MLB players earned more than $4MM on average in 2017, with some players’ salaries exceeding $30MM. For most people, that’s an unfathomable amount of money. Many people feel that baseball players and other athletes are overpaid, with the median American full-time worker earning around $45K per year.
Why do people object to MLB player salaries? One reason is the nature of the profession – Major League Baseball is a game played for the public’s entertainment, while baseball itself is a game many of us played in our youth for the sheer enjoyment of it. MLB players don’t serve an essential function to society like a teachers or doctors. And to many, the work of an MLB player seems less difficult and much more enjoyable than a typical job. It can be difficult to stomach professional athletes earning 100 times or more than that of a typical American.
Another reason some fans consider players to be overpaid is ticket prices. For a family of four to see the Cubs host the Cardinals on a Saturday in July, sitting in the upper deck, currently costs $565.91 on Stubhub for tickets alone. Of course, context is everything. Go to a Rays-White Sox game on a Wednesday afternoon in April, and a family of four can get in the door for $50 or less. At the heart of the matter: how much do player salaries actually affect ticket prices? I’m not an economist, but I think one would argue that teams will charge what fans are willing to pay. If player salaries were magically cut in half tomorrow, but demand for tickets remained the same, would you expect teams to reduce prices?
The other side of the coin is that, as difficult as it may be to accept given their salaries, MLB players might be underpaid. As an industry, MLB’s revenue has grown to $10 billion. As Nathaniel Grow wrote on FanGraphs a few years ago, the players’ percentage of that pie has dropped from a peak of 56% in 2002 to less than 40% in 2015. No one’s suggesting fans should feel sympathy for wealthy MLB players, but rather that they are entitled to fight for their fair share of the sport’s revenue. After all, without these 1,000 or so players, there’s no MLB. More money for the players doesn’t have to mean higher ticket prices; it would just mean less for the owners. Those on this side of the debate would note that MLB players are highly compensated because there are so few people in the world capable of doing their jobs, and interest in watching them perform drives the sport’s revenue.
As tensions mount between the owners and players, let’s see where MLBTR readers stand. App users can click here to take the poll.
Welcome back, Tim
I voted No, because with steal contracts and contract extensions, makes it a wash but I wish they had a “spoiled” option for some players, who expect $200MM+ for their services.
The recent debate of players bring overpaid should not be viewed as siding with exactly one of either owners or players.
Approach this from the perspective of scope: revenue is increasing, yes, but the stricter limit on spending is not increasing at the same rate as revenue increase. Scope of spending within the rather hard cap doesn’t allow much player salary growth, therefore as revenue increases, due to penalties, it won’t be reinvested proportionally in team salary.
Stricter limit on spending? Hard cap? What?
Teams aren’t punished in the least bit for spending up to $197M. (w/ Increases to $206M in 2019, $208M 2020, $210M in 2021)
It seems to me with the usual big money spenders out, and player’s agents are pissed, they can’t use them as leverage.
While Teams like the Pirates have never had a $100M payroll in their team history… who get a pass by their die hard fans, who insist on literal NHL hard caps, in the $70M range to suit their needs. The MLB luxury tax is a de-facto salary cap, not an actual “hard cap” and penalties reset after a teams get under it once. The actual “hard cap” term may be applied for teams going $40M over the MLB luxury tax, then draft pick penalties and people complain MLB lux tax is too high, already)
But back to Tim’s topic.
Are they overpaid? No. I stand by my opinion. For every Chris Sale (two “cheap” $12.5M+ team options, have NO problem with him getting after 0.97 WHIP 308K, 43BB 214.1 IP ) ..there’s a David Price ($30M+ a year through 2022 — that I have a problem with.)
At the same time, players have to understand the needs of teams, and that all players are different. Just because you are the best power hitter on the market (JDM), or a younger 1B with some upside left (Hosmer) doesn’t mean you should get the largest contract ever. For JDM to complain about being properly compensated is crazy. If you believe this site, he has a deal on the table that will pay him $23-$25mm a year for 5 years. Just to put that into perspective, if he signed a deal with an AAV of $23mm, he would be the 10th highest paid position player of all time for AAV and 36th richest overall contract for a position player. WE ARE TALKING JD MARTINEZ! The offer is there, but the greed is just too much on some of these players side of things.
Baseball is making more money than ever right now. I don’t think the owners should be pocketing it all. It’s not greed when you (the players) are the sole reason people go watch the games.
I don’t think they are. With the revenue that is created, I would rather see the players get paid over the owners.
I can see where you are coming from but without owners there are no teams and no baseball.
….without players, there are no teams and no baseball.
There will always be players! When I played professional ball it wasn’t just about money, it was an honor and fun!
I agree that I would rather see the players make a bit more rather than the owners making a lot more.
I would also argue that the risk baseball players go through, potentially sacrificing a “normal” career opportunity to pursue baseball should justify their higher salaries. I wonder if you take every player drafted in a given year, what the average salary would be. Many players spends years and years in the minors and are retired by the age of 30 and have to find a completely new career
The current system is set up to keep players in their prime under team control, and only pay guys who are already on the decline. So, of course, those older players are “overpaid”, They’re getting paid for what they did in the past, not what they’re doing for their current team.
But there’s an easy way to solve that disparity: instead of keeping guys in the minors forever, and then controlling them for six years, make everyone a free agent at age 26.
If teams want six years of control, they can call up their prospects at 19. Then everything’s fair and square: young players who aren’t that good yet make minimum wage, then their salary starts rising with arbitration, and as they enter their prime, their pay reflects that. On the decline, they get back to smaller contracts, because, with so many young free agents on the market, no one’s gonna give a 35 year old a multi-year contract.
Overpaid relative to revenue generated? No. Overpaid relative to societal contribution? Yes. But this is America so we don’t care about the latter.
if you paid every individual in a “noble” profession (teachers, military, firefighters, police officers) 7-figure salaries, this country would be bankrupt. At least in that situation everyone would want to serve their country.
Yes but if we paid them 6-figure salaries, (or a better 5-figures even) this country would not be bankrupted by that. I don’t think anyone is calling for firefighters or school teachers to be paid a million dollars a year.
Do your research. Look into military officer compensation. What do tenured college profs make? What do veteran detectives make? Do you even know, or are you thinking about entry level salaries?
Depends on the institution(s) they’re working for. Many profs also consult to supplement their income
You do know you pay firefighters and teachers, right?
These are services in place for you (or your kids) in which you pay them in part from your taxes.
If you want them to make more, then push for bills to tax you a higher percentage.
These positions get paid what people are willing to pay them by how much they are willing to give up in their taxes.
It’s like how you pay for insurance. Right now the service of firefighter is available to you at any moment for instance. You may never use it, but you have to pay them to have them there if you need them. So what’s that worth to you per year? Consider the likelihood of needing them with your current income and come up with a cut of your earnings you think is fair to give them.
And there you have what they deserve to be paid.
We pay for stadiums as well.
I’m a teacher, and I’ll be honest…for what the job is, public education overpays. Most teachers are better then this, but a TV and someone making $8 an hour for 15 hours a week could do the job.
*i should say the job teachers are required/forced to conform into doing.
I dont know what kind of a teacher you are, or what public school system you work for, but for my experience in a public school system, in a major city, with the class sizes, district, state, and federal mandates that teachers have to abide by, little if any consequences for bad behavior, real threats of bodily harm in some cases, the time involved to prepare to teach each day, and not enough time in the day to get that done, so you take it home with you. I call B.S on your claim to be a teacher. Or if you are, you work in some daycare and are not really a teacher but a glorified babysitter in the real world sense. There is far more that goes into the job than what you are portraying. You have offended an entire career base. That has to be THE most ignorant comment I have ever read.
Or if this is how you conduct your classroom, then you are by far the worst, least effective teacher to ever be put in charge of childrens education
exactly. As noble as some professions are, no spectator is paying money to come watch you teach social studies or watch people go through boot camp. they make obscene money, but it’s their take for the revenue they bring in. better than the owners pocketing all of it.
The country wouldn’t be bankrupt because we print our own money, which we can literally never run out of. The problem would be the inflation created by pumping an additional 3 trillion new dollars into the base of the economy every year and the strain on our natural resources caused by 3 million newly wealthy Americans deciding to build their dream McMansion at exactly the same time.
If “noble professions” worked for 1 company and generated this much money and public following, they would make this much.
Looking purely at income rather than revenue will give you a better picture though. Based purely on that they are overpaid. The average MLB team has an operating income of about $25-30 MM a year with the highest being the Phillies at 87..7 MM and the lowest being the tigers LOSING 36.4 MM. Considering the cost of an MLB team, the ROI makes it a terrible investment from a pure income standpoint. This doesn’t take into account the increased value of a franchise over time but that’s harder to predict. When you have several teams paying a single player (employee) more than the team profits in one year, that’s not how a business normally works.
I’d like to know how the operating income is being calculated and how honest those numbers are.
Yes sports teams get to amortize the purchase cost of the franchise against profit over 15 years, so if the numbers mentioned include that, they are voodoo numbers. You would need to know the context of how numbers were calculated.
operating income should not include that.
Net Income would
It’s more than operating revenue, you think teams who lose say $75 million in a few years would really continue operations? Of course not there are other ways they make income
What makes you say they are not overpaid relative to revenue generated? What other industries spend 40% of their revenues on employee salaries?
Players in other sports leagues, for one, get more than 40% of the revenue.
Yes, but there is not the minor league system, that MLB pays for in other leagues.
Industries that provide a human-oriented service rather than a physical good all have extremely high salary-to-revenue ratios. That’s the nature of the game. You can’t provide services without humans.
Yet.
Many of them actually. Any industry thats value is soley based on the employees knowledge or talent.
Aka, any place where the biggest asset walks out the door every night.
What about actors? Talk about overpaid !
We care about societal contribution, we just don’t let communists be the judge of what constitutes societal contribution.
We let the general public decide, instead….with their wallets. If the American people didn’t think baseball was worth paying all this money for, we wouldn’t pay for it.
You didn’t even have to take part. You’re welcome to stop paying for it, and invest your money in communes and drum circles instead.
Except they take our tax revenue and use it to pay for stadiums for baseball teams. That is communism at its finest. Like I said if they didn’t rely on the government subsidizing them I wouldn’t care what they paid their players. It is the owners money. If they feel like throwing it away paying some guy 30 million dollars that is their business. They also are subsidized by cable viewers who pay for the Regional Sports networks whether they watch the games or not.
Baseball has quite the racket going. They are sort of leeches off society.
