Posted on 08/21/2020 11:00:12 PM PDT by knighthawk
A contract means nothing if the team is going bankrupt. "Hey, we can't keep this up. Either you take a voluntary pay cut or we'll file bankruptcy and your contract will be worth pennies on the dollar."
I wonder if perhaps the OPPOSITE is happening. People found other things to do with their time over those four months ... and very quickly figured out how pointless it is to sit in front of a TV for three hours and watch 2.5 hours of advertising interrupted by an occasional burst of sports action.
The only major sport where I recall this sort of situation happening is the NHL, which has had a number of franchises facing serious financial difficulties over the last 25 years. As a last resort, the league itself has occasionally taken over the control of a franchise (most recently the Phoenix Coyotes a few years ago).
The more likely scenario is a two-step process that occurs over a period of 2-3 years. First, a league's TV contract expires and there are no bidders for the new contract who are willing to pay anything close to the current contract. That immediately results in a reduction in annual revenues for every team in the league. After that, the next step is when the collective bargaining agreement between the league and its player union expires. The new CBA will be negotiated based on the lower revenues, so the players will immediately see a reduction in terms like minimum salaries, salary cap figures, etc. Even an existing player contract that extends for several years beyond the end of a CBA could be in jeopardy, because the league can lock out the players during the collective bargaining process just to hold leverage over them and force them to accept across-the-board reductions in their huge salaries.
bump
It sounds like you have some experience in these matters. Very interesting. Thanks.
Case in point ... Mario Lemieux had a “guaranteed” contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins that was supposed to pay him for years after he retired in the late 1990s, but there was a legitimate threat that it would be reduced or eliminated in a threatened bankruptcy proceeding when the team was facing serious financial problems. So he agreed to cancel the contract in exchange for an ownership stake in the team. He then came out of retirement and played another couple of years to help restore fan interest and drive up the value of the team and make it attractive to potential buyers. This put him in the unusual position where he had a blatant — but probably unavoidable — conflict of interest during the 2005 NHL lockout and labor negotiations with the NHLPA.
That’s also interesting. It certainly helps to explain why deferred money contracts are not that appealing to big name players.
Those who support or watch these anti-American, overpaid thugs and fools are supporting anti-Americanism. I hope the league fails.
And women players. Don’t forget the women.
I hope you are correct - I hope the whole celebrity class - be they athletes,
entertainers - whatever suffer the fabled fall that is preceded by pride.
You could be right.
It doesn't help that the players are driving away a big chunk of their fan base by disrespecting the national anthem before every match.
Along with the player contracts, the building rent contracts should also be looked at. After all, if you don’t need to have people sitting in the stands, why pay for the expensive building? No idea how long stadium contracts run, but at some point it will all catch up. And even the concession stands probably pay a base rent; not much value now if there are NO sales to support the expense.
Part of the contract was a large signing bonus (maybe $1M) to finance a real estate deal for his North Carolina farm. I think he was paid $50,000 annually for 20 years after he retired. And this was structured as an annuity purchased by the team on his behalf at the time the contract was signed, so he would have been paid that money even if the team went out of business. The contract also included life insurance policies for all of his family members.
Hunter had been declared a free agent by an arbitrator as a result of a breach of contract dispute with the Oakland A’s, so the Yankees even agreed to put $250,000 in escrow to cover any legal fees for Hunter if the A’s filed a lawsuit to try to get his Yankee contract canceled.
Reggie Jackson signed another complicated free agent contract with the Yankees in 1976. When you read the details of these contracts you realize that the Yankees didn’t sign all those big-name free agents over the years just by offering them the most money. They were able to sign them because the team’s ownership group — mainly principal owner George Steinbrenner but also a number of limited partners that included some smart New York City lawyers and real estate players — could structure some very complicated contracts like this.
Indianapolis 500 is tomorrow.
Marco Andretti is on the pole at over 231 MPH.
This years cars look very interesting.
The NBA has been thoroughly Africanized and is no longer a sporting organization but a Negro promotional organization. Show me an NBA player and I’ll show you an overpaid American enemy
If ESPN somehow goes out of business as a result of all this, I will be delighted.
As long as the foreign money keeps pouring in, the NBA could care less how many americans are watching!
Season ticket holders down 80%.
Hubby is 80, sports his hobby, until I threw a HISSY FIT OVER THE KNEELERS. REMINDING HIM his day will come to lie under our Flag, 20 yr Career Navy Vietnam Vet, 7 other relatives from WW 2, Korea, Vietnam, lie under our Flag, 2 nephew brother 1 Army, 1 Border Patrol, several old Military who will soon join those already lying under our Flag.
Only fight we’ve ever had. I WON. If up to me I’d cancel the $200 cable not worth the horse manure on it, or Netflix pedophile junk.
The return of golf has not been free of wokeness. I haven’t seen it infect the actual live coverage, but I’ve seen several messages during commercial breaks from the PGA and the covering network talking up Diversity and other such claptrap.
CBS’ Amanda Balionis is a BLM supporter and during one recent event had a bizarre virtue signaling commercial break message talking about the blowback she received from her BLM support, and during this she said something about needing to get to a point where (paraphrasing here) such thoughts or comments ‘can’t be said anymore.’ She didn’t specifically say what thoughts or comments should be verboten and banished from public discourse. I suppose she could have been referring to something genuinely racist that was said to her, but I’d bet it was just some mild opposition to the BLM narrative that she found so objectionable. And like a true leftist, she’d like to banish views she disagrees with.
Anyway, the whole thing was a most unwelcome intrusion of politics into the broadcast. So while I haven’t heard any on-air virtue signaling from the commentators or golfers, the entirety of the broadcasts have not escaped infection.
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