players successfully negotiated an anti-contraction clause into their last collective contract. Given that the Expos would have logically been contracted, they instead moved to Washington where they have drawn flies in their brand new stadium. This hasn’t worked.
In the end, baseball is seeing waning interest among young people …. it is not drawing an international following like the NFl does to a limited extent, and the NBA has to a much larger extent. If baseball is to survive, something needs to be done to safeguard its players … and their employers … and ultimately the fans.