MLB players are not over paid when you look at their NBA counter parts
Some are, some aren’t. Teams are being smart now and realizing only the high caliber guys are worth the big contracts. The guys in this free agent class are just not worth what they are asking for.
How are you calculating what a player is “worth”? This seems to be taken out of thin air.
By looking at their stats. Its not hard to see why Hosmer isnt worth 8 years
Of all the FA ever.. he’s unusually qualified for a long deal, given his age.
Ok eric hosmer
Exactly. He just had the misfortune of coming 2 years after a similar FA in Jason Heyward who is now viewed as an albatross contract just 2 years after signing it. 2 years ago, Hosmer would have already been signed at 7/140 or 8/160 easily.
Teams just seem to be learning from their mistakes. Players don’t apologize for poor performance on big contracts, which happens 75% of the time with long term free agent deals.
Hosmer wants to be overplayed. He will realize he’s average at some point, he didn’t even make MLB top 10.
Agree. Don’t get why people would disagree he isn’t worth 8 years.
they get paid because they leave their families and home for an extended time, while having to be in great mental and physical shape year round. I’m not saying that they deserve, but something to think about
There are many jobs where people have to leave their families for extended periods (military and civil sector)…and all soldiers (and many civilian jobs) equally have to be in top shape whether it be for survival or just to be fit for a job.
Ultimately, we (baseball players included) all decide what we want to be in life…and nobody made that choice but ourselves/themselves.
“Great mental and physical shape…”
Bartolo Colon
CC Sabathia
Mike Cameron
Nyjer Morgan
Jonathan Broxton
The list goes on…
Can you throw 90mph+ at 40? Could you EVER throw 90+?? The answer is no, therefore they are in great physical condition compared to you and others at their age.. Physical condition isn’t only about being slim…. Guarantee all mentioned are in better health than a lot of “skinny” people.
No they have the longest season and sports and the most games and the second longest sport matches in the us not including cricket
No, it’s just capitalism.
You could say we, as a society, overvalue entertainment and entertainers, but they’re just being paid what the market dictates. They offer a service that’s in high demand, but short supply, they’re only overpaid in the sense that we undervalue the contributions of more important cogs of society.
You can say that of tons of jobs though. Most of the owners in MLB didn’t actually contribute that much more to society than say a doctor, but they found a way to make the system work for them. I’m not going to begrudge them that, so why should I begrudge the players who are getting what people are willing to pay them?
This is a dumb narrative, if you think athletes are overpaid, your only really choice is to stop watching them and make their services less I’m demand.
To add on to your comment:
MLB players are in the top .000001% in the planet at what they do. Since they’re the best at it, they are going to get paid more. This system is the exact same in other professions, the corporate lawyers / CPA’s for Wal-Mart make more money than your hometown firm.
And those people are overpaid too. But the question wasn’t about them.
The only reason I voted “yes” is that baseball players’ contracts are completely, 100% guaranteed. This is virtually unique in the pro sports world. If you do not perform as expected, you still get paid. No matter what, no matter how badly the player performs, or what kind of conduct the player engages in on and off the field (conduct clauses are nearly impossible to use to void a contract).
What that kind of protection, players should be compensated at lower rates in my book. Long-term deals for players who become awful are absolute albatrosses for their teams. Yes, I know the teams know the risks, but the MLB union has a lot of power.
I completely agree. I’m all for letting the market dictate what they want to pay players — as we can now see, owners are starting to wise up.
However, I think that there just needs to be some checks and balances. For instance, if you get injured, then your salary goes to half of what it was when you were healthy.
They can keep the cap hit at the full price, but it would at least incentivize players to get back on the field as soon as possible, and for the owners to recoup some money.
I fully understand that owners have a ton of money, but I still don’t think it’s right that a player gets 100% of his wages when he isn’t fulfilling the contract. I guess it’s a principles issue.
Obviously they do have power. If teams don’t overpay for average to slightly above average talent, then they will threaten to strike.
It comes to a point where players need to get in where they fit in. If they don’t think it’s worth it to play for $5 mm a year to be a role player, I know a local retailer that is hiring for $12/hr.
The people who say that professional athletes are “overpaid” are the same people who will drop money on a Taylor Swift concert or a new Johnny Depp film.
What people don’t realize is that pro athletes are simply entertainers. The best entertainers get paid more than average ones. They are paid their salaries because that’s what the market dictates. It’s not like taxpayer money is going towards paying Albert Pujols.
I could discuss this topic ad nauseum, but I’m just about to leave work and don’t feel like it
Think you’re missing this point. Obviously they’re the best at what they do and should get paid as such. The question is should they be getting AS MUCH as they do?
A player will be just fine with receiving a 50 million contact instead of a 100 million. The greed has gotten out of control for all entertainers.
If a billionaire owner is willing to pay them $100 million, I see no reason to object to their salary.
and the owners will use that as justification to increase prices (often more than proportional to what they’ve added).
They may use it as justification but they would probably do it anyway.
Runaway greed is certainly not exclusive to entertainers…
Tax payer money is indirectly going to albert pujols and aaron judge due to the lucrative stadium TAX PAYER FINANCED deals the sports team get.
Is this a trick question?
Some of them are, but as a whole, no. There’s no reason players shouldn’t be getting their fair share of what baseball earns.
You can say that about anyone working for any company then. We ALL deserve significant raises by this logic.
Maybe we all do.
Yes.
However, young players are underpaid, even minor league players.
There needs to be better balance between young MLB players and veterans. Veterans are getting way too much while they don’t preform at the high level they once did.
The young kids in the minors are the only ones who have deserved more the last few decades, yet they are always the ones who get nothing whenever the sides meet. Why do anything for non union dues paying kids when they can get a few hot meals, or extra meal money perks for themselves?
As for prices? I enjoy MUCH more watching local GCL games for FREE than paying to see Rays games. Not just that atrocious tropicana stadium Tampa plays in either. Atmosphere of GCL games, seeing young professional players and REAL grass fields.
Carlos Correa,, the best shortstop in MLB, made $535K last year. That’s just over a half a million.
To fix this problem, minor league salaries need to be increased by level. Maybe rookie ball starts at $35k, then works up to $100k at AAA. Major League minimum should be $1mm. Team control should be for 5years of minor leagues, or 3 years of major league service time, with the player being arbitration eligible every year.
This will keep phenoms like trout paid fairly, and free agency starting at younger ages.
I also believe that there needs to be a payroll floor of $100mm. If you can’t afford to do that, you sell the team. If a city can’t support a team that spends $100mm, then the city should not have that team.
This is not a question that can possibly be answered with a simple yes or no.
Clickbait if I ever saw it. Are MLB players overpaid? Well, if I could throw in the mid nineties with pinpoint control, or hit a curve halfway to the nearest Expressway, I would. Well, I would have, being considerably older than even Bartolo Colon (but trimmer). This isn’t easy to play at the level they do. Look at how many prospects (who are the best and brightest of younger talents) bust, and how many minor leaguers never see an ML roster. Special talents, whether its a heart surgeon, a rock star or concert pianist, a painter or an architect, get paid a heck of a lot more than the rest of us do. That’s capitalism, I’m fine with it.
100% correct, no news to report today so let’s just throw a bone out there and let everybody fight over it! (No knock on MLBTR, gotta pay the bills)
I would like all of our articles to be clicked on.
And they are. I wouldn’t come back here so often if I didn’t like the content.
I’m sure your fine with it Mike. I’m guessing those marginalized by capitalism are not.
Players are actually underpaid given the amount of revenue that comes into the league. Their union just screwed them on this.
The union agreement incentivizes weaker teams to play young guys, accumulate draft picks and be competitive later. The agreement also penalizes big money teams from spending more big money. End result is a shift in market behavior by the team owners.
Teams are just responding to the incentives the agreement presents.
I fail to see how 40% of the league’s revenue is not enough for the players or why revenue is even being used as some sort of baseline at all. The players take home the vast majority of the league’s profit, which is really all that matters. Their percentage of the revenue and whether it’s increased or decreased over the years is all relatively meaningless because revenue itself is a fairly useless figure without a lot of additional context. It’s just one stat that only tells part of the story.
They’re professional entertainers that generate tons of revenue and the majority of them have their own charity foundations. So who really cares if they’re overpaid?
Their contract affect ticket prices
Yes, but how is that different than going to a play, a concert, or an opera? If I wanted my kid’s portrait painted and I went to the best living portraitist, and his fee was $500K, would he have to do it if I could only afford $5K?
If he had to pay taxes on the amount over $5K he would.
Ticker prices are dictated by demand of the product. Not by the salaries in which you pay out after you project future revenues. This is why salary cap leagues IE: NHL/NFL still sell their tickets at a ridiculously high price. A ticket in Toronto for the Maple Leafs is in higher demand then a ticket for the Florida Panthers.
No, their contacts do not affect ticket prices. That’s not how these businesses operate in the least. They are unrelated
Their salaries have no affect on ticket prices, I agree Tim. If anyone thinks otherwise, look at the trend in prices of college football tickets!
Contracts are a sunk cost that no effect on ticket prices
Of course it does
If you say anything other than that then you’re lost
You are clearly the one lost.
They are absolutely unrelated.
Teams don’t drop ticket prices after they shed payroll. Think the Astros did when they rebuilt? The Cubs? The Nationals? The White Sox?
None of them lowered ticket prices. Hell, the Marlins are raising ticket prices and unloading salaries.
Ticket prices are set by supply and demand. Contracts are paid out based on expected revenue…which most of that comes from tv dollars any way.
You aren’t paying Giancarlo Stanton’s salary by going to games. Hell, do the Marlins even have $50M a year in ticket revenue?
Completely unrelated.
It’s that why college football ticket prices have risen so much? It’s because of their growing contracts?
Yes
you know the offseason is slow when an article like this is written lol
I think it’s a stupid question. Free Agents who sign long term deals are generally overpaid. Players that sign contracts early in their careers and locked into a team prior to free-agency are underpaid.
You can’t fault owners from not volunteering to overpay free agents. You can’t fault players for saying it takes too long to enter free agency.
FA contracts are ridiculous. And the owners are simply tired of getting burned. Paying a player on his past with no attention to his future performance is what has been burning them. Hence this seasons slow market. As far as being over or under paid…. there is no single yes or no answer. It’s all relative. I did vote yes they are over paid but only because the guaranteed contracts despite poor performance is stupid
Expand the league. Beyond those 32 teams, put up to 40 and up the share to 50%. But generally speaking, yes, overpaid those who earn more than 15 million/year.
