MLBTR Chat Transcript

I like this part of the chat, where Steve answers

“But, generally speaking, why shouldn’t players be pissed off if, when MLB’s revenues are at an all-time high (10.5 billion), their salaries are trending in the other direction? You can say “they’re not worth it,” but in making that argument, you’re just saying that the guy who owns the team IS worth that extra money, which is even less sensible.

The simple fact is that player salaries aren’t going to dictate ticket prices or concession prices — which still seems to be what many, many people think would happen.. Last I checked, my beer was still $12 at an NHL game, despite the league’s salary cap.”

This is spot-on. MLB revenues are almost entirely driven by factors other than attendance. The NFL’s salary cap doesn’t make going to a football game cheaper, and I’m just going to guess that tickets to the National Championship College football game last month were more than five bucks. I live in a town with a major college basketball program, and I’ll attest now that tickets to that cost way more than the tickets for the AAA team a few miles away or tickets to see the Reds (the closest MLB team).

I think because most people played baseball, or some variation on it (softball or t-ball or whatever), they think “this is just a game, why should people make millions to play a game?” There’s never that same disconnect : why should these owners, nearly all of whom inherited their wealth, continue to make even more and more money on the backs of the players, many who actually came from abject poverty. The players do the work – and while baseball is a game/sport, it’s absurd to think it isn’t a year-round, grueling job. They don’t just show up at the start of a game and go home at the end of it. They play baseball 9 months a year, train in the offseason, and lets not even get into the travel, which is grueling in the majors but must be even worse in the minors, where players travel via bus and don’t get paid much of anything. And obviously they generate tons of revenue. And also, of course, baseball careers are really short; if you were told, at age 25, that you had about 12 years to make all the income you were ever going to make in your life, would you try to maximize it?