I have the opposite impression. They’ve been so insistent about playing this season that I’ve assumed they are facing some serious financial penalties under their TV contracts if they don’t play at all.
I have the opposite impression. They’ve been so insistent about playing this season that I’ve assumed they are facing some serious financial penalties under their TV contracts if they don’t play at all.
That could be. I don’t know those details of the TV contracts. I had heard that between 40 and 50% of total revenues for teams comes from ticket sales and other game day sales at ballparks. And that they are paying the players their prorata salaries. I had heard that the TV money was also reduced prorata based on how many games they play.
But it’s a game changer, pardon the pun, if they have penalty payments to the broadcast partners if they don’t play a season. Then the incentive is to ride out this virus bubble and hope we don’t see more of them.
If fans tuned out, the makegoods likely would have put a hole in already lousy reveues anyway.
I’ll bet this is really about BLM and not WuFlu.
Now that I think about it, though, wouldn’t the owners have some kind of force majeur clause protecting them? And likely from something like WuFlu, not BLM.
Bet it makes far more financial sense to blame WuFlu than BLM.