There are only 30
The owner of the company I work for makes way more than I do. He started the business, all the lines of credit are in his name, he pays for all the company vehicles, insurance, lease on the building, and all the costs that are required to keep the the doors open. I have no problem with him taking home a much bigger slice of the profit, even though I’m the one out in the field getting sweaty.
Maybe the players’ union could/should fight for young players’ salaries: Those in MiLB and those in their first few years in the bigs. There is no reason young players should be forced to play at/close to the league minimum for three seasons, and then be pigeonholed into the arbitration process for three more. Every player is unique and warrants a unique approach to his justified compensation.
Players like Chris Sale, Salvador Perez or Chris Archer feel compelled to take low-ball extensions because even as dominant young players, they still haven’t made that much money when they sign these extensions. If they got injured before making it to FA, they might never make the generational wealth they were seemingly destined for and have to sell insurance 10 years from now. Meanwhile, MiLB players are paid indentured servant wages and barely have enough to survive.
Instead of wasting your breath feigning indignation that Eric Hosmer hasn’t yet received an 8-year offer for $150M+, maybe you could negotiate a CBA that monetarily rewards the value front office execs place on young, premier talent. That’s a much more reasonable goal than claiming every FA on the wrong side of 30 should get James Shields or Sin-Shoo Choo money, especially when there is no obvious fit for many of this year’s crop of FAs.
Exactly. I don’t know if the answer is earlier Free Agency, higher minimums, better arb system, or what, but something must be done to increase the money young players are making. The veterans with mammoth contracts are overpaid if they aren’t playing at a superstar level, but the younger players are very underpaid. The difference between player and owner salaries isn’t that veteran players aren’t getting enough money in their FA contract, it’s that young players aren’t paid more out of the gate.
Just imagine if the average player only made 45k. Rather than getting the best of the best you would willingest of the willing. Not many people are going to pay to watch that.
Revenue is up because of what we the fans are charged. And I’m talking about more than just ticket prices, parking, concessions, and such.
Think about the TV and Cable deals. Who pays in the end for those? Consumers.
Advertisers….that’s who the tv deals care about.
The advertisers care about the consumers.
In the grand scheme of things, yes, they are way beyond over paid.
Compared to what?
Celebrities and athletes are all overpaid
because their services are in demand. Also, many (not all) of them worked their ass off to get to where they are. Nobody is entitled to the money that they earned
What you also need to consider is how insanely difficult their job is. I bet anyone here could name dozens of people who have the aptitude to be a teacher, accountant, service member, engineer etc.
I bet nobody here knows someone who has the aptitude of being a professional athlete.
Yes, by terms of performance. No, by terms of revenue share.
After watching the Bogus Braves play the Fake Mets in a Spring Training game after the last strike, I vote wholeheartedly that they’re ‘underpaid.’ The game moved along quickly, because the pitchers threw BP stuff over the plate and the hitters couldn’t do anything with it. Lots of easy ground outs. Not many runs.
Are you drunk?
Listen to Mad Dog rattle of his opinion about $200m+ contracts. It’s related enough to this to warrant a listen.
They’re both overpaid and underpaid. On one hand, you have guaranteed paychecks for veteran players past their prime (Pablo Sandoval $18M for the next two years) and injured players who aren’t contributing (Prince Fielder isn’t retired, he’s PUP and is still making $24M this year, next year and the following year).
On the other hand, you have young players prior to arbitration who are often earning peanuts compared to their value like Mookie Betts (5th round so no big signing bonus, has earned about $2M over his past 4 years while contributing 20.0 fWAR)
I think players earn about what they should. Operating income for teams isn’t outlandish, and teams who want to win (all owners want to win as MLB franchises are just a hobby for them) so owners aren’t going to pass up contracts which make sense and risk losing as a result.
All owners want to win? Loria, Wilpons, Nutting say hello
Last I checked the Mets were in the WS recently and were projected to be good until their rotation fell apart due to injuries.
Last I checked the Pirates made it to the postseason three years in a row recently and I’ll bet they’re better this season than people project).
Loria? OK, no argument.
According to the invisible hand of the free market, players are neither under or over paid, they are simply paid their market value.
So the question becomes what standard do you use to determine worth?
Are you paying them as baseball players who help teams win?
Are you paying them as “entertainers” (as people often cite)?
Or should they be paid solely to the extent to which they contribute to the bottom line as most employees are valued?
Further, do you think they are entitled to a fair wage or to their “fair share”?
A fair wage could be relatively static. Most people in 1993 thought Barry Bonds getting $7 million a year was big money, now it would regarded as a slave wage deal. But Barry Bonds did the same job then that players making $25 million a year do now.
If you believe they deserve they fair share, so be it, but now the players’ earnings are independent of their own work or performance. Baseball is a $10 billion industry today, but if the owners had negotiated less lucrative contracts and revenue streams and it was only a $5 billion industry the players would be getting less for the same work.
It’s all perspective. There is no real answer.
That’s mostly right. There’s a limiting factor, however, because of baseball’s anti-trust exemption. The Independent League doesn’t really bid against MLB for unsigned players. And if you’re locked into an MLB contract, you can’t directly negotiate with other MLB teams for your services. When minor league teams really were independent, some paid MLB-caliber players more than an MLB team because their presence on a roster sold enough tickets to make the team owners money.
I suppose you could play overseas if you don’t want to play what an MLB or IL team offers, but that’s not truly a free market for talent.
The anti-trust exemption is pretty much what loads the deck for the owners.
Players for the first 8-10 years of their careers (starting in the minors) have no say in where they work.
This not a free market. Not even in free agency. “Soft” salary caps (which hold financial and strategic penalties) as well as immediate draft pick forfeiture limit the market.
In a true free market, player worth would be accurate. But owners don’t allow it. For a reason. To be clear: these depress player salaries.
So the question isn’t if players are overpaid, but rather by how much they are UNDERpaid.
Unless there is collusion where owners agree collectively, in whole or in part, not to sign most free agents. Then FA players are not paid their fair market value.
On this date last year there were 12 players without a deal, either major league or minor league. Today there are over 100.
Except there is no collusion, multiple teams have signed dozens of free agents and every player either has an offer in hand or is part of the normal process of winnowing players who are no longer big league caliber out of the game and replacing them with players who are better than them.
Name a player who belongs in MLB without an offer.
So what if there are 100 players who haven’t been signed?
In a theoretical world it could be possible that none of those players are worth signing. Now, I don’t believe that, but the number itself is as meaningless as some of the stats you hear on ESPN. (i.e. “Duke and Carolina haven’t lost at home on the same day since 1972”..)
The raw number you use is itself meaningless without context.
Have you actually looked at the list of players who are unsigned?
Take a gander: mlbtraderumors.com/2016/08/2017-18-mlb-free-agent-…
Only one of the 5 catchers is under the age of 35.
Two of the 10 first baseman are 30 or younger.
Only 1 of 5 2B is under the age of 32, – Nick Franklin – and he’s barely replacement level (that is – he’s easily replaced by a younger player)
The youngest of 4 SS is 31.
Advanced and declining age is all over the list. That’s what teams will get if they sign those players.
Some have been consistent recently, but many have not, so signing them would be a crap shoot.
If my team signed Chris Stewart, Oliver Perez or MIchael Saunders and many players like them to anything other than a minor league deal I’d want the GM charged with malpractice.
It’s not about the numbers – it’s about the ages and quality of many of those players. a lot of them don’t belong in the big leagues – they’re just not good enough anymore.
So stop with the nonsense of raw numbers as some kind of proof of collusion. You hurt your own credibility.
Want to convince me you’re right? Go through the entire list and present an analysis here, making the case as to why you think each player should be given a major league contract.
Unless you do that (and I suspect you don’t want to put forth the effort), your using of raw numbers is meaningless and misleading.
Considering they get paid below the poverty level for the 4-6 years on average they spend in the minors, and then add another 6 years of getting paid a fraction of what they’re worth, I know no problem whatsoever of players holding out for big contracts
I don’t think they are overpaid when compared to other entertainment markets. People don’t tend to gripe when movie star gets 20 million to be in a movie that makes more then 500 million.
I think the percentage is going down mainly because large market teams can only field so many players and the small markets can’t afford to miss on large contracts.
If you want the pie to be cut evenly you need near complete revenue sharing.
Big market small market who cares they are all baseball teams and the league couldn’t exist with out most of them.
Ive always felt the best period of the game was post draft pre fa.
At this time best ran teams were best. Reds royals pirates As all great teams.
I think players take a risk by attempting a pro career. They deserve to be compensated if they make it for sure, since the vast majority don’t. I think FAs are overpaid, however and MILB players are grossly underpaid. $12K/yr isn’t acceptable, they should be paid at least enough to support themselves and train full time without worrying about finances. I really like the idea of a luxury tax so it isn’t just the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers saying “this superstar is a FA, we get him”. I’d like to see teams like the Padres in playoff contention more often.
It also benefits teams to pay these guys… idk $40-50k a year? Keep them from working odd jobs and give them time to train, money to eat well/blow off steam, it seems like a good investment to me.
I voted No. Most players are under paid. Minor leagues need a living wage as well. That wasn’t the the question, but I had to add it in.
What bothers me in all sports is that there seems to be no pressure to continue doing your job at the highest level once you are paid. Players want to renegotiate deals if they have a big year, or have opt outs so they can look for better money… does an owner get to renegotiate when said player then has a bad year? Nope! Can they opt out after a guy has two terrible years back to back? Nope! While in baseball contracts are guaranteed and the only way a player gets a raise in a current deal is off they are arbitration eligible, they have the worst set up of all as many times players well past their prime are eating up a payroll because they demanded so much while they were in their prime.
In my humble opinion, it would be great to see all sports go to a base plus system.. Base salary is set according to years of service, everything else is earned on the field.. You have a bad year, you don’t make much extra.. You have a great year, you get the big incentives.. Even if you do this, the base salaries will be high enough to set these guys for life if they can have even a 3-5 year career.
How about paying the hot dog vendor and everyone else more? Veterans who retired thirty years ago and are living in squalor? How about paying minor league ballplayers more instead of it being so top heavy? Allow easier access to games instead of buying in through expensive online access? The money doesn’t just have to go to either the owners or ML ballplayers. Why not fund youth leagues instead of banking everything?
It’s easier to find a hot dog vendor than an All Star Right Fielder. All due respect no one is paying $100 to see the hot dog vendor.
What they’re doing has value to people, that’s why people spend money on the entertainment. If you say they are overpaid, what you’re really saying is that either A) people in general are bad decision-makers, or B) ownership is underpaid.
I wish people would stop conflating “dissatisfaction with the size of FA signings” with “dissatisfaction with how much MLB players are paid”. There are MANY players who make good money who people don’t complain about. Nobody feels Mike Trout is overpaid, for example.
The trouble this winter, and the reason the players don’t have the majority of fans on their sides, is that older FAs get an excessive combination of guaranteed length and salary on the free market. Or, at least, they did. As a Boston fan myself, I would HATE to see the team sign JD Martinez for, say, six years and $27M+ a year. It is much more likely to disappoint than work out nicely, so I don’t like it. But there IS a contract out there for him (and everyone else waiting things out) that is still mighty rewarding without putting the teams at HUGE long term risk. Players MUST adjust to that reality…but that doesn’t mean players in general are overpaid.
I disagree – I would guess that most people in this country feel that Mike Trout is overpaid.
You are probably right about that because I have found that most people have the same cognitive capacity to use any kind of logic as a 3rd grader. I may be being generous.
I deal with multi-million dollar real estate deals in my business and most of them are not made on logic or facts, they are made on emotions.
concessions are overpriced. $15 for average beer price at the super bowl. need i say more?
But it’s probably a 24 oz or a pint. True that it’s overpriced though
16oz
If you bought it at that price then it wasn’t overpriced.
don’t buy it cause i don’t drink nasty beers
Exactly!
What does the price of a beer at the super bowl have to do with MLB salaries? And that’s literally at any public event. Go to the County Fair to catch Turner Bachman Overdrive, still paying $12 for that Miller Lite. Monster Truck Rally $14 for a Bud Light.
yuk, watered down beer.
Concessions at sports stadiums are handled by outside vending companies. They bid on a contract to provide food and beverage services, pay 10 or 15% off the top to the team, and then keep the rest. They set the prices. Same with parking.
Then stop buying them, then the price will go down.
Overall share of salaries compared to revenue has dropped in part because the league has gone through a youth movement of sorts in the post-steroid era where older players are no longer continuing to produce into their later 30s. There are a few exceptions out there, but by and large players are showing serious signs of decline past age 35. And younger players don’t make as much as older ones.
If the MLBPA wants to see total salaries as a percentage of overall revenue rise again they should look to reform the lower pay scales upward and shorten the length of time to be eligible for arbitration. Then younger players will start to earn more and bring up overall pay. But the MLBPA has to be working for the actual players to accomplish this, not the agents who prefer to see ever escalating free agent contracts to take the percentage they get from those deals.
No. The bigger the piece of of the pie that the players get from all the money generated, the better.
I answered yes but it is a difficult question. Baseball is a team game and an individual’s contribution to winning has been recently measured by WAR. I would like to see a study that provides a player’s dollar contribution using WAR with their actual salary. I’m guessing that the salaries for a majority of the players are greater than their contribution. That is the reason for my yes vote. I may be wrong.
Newsflash, they don’t have to perform well on the field to make money.
I don’t care if they all hit .200 if the seats are filled then they’ve done their job from a business standpoint.
Obviously if it continued long enough then you might see profits regress, but there’s definitely a cushion where people are still willing to show up regardless of performance. They should still be paid based off that.
Newsflash. If they don’t perform on the field and do it for 10-12 years, 4-6 seasons in the minors and 6+ in the majors, they never get a chance to be paid much at all.
Newsflash you are a confirmed idiot
Yes
Omg stop, 70% feel they are overpaid? Really?
This is why we live in a country where CEO’s make 50,000,000x what the average worker does. How dare billionaires not make 10’s of billions! Let’s ignorantly believe that ticket prices are a function of player salaries and not willingness to pay!
Ah how great it feels to be a complete idiot!
Maybe it’s because you overvalue your opinion
Right
Some seriously illogical reasoning there. You’re talking about CEOs as if they’re equivalent to owners when they’re actually a lot more like baseball players in the context of that argument. They are both getting paid by the owners, some would say excessively, to do a job. Amusing that the job you’re complaining about not making enough money is the one where people hit a ball and not the one where someone runs an owner’s entire company for them.
Without the players there would be no MLB so they rightly deserve their piece. No professional athlete is overpaid relative to the revenues they generate, they can only be overpaid relative to their skills.
The simple answer to this is no. If they deserved to get paid less they wouldn’t bring as much revenue in and they would get paid less.
If you want them to get paid less stop going to games until prices drop. Stop buying merchandise. Stop giving your teams money.
These guys are employees and they bring in a lot of money to their employers. Why shouldn’t they see that? If you’re doing good things for your company making it profitable don’t you expect to see a share of that?
This is no different. And to people who say they don’t contribute anything other than entertainment…. well guess what? Entertainment has value. If it didn’t cut out your expenses in entertainment and focus only on your necessities and entertainers will make less.
Society sets the price on everything. What you spend on is what you value. And judging by current trends, how can you argue they aren’t valuable and deserve every bit of what they make? It’s foolish to even ask this question. Of course they are not overpaid. Only if MLB was bleeding money and needed to cut expenses could you argue they make too much.
No,MLB players aren’t overpaid.Did you see how much Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters made,stealing from poor black communities
How much money did they steal from black communities? Cite your source.
MAGA, amirite?!
Compared to what? They are entertainers. They should get paid based on how much the game of baseball and the teams are earning. Revenue is at record levels even when adjusted for inflation.
It takes a complete moron to think that anyone is overpaid when they are doing something so few are capable of doing. I had surgery and was not saying my surgeon, who got paid $57k for a 1.5 hour surgery or my anesthesiologist who got paid $18k for the same surgery was overpaid. I was happy to pay them for doing something so few can do.
BTW that is more than a baseball player earning $20 million per season gets paid per hour at the ballpark. They arrive before 1 pm for a 7 pm game and leave at 11 pm or after. Don’t talk about doctors going to school first either, baseball players attend a 10-12 year school called the minors and early majors to get to FA where they can earn $20 million per season.
I went to see Hostiles, a fantastic movie. I was not trying to say that the $24 million Christian Bale got paid to do the film was too much. Millions will go see that movie and it will be worth it to pay him that much.
Baseball is no different. As of today, the players as a whole are still not making 30% of the revenue that baseball will make in 2018. That will increase if any of the 100 FA still on the market are signed, especially the top free agents like Martinez, Hosmer, Darvish, and Arrieta sign. But the players share of revenue will not surpass 40% no matter what happens.
That means the players are being underpaid.
You can go ahead and downvote me now.
Facts don’t mean much to most of you.
Here’s another fact.. doctors and anesthesiologists get paid on average 100s of thousands of dollars. The average ballplayer in the MLB as the article points out makes millions.
You can manipulate “facts” to suit your argument. Politics calls this alternative facts.
The surgeon I was speaking of makes over $1.4 million per year on average. I know because we have done deals for him to broker several small office complexes in the past and I have seen his financials. There are 25,500 orthopedic surgeons in the US and 8670 orthopedic surgeons in the US with the same specialty.
There are 750 active players on major league rosters at any one time. There are 36 active players that make $20 million or more per season. There might be 4 more after this offseason. So 40 people in the world of 6.25 million that play amateur and professions baseball in the US each year are good enough at what they do and stay healthy long enough to earn that money.
It is 200 plus times rarer to become a major league player that reaches FA and then earn $20 million dollar paychecks than it is to become an orthopedic surgeon, even one that specializes in what the surgeon I spoke about does. I would say its that much harder, too.
I’ll copy and paste it again
“…. doctors and anesthesiologists get paid on average 100s of thousands of dollars. The average ballplayer in the MLB as the article points out makes millions.”
Even if one surgeon makes 1.4 million…. the AVERAGE mlb player makes millionSS…..
Ok, The surgeon I was speaking of makes over $1.4 million per year on average. I know because we have done deals for him to broker several small office complexes in the past and I have seen his financials. There are 25,500 orthopedic surgeons in the US and 8670 orthopedic surgeons in the US with the same specialty.
There are 750 active players on major league rosters at any one time. There are 36 active players that make $20 million or more per season. There might be 4 more after this offseason. So 40 people in the world of 6.25 million that play amateur and professions baseball in the US each year are good enough at what they do and stay healthy long enough to earn that money.
It is 200 plus times rarer to become a major league player that reaches FA and then earn $20 million dollar paychecks than it is to become an orthopedic surgeon, even one that specializes in what the surgeon I spoke about does. I would say its that much harder, too.
Joel Sherman made an analogy of baseball relative to the movie industry this week…
In the movies, the big stars (the ones fans come to see the movie because that person is in it) get paid huge money and most of the rest of the cast makes scale.
In baseball, this would translate into Trout, Altuve, etc. being paid FAR more (Trout might be worth a $1-2 billion deal under that scale) than they get now, while the rest of the league made between 500K and $2 million.
Fans come to see Trout. They don’t come to see Kole Calhoun. And they’d be paid as such.
I don’t think the MLBPA would like being paid as entertainers much.
They do already. Major league minimum is $565K. Compare that to scale for speaking roles for SAG actors who work 172 days a year. A major league season is 172 days long including travel days.
Scale for a regular in a 1 hour TV show is $8210 per day. For more info look at rate sheets on http://www.sagaftra.org. That is $1,412,120 for the same number of days as a baseball season.
A baseball player making major league minimum earns $3284.88 per day for an 8-10 hour day at the ballpark.
You are comparing the “major role performers” (the stars who are in the shows credits) to ball players making the minimum?
Those players are more comparable to the guest stars who make 1/4 of that.
sagaftra.org/files/sag/Digest_Theatrical_Televisio…
Regardless, this is mostly irrelevant to the point….
Do the players want to be compensated for what they do on the field or by what they contribute at the “box office” (to the bottom line)?
All but Trout want the former.
Great post
“But the players share of revenue will not surpass 40% no matter what happens.
That means the players are being underpaid.”
Based on what standard? Is there some unwritten rule that they are due 50% of revenue, or some other arbitrary figure?
Without the MLB players there is no MLB. They deserve at least 50% and since free agency have never been paid less than 42% in any season. There was a strike that season. In every other major sport the split is at or close to 50%. In some like soccer in Europe, it’s even higher.
Please don’t even try to say that the owners risk their money. Teams are financed, not purchased with cash. They are counting on proven incoming revenue to pay their debt and annual costs. Team owners have taxpayers pay for their stadiums, TV channels and sponsors pay their payroll, and ticket buyers pay on top of that.
They have no risk except that they will only make hundreds of millions when they sell the team.
An aside. When you build a building, 50% of the cost is labor. If you purchase a car, 50% of the cost you pay is for labor.
So, the owner’s share of profits have gone up substantially. Most of the stadiums are paid for by the government. Sounds like the owners are overpaid.
Depends on the player and/or the position
I certainly think some closers (especially Kenley Jansen) are overpaid. The starters (and usually middle-to-8th inning relievers) do most of the work in preserving the lead. All the closer usually has to do (most notably in save situations) is not blow the lead, and when the day inevitably comes where the closer is no longer able to do his one job and pitch his one inning, that’s money being flushed down the drain.
Yes Yes Yes!!!
Also, the fans over pay and even non fans because the cable bill has sky rocketed!!!!!
You are forced to pay for sports whether you want it or not!!!!!
“The players are the game” is an often cited but inaccurate statement.
The game is the game.
30 years from now (unless Bartolo Colon is still pitching) every single current player will be gone and the game will still exist. All of the great players from 30 years ago are gone and as great as they were, the game still exists today.
Most people cheer for a team, for a logo, even as the players change. As Jerry Seinfeld noted, “we cheer for laundry”.
This isn’t to say that players don’t deserve fair pay, but the game itself, the teams, the rivalries, the history, the records, etc. are all just as valuable to the sport as any current group of players.
What an illogical argument.
The MLB players today are the game TODAY. You can’t replace them. Remember how that worked out the last time the owners tried that? No one came to games and no one watched. The players today ARE the game TODAY.
In 30 years from now, the players that have the skills to play at the MLB level at that time will be the game.
You are not going to see owners running out on the field. You don’t go to the park to see owners or GMs or anyone except the players.
In the 70’s a competing league to the NHL formed, the WHA.
They stole the biggest stars from the NHL (Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, WAYNE GRETZKY, etc.) by paying them big money.
Most hockey fans continued to root for the teams and rivalries that the NHL owned and the WHA failed and folded by the end of the decade.
Many are overpaid. Many are underpaid. MLBPA has doubled down time and time again on a system where players with less than 6 years of service time are often dramatically underpaid, with the hope that they’ll sign a big deal and get overpaid to sit on the DL and underperform on the back end.
A few months ago a new Star Wars movie came out in the theaters. I went to see it (it’s pretty good). My ticket was around 11 bucks. I didn’t buy any popcorn or soda because I don’t eat those things and they are wildly overpriced. But there were plenty of families there loaded up with food; I would guess they shelled out close to 100 bucks to see that thing, which to date has grossed something like 2 billion dollars. Most of that money is going to go to the studio and George Lucas and the various production companies that financed that thing, but a not-insignificant chunk of change is going to the actors, including 10 million dollars alone for Mark Hamill, who is on-screen for about 20 minutes or so.
Nobody left that theater complaining about overpaid actors or directors or special effects people. They get paid what they do because they are the relative few people in the world who can do the jobs they do.
Major league baseball players are, counting minor leaguers, roughly the only 2000 people in the world who can do what they do, and they work within an industry that generates 10 billion dollars a year and has seen its franchise values increase 250% over the last five years. I believe they are paid appropriately.
I understand the arguments about teachers, firefighters, cops, etc. I was married to a teacher for years and they are woefully underpaid. Her brother was a cop and he made a lot more than her but still woefully underpaid. Difference? There are literally millions of cops and teachers in the world , and millions more that could do those jobs with the right training. Most of us, even if we started young, could never acquire the skills needed to play baseball for a living. I was a really good little league player, got to high school, couldn’t recognize a curve, and that was it.
Also, teaching and being a police-officer are not revenue-generating professions; unless you want to substantially increase the taxes through which they are paid the money isn’t there to pay them what they are worth.
Mark Wahlberg’s salary in 2017: $68 million.
Yes; and the silence over that is deafening.
A poll of whether Mark Wahlberg was overpaid would be 99% yes to 1% no.
His agent isn’t launching inflammatory rhetoric day after day in the press, though.
Really? He is in something like three of the top-20 grossing movies ever made. He has made a lot of money for the people who employ him. And people seem to like him, although I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen one of his films.
I know I haven’t.
Maybe MLBTR can do a follow up “Is Mark Wahlberg overpaid?” poll.
Baseball will generate a certain amount of revenue from ticket sales, TV, merchandise and other sources. Supply and demand controls that. The big issue is: who gets it — owners or players? Why focus on players instead of greedy owners? Players create value and should be paid accordingly.
Of course, part of the problem is that we see how much players make by reading MLBTR or the newspapers. We don’t see what the owners make do we hold it against the players.
The players employ no one. The owners pay everyone in the organization, but they’re greedy because they’ve achieved growth? There are far more risks and obligations for an owner to address, their decisions directly influence their city’s economy and thousands of their employees.
You got it all wrong. Taxpayers pay for the stadiums. Taxpayers pay for the upkeep on the stadiums. Taxpayers pay for the infrastructure needed surrounding the stadium. TV stations and advertisers pay for the majority of team expenses. Fans pay for the rest in ticket sales, parking, and concessions.
Owners are not paying anyone. We are. They are transferring a portion of our money to players and getting a huge cut in return.
Owners have no risks either. They are guaranteed a monopoly in their area supported by tax dollars and millions coming in from MLB. They are guaranteed income by TV contracts and season ticket sales that are renewed in November. They can choose to lose money by spending more than they are guaranteed prior to the season starting by spending too much money, just like you can overextend yourself on your credit cards, but they are still guaranteed how much they will bring in long before that. As Peter Seidler said when his family purchased the Padres a few years back, there are no other businesses in the world in which you can invest with less risk.
“TV stations and advertisers pay for the majority of team expenses. Fans pay for the rest in ticket sales, parking, and concessions.”
So, when the owners make money and then use it to pay the players that doesn’t count as the owners paying the players? The fans, TV stations and advertisers are paying the players but the owners are not?
By that logic, when your boss pays you and you use that money to pay your bills, your boss is paying your bills, not you. Is your boss paying your bills?
We should probably at some point mention that concessions and parking at stadiums are handled by outside vendors who give a % of their revenue off the top to the team and charge whatever they feel the fans will pay for hot dogs and beer and etc. Most of the concession money goes to the concessionaires
the payers employ their agents. the players have to chip in on tipping clubhouse attendants.
Teams don’t employ thousands of people. In fact, studies on public spending on sports stadiums have shown a net loss to the municipalities paying for it.
few, if any industries actually pay all their employees 10 times or more to keep the company afloat. an airline will charge a bag fee for extra bags but they probably arent paying the baggage handlers more that day for extra bags.
This is a market correction. A majority of the mid and small market teams got a huge influx of cash from either new publicly funded stadiums, strong local tv contracts or other new revenues sources. They started to spend it. Now teams like the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers are trying to get away from the luxury tax and a lot of those mid to small market teams have committed a majority of the money. This group of lackluster free agents got it in their heads they were going to get lotto payouts and refuse to acknowledge the change in the market. JD thinks 5 years at $25 million per is a bad deal then he should see what he can get in the Mexican, Korean or Japanese league.
The longer the period of inactivity, the more the narrative is stretched in search of an answer. While there certainly are other underlying factors, the make-up of this particular free agent class is the biggest factor in my view. Specifically in that each of the top tier class of free agents are deeply flawed while the players themselves and their representative(s)
look to be compensated as top free agents available. I contemplate whether this bottle neck would exist right now had Darvish hurled 7 shutout innings in Game 7.
As a Phillies fan, I know the money is there to sign multiple 20+mm AAV players right now and still be in great shape financially. This does not mean I want them signing Arrieta for his age 32-36 seasons when signs of decline are already evident (3 yrs / 80mm – perhaps).
JD Martinez, a flawed player himself, has purportedly been offered $125mm over 5 yrs. While he undoubtedly has I a tremendous bat, he is clearly an AL only player over the next 5 yrs who is likely to get most his ABs at DH.
Flawed top tier players and a stubborn agent. Underlying factors certainly, but I don’t believe there is a conspiracy or mystery here
I read that for $1.5M a year, each major league team could double minor league pay and meal money. The major league players’ association ought to get behind not just that, but lobby for $3M a year so benefits for farmhands can triple..
I am more concerned how grossly underpaid the minor league players are.
As long as the league enjoys monopoly protection, tax exemption and control of US baseball, ticket prices should be capped. The league an of it’s protections exist to provide entertainment and an avenue for fair competition. Team ownership and player salaries are both too high. It’s not a one or the other situation.
100%
The union whining while guys like J.D. and Hosmer sit on well over $100 million dollar offers because they’re agents aren’t satisfied is ridiculous.
I can’t blame athletes for their high pay. I can’t blame owners for looking to make a reasonable profit. I can choose not to pay to watch a product i find doesn’t interest me. What really does tick me off is the sweetheart land deals and tax money used to build & maintain facilities to benefit the billionaires & millionaires who should pay for their own upkeep.
Well, there are some cities, like Pittsburgh, that tax the crap out of parking, and part of the ticket price for both games and concerts, etc that are in the stadiums, and other items that funnel a lot of money back into the state and local governments coffers to make up for a bunch of the stadium outlay. On top of that, a lot of local businesses depend on those stadiums and events for their business not to mention all of the people that work at the venues. All that income gets taxed for both PA and the local governments too. Not all just for the benefit of the owners.
Should be an option “C” and or “D”. Some players are overpaid based on production and star appeal. They get paid a salary based on the league minimum but yet their production is not worth the what they are required to be paid nor are the fans flocking to the seats to watch those guys play. Other players who are over paid are the ones that based on their career numbers and their current ages when they become free agents, can get very long term contracts at extremely high rates but in reality can only sustain the career numbers for the 1st third of their long term/high salary deals and then, due to age, are extremely overpaid for the 3nd 2/3 to the 2nd 1/2 of the contract. Then there are those who are underpaid based on their service time and can be forced to play for league minimum but the production and star power (people are flocking to see these types of guys play) says they should get paid a whole lot more. They you have the superstars that do maintain the production and star power and more than cover the cost of their big contracts. Guess it all kind of evens out in the end though
I took a sports law class and my professor a well known NYC based sports attorney says that one of the biggest myths is that team’s payroll or player salaries has any correlation to ticket prices.
Gate receipts are just one of the many ways a team brings in money. Its more supply and demand.
If a team brings in a star player it can justify raising ticket prices because the team will hopefully be more competitive but obviously the team is not raising tickets to pay for the player they just acquired the way taxes are raised say when a team wants to build a new publicly funded stadium.
So if all players made half of their current salary then they could charge less for tickets, concession.
But they wouldn’t….that’s not how this works
Yes, No, Maybe. Some are vastly over paid, therefore others suffer. As a fan I have to invest a lot to see two live games a year, not only money but time. Six hour drive each way with wife and two kids in tow, $150.00 per night hotel room, two games or 8 tickets, $350.00, parking cost, food cost, souvenirs (wife), $10.00 beers, etc. Point being, we can all bitch and moan about money but the fans complaints are more relatable.
I only live about 220 miles or so from Atlanta, but with five kids it has been almost impossible to afford to go to games. The prices are outrageous. Surely some of it is the salaries, but it the business has more expenses than just salaries.
I do think as a whole they are overpaid. I also think that in many cases though that the organizations are greedy. But from my limited understanding only a few organizations actually clear a profit each season. Though it seems like the owners make the most when they sell off the team.
First of all, all teams according to Forbes make over 200 million in revenue. Second, this is a copy cat league and at least 8 teams are tearing down their teams. Third, GMs are now going to pay players by what they project not what they have done in the past. Fourth, GMs are not going to give many players long term contract because most of them have been bad for the team.
I think there should be a cap on elite player salaries and years. Does a player REALLY need, in Bryce Harper’s case, $400 million over 7 years?
At what point does he not just become a part owner instead? Jeter’s group bought the Marlins for $1.2 billion. That means Harper will be fetching 1/3 the sale price of an entire team.
I don’t feel particularly emotional either way about this. Baseball is a hard sport to master, and at that level especially. I’m happy to see them make good money, and entertainers are typically paid ginormous sums anyway.
But from an economic issue, it doesn’t seem like a sustainable model.
Apologies in advance. I know this comment is going to post twice for some reason, and it won’t make it any better of a comment!
MLBPA has created 3 classes of players 1-3yr, Arb eligible and Free agents. The latter group has vastly been over paid in the past. Similar to “old economy” companies like auto manufacturers and retail stores who’ve seen their stock prices decline (or go out of business) due to disruption so too Free Agents particular older one dimensional ones are seeing their market value decline/be disrupted by the rise of Statcast data. Team have adopted it for both in game strategy and now in how they allocate capital (payroll) short and long term
The business of MLB is hard to examine as no figures with the exception of player salaries are public information. Annually Forbes talks about revenues and franchise values but those are best guess estimates, no one except the teams knows their true profitability. This is much more complicated than NFL or NBA where national TV rights are the lion share of revenues, in MLB it’s now all about your local TV 1st, ballpark second, how revenues are shared among teams does not level the field so that teams in “win mode” can have similar payrolls like those other leagues.
Teams are much better at maximizing the CBA rules that are in place this off-seaon is a trend that’s gone on for several years. A simple look at how last years market went should have been an indicator. I don’t think it was ever in the MLBPA’s mindset that there would be FA classes large enough to field 6+ 25 man rosters, simple supply & demand.
MLBPA should take blame for not doing more for rank & file 1-3yr service players over the years creating too much of an income disparity between them an MLB middle class and has provided teams with cheap quality labor.
In the end since the advent of Free agency the CBA has worked for the players because they (their agents/MLBPA leadership) where the smartest guys in the room. Market is set by one team and history has shown repeated examples of “that one dumb owner” over the years setting markets. Who is the “dumb owner” in 2018, I guess this bizarre fascination with Hosmer puts SD and KC in the running. Interestingly the general public seems to get this, understands how debilitating to a roster a bad deal can be, if I had $1 for every idea NYY fans had for getting Elsbury off their roster I’d be rich 🙂
It’s not that they “are paid too much” per se. The market determines their salaries once they hit arbitration. The problem is that over-paying for players has become common place and teams are realizing the getting par value for the first half of a large contract then negative value for the second half. Tying up those funds has a high opportunity cost as well since money spent on one player cannot he spent on another.
JDM asking for $225/8 is a perfect example. Yes he can hit now and has in the past, but he can’t really do anything else and I don’t think anyone thinks he’s going to be earning $30MM (close to 1/3 of some teams overall budget) in 3-4 years time.
The players aren’t necessarily overpaid (though some certainly are compared to their value) but current free agents are sufffering from assuming that teams will continue to ignore the risk of these huge contracts. Teams seem to have gotten smarter in this regard.
Everything has gotten out of control. Increased salaries and increased ticket and merchandise prices, everything keeps going higher and higher except for the pay of the regular fan. If fans stop going, you bet the ticket prices will drop. The owners SHOULD make more than the players. It’s not a partnership. In every industry owners make more than the employees, that’s how it works. It’s not a game anymore, it’s a business. Owners aren’t fans as much anymore as they are business people looking to increase the bottom line.
Point is, everyone is making more except the fan. The fans won’t be able to keep up. The future looks bleak for MLB and other professional sports as it turns more to business and profit instead of fun and games.
I think it’s important to keep this discussion in context.
From a baseball perspective, contracts have gotten out of control. Even mediocre position players and average relief pitchers command multiple years and premium salaries now. The gap between what elite players get paid and everyone else gets is closing because teams have overpaid to outbid competitors. Conversely, players and agents now have absurd expectations about their value. Market correction is inevitable in environments like this. The 2018 free agent class is just the first to encounter market correction, and it is here to stay.
I’d prefer to simplify it – they are not overpaid if the market will support their requests. That being said any professional baseball player should be considered overpaid when the make $1 more than the lowest paid teacher.
$1 more than the lowest paid “competent teacher!”
To some degree, yes I think they are. Some players are being paid for the player they were, not the player they are now, like Pujols, Kemp, Chris Davis, and Hanley, who are all being paid $20+ million a year for their former, potential MVP status selves. While Jose Altuve, Kris Bryant, Nolan Arenado, and Jose Ramirez will all be making a fraction of what the former players I mentioned will make.
MLB players are not overpaid. MLB owners are. Go on permanent strike, dissolve the league, start a new player-owned co-op and cut out the leeches who add no value and generate no revenue, just take their cut because that’s how it’s always been done.
A lot of owners are making less than Pujols is. And starting a league and managing it is so simple. The players could buy teams now if they combined their fortunes.
Just curious, how would the new player-owned co-op baseball league determine player salaries?
Would they all play for the same salary or would they have to go to arbitration with each other or how would that work, exactly?
You could set minimum salaries based strictly on service time, adjusted annually for inflation/cost of living, and then reward performance proportionally on top of that. You use some agreed-upon metric or combination of metrics to award performance-based shares of the total amount of revenue earmarked for player compensation, which would eliminate arbitrary valuations.
You could have an independent board of performance auditors established as part of the new league’s charter to determine player salaries.
You could have players with the most plate appearances or innings pitched command the highest salaries, adjusted for seniority, on the logic that the hardest-working players get the best pay.
There’s any number of ways you could approach it, all better and fairer than handing more than half of the wealth the players produce to some rich idiot and his useless spawn.
It’s amazing that 29% voted no. The average player makes almost 100 times the average working adult. I also think something should be done to take better care of players in the minors.
They are not the average working adult. Should compare to the top 1% of other specialized highly skilled competitive professions. Think doctors, lawyers, business executives, financial traders, tech developers, entertainment industry.
The one issue I have with the “player’s are making a smaller % of the revenue” debate is that people automatically assume that the difference is going in owner’s pocket. Perhaps there are now higher non player expenses for technology, debt payments, marketing and player development.
Your comparing apples to oranges. The median salary is 10% the median salary of the median worker. But the median MLB career length is 4 years with as many as 5 years before making McDonald wages in the minors
After that they are looking for a new career at 30+
When answering this question, people really need to stop relying on the faulty “the Market supports” crutch
Truth is, there isn’t “a Market” – there are bunch of markets, just like with anything else
Because there are multiple markets, teams could eliminate most all of the seats, charge a hundred thousand a ticket and find a “Market” which could theoretically sustain itself – but that isnt the market they are going for, and instead they want to work within a “Market” where the most people possible from all walks of life can enjoy the game
Right now, sadly, no – the Market they wish to be in does not support the salaries given out. Who is able to go to games is getting more and more selective, while their experience at the game is getting less and less fulfilling even if they are. Where I used to be able to go to a game a week if feeling the desire, now I need to plan out going even once a month.
So are players overpaid? Since they can still make a profit under these salary conditions, no, no they are not … but … Yes, they are way over paid for the specific Market Baseball wishes to exist in.
Of course major league players are overpaid. Period. All entertainers are overpaid.
Lol not all performers are overpaid. How much do you think a smaller city orchestra member or ballet dancer makes?
They are overpaid because ,most teams are in tax payer subsidized stadiums, if the teams have 25 million dollars to pay one player each year they can afford to pay for their own stadiums.
I don’t object to the true superstars making $20 million or more. But what’s insane is a no name middle reliever or 5th outfielder making millions. I’m paying to see the superstars. The other guys? They’re largely interchangeable
In a free market economy no one is overpaid they are paid according to the market. Does someone who throws a ball hard or swings a bat fast deserve millions of dollars… yes because for some reason as a society we value that. Life is quite absurd and deaths the final word just remember to laugh and dance and sing… and watch baseball!
Baseball players, millionaires.
Golfers, millionaires.
Ping pong players, not so much.
It matters which little white ball you hit.
only Rubes would think billionaires are over paying there employees…maybe spread some love to the minor leaques as well…..remember last year teams paid about 4 billion in salaries,earned 10 billion in profits (still cant afford to build there own stadiums),and this year thanks to selling live streaming to Disney , they will have an extra 1..5 billion in revenue
It’s a little more complicated than a simple Yes or No. By the standards of the real world, compensation for services in baseball is just plain weird. You have less productive older players making tens of millions of dollars in one year while there are young superstars in their prime making less than $10MM/yr.. So some players are overpaid but a lot are underpaid as well.
One thing’s for sure: The union needs to fight to get rid of the “control years” from the CBA. Pay the players what they’re worth when they’re worth it. Keep the luxury tax in place so teams don’t get crazy with their spending. There will be an adjustment period but eventually the market will even out to where players on the downturn of their career will make just as much as players trending upward.
It’s disingenuous to frame this debate on a holistic level, considering we’re only really debating whether or not the top tier FAs should be getting ransom level offers for what will ultimately be downside years of their career – in that, I wonder if the agents that promote and feed this site contributed to the narrative (Boras?).
Isolate this to FAs (and others), specifically those in the $25-35mm bracket of annual salaries then compare the return. These deals don’t work, it’s really as simple as that, otherwise owners would still be willing to pay.
I’m not debating that in this post, and purposely didn’t talk about free agency in it.
I think they are no overpaid, nor are they underpaid.
I do think 40 -45% of revenue to be fair.
This is foolish. Certainly revenues are unbelievably high but what do owners bring to the table?
It’s very likely the owners are making ungodly amounts of money. By this article’s estimate 60% of the pie, less expenses. Again I ask you, what do they bring to the table? What do they do that the players couldn’t hire someone to do for them?
Deifying owners for no reason other than you like how it makes you feel to make the statement is silly. For example, I caddied for Jeff Wilpon twice and he’s not a quality person. His daddy gave him the team and they used it for cash after losing money to Madoff. Why would anyone think they deserve any profit they can wring from the players?
The players work their tail off, Wilpon and many others were silly born into the right family.
Grow up.
Really surprised you’d write such a dangerous piece with such a click-bait headline, Tim. After all, you personally are a guy who is losing clicks and ad revenue aka money off this site due to this slow offseason. Kind of really bitter sounding, tbh. Why didn’t you ask if owners make too much money? Why didn’t you ask if agents make too much money?
Would really like to know what’s behind this piece, which is honestly, as a fan of your writing, the worst thing you have ever done on this site. Sorry but I can’t figure out why you would do this, unless an owner got in your pocket somehow, which is doubtful, but its 2018 and anything is possible, and who knows just how highly the industry values this site.
Tim I liked the article and sometimes wonder the same thing. Why are they over paid? Pro sports in general will come a day in which the average fan like myself will stop watching, attending , and following because all you hear is the whining of players. Me I no longer go to any game unless the tickets are free and even then it depends who it is. Call me ” Burned out on the players”.
It is strange that you would read this article and come away with the idea that I’m pro-ownership. I’m firmly in the minority who does not feel players are overpaid. I ran this poll because I wanted to see what percentage of our readership thinks MLB players are overpaid. Turns out I disagree with most of our readership. (Side note, our traffic is up year over year due to the slow offseason, and I don’t care at all whether this post generated clicks).
I feel like it is both. I mean you got guys who come out of the gate hot and are way underpaid for their value while at the same time you got guys in their 30s who are upset that they are only making like 20mm a season when they feel that they deserve more while not performing. How ticket prices of tickets evolve I feel are a lot how the team handles things – I mean you look on stub hub right now for Giants tickets and mid week night games you can still get a lot of the games for under $10 a ticket and that has been pretty consistent even during the 2010 – 2014 run – hell in 2011 I actually went to a night where they did a $3 bleacher night. I don’t think that ‘Baseball players’ are overpaid as a whole but I do think that the expectation of the rising salaries by some players at the top and agents acting like they should run the market really make everyone look bad.
It’s an open market. They are worth what a team is willing to pay.
Any serious discussion of this issues would look at median salary. Of the 1200 players represented by MLBPA the median salary is a bit over the minimum salary. 25% of players get FA money, 30% arb salaries, and 45% MLB minimum and/or 40 man minor league pay (for many its a combination).
The median MLB career is less than 4 years so many players dont get a taste of even arb pay, and almost anyone signed out of HS or earlier which is at least half have toiled in the minors at McDonalds wages for up to 5 years, while college players put in a couple at least before getting added to the 40 man. Some may have had a decent bonus, a minority, but fewer good bonuses are given today under the new rules
Also, compared to owners who pay taxes on profits and capital gains players pay far more of their income on taxes. Owners have property and assets worth 50 billion (while paying less than 10 billion for their teams) and teams that collectively generate 10 billion in income pay less than half taxes than the players do at 4 billion. In fact many owners get tax subsidies and tax credits for stadiums, renovations and property taxes so who knows what the real numbers look like
As for the players who no doubt make big bucks, remember this. They are the elite of the elite. The top 0.01% at their profession if you include all players at a draftable/signing age. Anyone in the private sector at the top 0.01% of their profession is making a killing and making as much money or more for much longer periods of time. An MLB player , even the elite ones , is considered washed up at 35. They need to be paid well for the brief time they can offer their services on the free market. A period that has been shrunk considerably by owner collusion
periods
Its clear owners have the better deal and players should be doing far better. I’d rather see focus on increasing averag pay by reducing the income inequality so younger players get more. Perhaps limiting guaranteed to 5 years in return. Longer contracts allowed but those years can be bought out at 10% at any time
I’d like to know what owners pay themselves and othe rexecutives. I know Manfred is making over 20 million a year. All of this deducted from their operating income. Also many own in part the RSN’s that earn profit on 60% of revenue.
In the example of the Cubs/Cards game, the Stubhub prices would be the same if the face value of the tickets were a quarter of what they are now. Ticket agencies/scalpers charge what people are willing to pay.
Another point is that if you could get Cubs/Cards tickets for $50 for 4 seats, the demand would be so high that your chances would be limited (and of course half the tickets would end up ont he secondary market).
Clickbait article. You should be ashamed.
Of course they are overpaid- compared to soldiers, firemen, coal mine workers, doctors, etc. (Pretty much everyone other than NBA players and the occasional entertainer)
Would prices drop for fans if players made less- I’m not an economist either but I can say definitively that, overall, no the prices would be the same. Go to a bar on a Wed, you might get that bottle of beer for a dollar or two; on Saturday night, it will cost you ten. It’s the same beer, the bar didn’t pay more to acquire. It is all about supply and demand.
The only way prices drop is if fans stop paying. Unfortunately, particularly in larger markets, corporations and the uber rich will pay enough that teams don’t care that they have empty seats (see Yankees for best example).
I’m definitely not ashamed.
It is funny when use the term, “click-bait”. The basic idea behind the creation of the Web is that items would be clicked on. It was meant to be interactive from the beginning.
How about if the union let that salary distribution trickle down into the minors so those guys can have a livable wage?
They make plenty of money. Playing a game.
Free agents were overpaid. Players under control are “underpaid”.
All players in all sports are vastly over paid. Its not like they give back to the community (unless your chris long 1 in million) Doctors and teachers deserve much much more as the give so much to respective communities. Thing players need to remember is player need sports not the other way around. Owners could get lesser talents and still produce great television numbers.
Teachers should get paid more, but teachers don’t generate revenue, so that’s up to taxpayers to pay more taxes, which a lot of them are loathe to do. Doctors don’t generate that much revenue either; certainly very good specialists provide value to their hospitals, but hospitals are non-profits. Some doctors, specialists with their own, for-profit practices – make a lot of money. Most doctors are paid very well compared to the average American but they also spend decades in school to become doctors.
And again, a lot of people can become doctors if they have the right training and intelligence and dilligence. Most people can become teachers if that’s something they want to put their minds and talents to, although the payoff in salary is generally not worth it for most. Very few people have the skillset to become a professional athlete, regardless of the amount of training they do. I could run every day of my life and never be as fast as Usain Bolt, for example.
And, no, if owners just replaced all the major leaguers tomorrow with minor leaguers nowhere near as many people would tune in.
Triple a talent would look just as good against triple a talent. Players need to learn there place, the game made them not the other way around.
I couldn’t read through all the comments. But as far as ticket prices are concerned google the “laffer curve” and that is the way tickets are priced. Can we sell more tickets at $10 apiece instead of $15 to where it will generate more revenue? Assuming all 81 games aren’t sellouts. But then you have to consider concession revenue, parking revenue, etc. I don’t think players are overpaid. The market can handle player salaries and I’m sure the MLBPA and MLB figure that stuff out, in fact I know they do based on the size of the organizations and revenue generated… this FA class wants too much money for what they will produce. Moose is a lefty power bat with average defensive skills and low OB skills. Never was worth $100MM. JDM has a great offer from a playoff contender and his dumbass wants another year. Darvish has 5 offers, reportedly. So greed seems to be the underlying issue. And before someone responds “wouldn’t you hold out for more money?” Answer is no. JDM, for example, is burning bridges that haven’t even been constructed yet.
No, not overpaid in a general sense. I’m thinking there’s been a bit of a “bubble,” in a way, that is perhaps starting to come back more in line with reality? In that regard, it is absurd to get upset at owners for not “ponying up the dough” to sign the players out there for what they are “supposedly worth.” They’re worth what the owners say they’re worth, whether the players, union, critics, writers, fans, etc., like it or not. Eric Hosmer is NOT NOT NOT a major upgrade over that many first basemen out there. Sorry, Hos. Those for whom he IS an upgrade, very few merit a $100+M commitment. That’s a lot of money for possibly an extra win or two.
I voted yes because they’ll make more than a lot of people, but then I look at the NBA and realize they make more money running up and down a court shooting a ball. NHL players on the other hand are paid dirt compared to some other sport players. As a comparison Dallas Stars goalie Ben bishop is making five mil for six years when some baseball or NBA player is making 15 mil for 8 years.
I vote yes. I can see them getting paid more than other sports due to length of season. More games and more time away from family/home, but some of these contracts are ridiculous and the ones that get greedy can be very annoying and really quite distasteful.
This is a really great discussion topic because for some reason I have always felt like I would be happier if I made as much money as major league baseball players and if my job were as fun as playing baseball is.
Since the reality is that my job sucks and I don’t make anywhere close to what a Lorenzo Cain does, then I must insist that they be knocked down to my level in one way or another. J mean i know they work crazy hours for half the year but its obviously worth it
No, but owners are wise to cut back on long term contracts. They have been burned on many at the back end of it.
Exactly!
Wisdom from the pig on Green Acres! Love it!!!
I understand the revenue made has to go somewhere, but instead of limiting it to owners’ pockets or players’ salaries, why don’t we consider that with the huge amounts of revenue made, teams could reduce ticket prices, make ballpark upgrades to make the game experience better, and maybe give back to the communities that support them. Instead of saying the owners should over pay for players who don’t think $25mm per year is enough, why not reduce ticket prices and invest in the community. I’d rather see money going back into the communities and be able to go see a ballgame for less $50/ticket instead of seeing $25-$30mm contracts.
Be prepared for every single game to be a sell out and a wait list to get into the games
Without a doubt.
Someone has said this above, I’m sure. I would’ve checked myself, but this may be the longest set of comments posted this off season. Why? It hit THE NERVE. I won’t bother giving my two cents on whether they should or shouldn’t. It’s not my place to judge that. I
Jeffrey Loria got a stadium built by taxpayers, sold the Marlins for $1B more than he paid for them, and then claimed a loss for tax purposes.
Owners, not players.
Do you enjoy watching great players play? Or would you enjoy more watching the owners count their megabucks? The money is there..The organizations will charge what the market will bear. The price to watch games won’t decrease.
I don’t feel they are overpaid simply because of the revenue being generated. I don’t understand how people can be upset at a player’s salary yet be completely on board with the owners making as much as they do. Owners took home 62% of the revenue last year. There’s 30 owners! That means 38% went to the players to share.
Completely agree. Well said.
What? How on earth do you figure that owners profited 62% of the league revenue last year?
The average MLB team noi is around $15-20M
This depends on debt service, aggression with payroll, associated costs etc. but there are plenty of individual players making more than their owners. Kershaw last year made more than the Dodgers ownership group.
Estimated league revenue last year was $9B. Estimated payroll was $4.1B
And then there are organizational costs, front offices, operating costs, licenses, taxes, fees, travel, etc etc etc etc etc etc
Owners combined for probably about a half billion in net profits last year. And considering how expensive it is to buy a team and those asset valuations, it’s not exactly a great return.
What is wrong with Kershaw making more then the owners? Nobody goes to a Dodgers game to see the owners. Kershaw is the product, not the owners.
Absolutely nothing.
I’m just pointing out that the owners aren’t just stacking cash like was just assumed above.
Personally, I don’t care what others make. That’s a silly thing to care about, but a lot of people in these threads need an economics class.
It’s pretty simple…
Owners are billionaires, Players are millionaires.
Players deserve to be paid for their skills.
The more a player makes, the more a game costs. Wished it was much lower to go to a game, buy merchandise, etc.
Absolutely, 100%, totally unrelated.
Revenues and costs are operated separately, just like in every business.
Baseball is a market minus business.
You are charged whatever the team can reasonably sell the most tickets at for the highest price.
Their costs as an operation have nothing to do with that. That’s simply their justification for being in business.
They don’t raise ticket prices because they sign a free agent. They raise ticket prices to the point where the market will still pay for them.
No, of course not. Compare their payroll to revenues vs the other sports. It’s right in line.
The problem is, they are underpaid when they are good and in their 20’s, and overpaid when they are bad and in their 30’s
Because owners are the ones who are taking risks in creating a product that people will buy or not. People like to complain about owners but the main reason they are owners is because they want to make money. That is the whole point of taking risks and investing money so you can create more money. Somehow the owners are the evil ones here??!!! Wtf?!! Doesn’t make any sense!
And what’s crazy is the incredibly low ROI these investments are generating for new owners. The Marlins, based on the financials we’ve seen is like 2-3%
That’s a joke for a billion dollar investment that is based on 67% cash.
A lot of owners in the MLB care about winning over profits….with roi being necessary, but secondary.
We are lucky that they do. Because you could throw that cash in the market for 20 years and triple that return.
Yes, the Marlins owners care about winning. The same team that keeps trading away every player that can make them a winner. You can almost set your clock to it.
Well it’s a new ownership group, and the financial data that was shared make it obvious that payroll had to come way down.
Winning in baseball is usually a cycle, takes awhile to develop that
They are ridiculously overpaid, as are most athletes. Alex Rodriguez was one of the worst things to happen to this sport, at least financially. With that being said, it’s not like we can complain. WE are the reason they make so much money. If we watch the games on TV, physically attend the games, and buy their apparel they wouldn’t make this kind of money. But what’s the fun in that? It’s more fun to enjoy the sport and just complain about how much more money they make than us. 😀
“As an industry, MLB’s revenue has grown to $10 billion. As Nathaniel Grow wrote on FanGraphs a few years ago, the players’ percentage of that pie has dropped from a peak of 56% in 2002 to less than 40% in 2015.”
I personally do not think that the players are overpaid. I have no problem at all with the players making what they can under whatever CBA terms their union negotiates with the owners through the various avenues it gives them to make money (free agency, arbitration, extensions, etc.).
It’s disappointing, however, that Tim repeats this number from Nathaniel Grow without noting that this trend is heavily disputed. See this AP article from a couple years ago saying the players’ collective share of net revenue has stayed right around 50% from 2006 through at least 2015 – chroniclet.com/national-news/2016/03/21/AP-study-p… . The MLBPA (Tony Clark) is quoted as saying that the union reviews the numbers and basically agrees with that conclusion.
The players’ share of revenue may have declined somewhat from the early 2000’s through 2006 as various aspects of the 2002 CBA took effect (most notably revenue sharing and the luxury tax). It’s quite a different trend than Grow pushes, however, to agree with this study by the AP that the players’ overall percent of net revenue has settled in at about 50% after some changes years ago. There are sometimes year-to-year fluctuations in that percentage, but no downward trend.
Going by the Scott Boras quote in that AP article, it appears that a lower percentage down around 40% requires including all revenue from sources like MLB Network and MLBAM (streaming, website) without deducting the cost of running those operations. That doesn’t make any logical sense, as it’s obviously the profit after expenses (studios, servers, employees including IT people, on-air talent, production staff, etc.) that’s relevant to what teams truly make from these operations and can therefore use to fund player salaries. It’s obviously important to verify that those expenses are correct and not overstated, but we know that the costs of running a cable network and large IT operation are well more than $0.
Absolutely overpaid….take a deployed soldier for instance….they are deployed to a place they don’t want to be and stay for a year or so if they make it out alive….they get paid about $35,000 to $45,000 for the year they were deployed….police officers make roughly $50,000 to $75,000 per year depending on where they are….now ask if MLB players making $5,000,000 to $25,000,000 per year are overpaid….some of these military veterans and police officers played baseball for fun in their days but to play for millions….it sounds ludicrous to think any man is worth that amount of money….sure they bring people to the stands but the role players and bench guys that see limited action are making $500,000 to $2,000,000 and these are the low end guys as far as pay….are they worth that kind of money? Hell no. Love baseball and love doing fantasy baseball etc….but they are all overpaid babies….that goes for all major sports athletes….just saying….
This is not a simple yes or no question. I think the top players are overpaid, but as a whole, they are underpaid.
” If player salaries were magically cut in half tomorrow, but demand for tickets remained the same, would you expect teams to reduce prices?”
The answer to that question is……………YES!!! A big reason people think baseball players are overpaid is due to the cost to attend a game. Baseball plays twice as many games as basketball or hockey, and 10 times as many as football.. So yes, fans do expect baseball to cost a lot less than those sports. In fact, demand would greatly increase if ticket prices dropped, because more fans could afford to go.
But that is not how baseball, and it’s owners think. They do not necessarily care if the stands are full, they want the most money for the tickets they sell. A 2/3 full stadium at $100 a pop yields more money than a full stadium at $50 a pop. In fact, a full stadium all the time tells them they need to raise ticket prices.
But honestly, baseball players are not overpaid. They are paid what the market will bear, What bothers me though is all the whining going on by players and the agents when the market does not work in their favor, as it has this off season.
Both the owners and players are overpaid. Duh. How about doing some research on how much the small market, middle market, and big markets owners rake in then let us know and have a vote on them??? How about reporting with real facts how the cost of TV, memorabilia, and concessions at the games has skyrocketed in the last 10 to 30 years???
What a ridiculous question !! Really? Let me start by saying I love the game of baseball. My favorite player is Joey Votto. He is an insanely intense player who will prove to be a significant player in Reds history. That said, he makes on average $25,000,000 per year. Now let’s break that down – if he plays 162 games , that’s $154, 000 per game to play a child’s game professionally. Now, if he averages 4 plate appearances a game he gets $38,000 for every time he steps to the plate. Essentially a new , nice F150. Just saying! Let’s take the final step, if he averages 5 pitches per at bat, that’s $7716 per pitch he sees. NOW – you have people out there putting their lives on the line every day for this country and are not paid like they should be. You have people in jobs that are saving lives and protecting the weaker person and they are not paid enough. For the 25% of you that said no , please come back to earth and join us. Recognize the difference between what we as a country or civilization need or what we want.
I don’t generally consider them overpaid in general. Specific players, like Prince Fielder or Barry Zito, sure. But the Angels got millions of dollars worth of production from Mike Trout for a relatively low amount of money compared to revenues. Pro athletes, like singers and actors, entertain millions, so I really don’t care about the disparity with what I make. My main issue is when you have mediocre players demanding inflated contracts just because the owners have more money. Guys like Harper, Kershaw, Machado and true difference makers will get paid more.
One’s answer will be determined in large part by whether s/he is a relativist or not.
All athletes get paid too much. Most entertainers do. There’s absolutely no real argument against that. Our protectors and people with much more difficult jobs—I really admire the hell gsrbage men go through, though I’m seeing more and more garbage cranes (for lack of knowledge of proper terminology).
So yeah, there’s really no question they get overpaid.
The argument comes when we look at the question relativistically: relative to the amount of money MLB teams bring in, are baseball players overpaid? That’s a totally different question, but accounts at why their are such extremes in the comments here.
Add in politic beliefs (capitalism vs socialism), and we can call it a day.
For example, does Vanna White get paid too much to flip letters on Wheel of Fortune? I’d say anyone who doesn’t say “yes” is crazy. But now relative to the funds generated by the show, does she? That’s a different question and probably a different answer. I just hope we’re all answering the same question…
Personally as long as the public is paying for the stadiums, I believe there should be some form of price controls on the tickets. If you wanna jack the price of tickets up to $2000, that’s fine but at that point you should pay for your own freaking stadium.
Voted No. It’s the cost of doing business.
A team like the Angels can carry a Pujols contract with a payroll upward of 170-180 million. They signed a lucrative television deal following the signing of Pujols. The problem is when the payroll also includes Josh Hamilton, C.J. Wilson, Bobby Abreu, Joe Blanton, Vernon Wells and Jered Weaver, which incidentally was a team-friendly contract at the time it was signed in 2011.
In defense of Pujols, while he’s not the same player as he was in his first decade with the Cardinals, he still plays hard, often hurt, is a team player and still contributes. Most fans knew the last part of the contract would be tough, but that was the price to get him in 2011. Besides it’s Artie’s money, and I’ll take an owner who spends money over an owner that pinches pennies and cries poverty.
You can look at their salaries and say they’re overpaid, but the business generates that kind of money, so they’re really not. It drives me nuts when people throw out the soldiers and first responders should be paid that kind of money over athletes. People say that not realizing that taxes pay those people,while athletes get paid off of revenue generating by the business they’re in. It’s not even comparable.And then there’s still the side of how they live beyond the game.Soldiers and 1st responders can go to the supermarket,or walk down the street,and nobody would know who they are. Star Athletes lose that,they get recognized everywhere they go,and likely getting harassed for autographs.