Posted on 07/26/2024 9:54:22 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
MLB and the Players Association have agreed to a change to the collective bargaining agreement that’ll help teams whose television rights situations are uncertain. Evan Drellich of The Athletic reports that the league is now permitted to redirect its portion of competitive balance tax money to clubs that have lost TV revenue. Those teams can receive a maximum of $15MM or the necessary amount to compensate for their revenue drop.
Teams that exceed the competitive balance tax threshold are required to pay fees at the end of each season. The league and union split the money. The MLBPA’s portion funds its retirement accounts. That is unaffected by today’s agreement. The league now has the discretion to allocate some of its half of the money to clubs that have seen their TV revenues drop in either of the last two seasons. According to Drellich, the MLBPA projects the league’s half of the CBT payments to total around $150MM this year.
Most of those organizations had contracts with Diamond Sports Group, which is trying to survive as it concludes a lengthy bankruptcy proceeding.
Diamond dropped its contracts with the Padres and Diamondbacks midway through last season. This spring, it renegotiated its deals with the Guardians, Twins and Rangers at lesser fees after threatening to abandon those contracts. AT&T Sports dropped its local TV deals with the Rockies, Pirates, Mariners and Astros last offseason. Pittsburgh, Seattle and Houston found alternate broadcasting arrangements (likely with reduced revenues), while MLB stepped in to handle Rockies broadcasts within market.
A good number of teams remain skeptical about the long-term future of their regional sports networks. MLB has made no secret of its wariness about the broadcaster’s viability for ’25 and beyond.
(Excerpt) Read more at mlbtraderumors.com ...
May those who knelt in solidarity with Communist organizations such as Black Lives MatterTM disappear into the dustbin of history.
Some of it is bad baseball. Players hurt themselves stretching or running the bases.
Many MLB teams do not make money. They require life support to keep going.
The teams with higher seat attendance are the old teams that existed back to WW1.
This article points out that it’s not just some Major League Baseball teams that don’t make money but television carriers losing money too.
Used to watch tons of baseball. Cannot remember the last World Series I watched it’s been so long ago now which was once must see viewing. I would say it was a slow process of watching less and less over the last 15 to 20 years. This year the number of minutes I’ve watched MLB....zero. It’s not that I hate the sport now just indifferent which they say is the actual opposite of love. And it’s not just baseball but all spectator sports at this point for me. Tonight I will also be missing the opening of the Olympics.
With declining ratings the TV money has got to be declining.
I think player salaries are probably as high as they’ve ever been. Some big stars making the tens of millions a year. I have not kept up with the latest but I recall hearing a few years ago the average player made 4 million a year.
They can only raise ticket prices so much to cover all of these expenses. And the TV money has got to be declining if ratings decline.
Moneyball (a great movie btw) basically killed baseball.
It used to be that you'll have a feel for the game. You'll bunt, then try to steal 2nd base. Etc.
Now it's a walk. Home run. Strike out. Three true outcomes.
With the TV situation and with the internet I wonder if that has changed how people watch games?
For example, how many Baseball fans sit down and watch an entire game on TV, versus how many go on the internet , to see the highlights of games, but don’t watch the entire game anymore. If too many people are doing that, that right there is going to kill the value of broadcasting rights for the games.
Yes it seems like strategies of old just don’t get much play anymore.
You don’t hear much about the Hit and Run play anymore.
You don’t see too many stolen bases anymore.
So all the games are boring now. If you watch an old game from the '80s, they were actually exciting.
It doesn’t help when sports are brought by a corporation (Diamond) in bed with a gambling interest (Bally.) Helps even less when they charge inordinate fees to watch a game.
They're not even bothering watching highlights online or on their phones. The "Tik Thot" generation is viewing other forms of entertainment.
Major League Baseball didn't get woke and then go broke - they were already going broke when they decided to go woke in a desperate attempt to slow the decline. Major League baseball has been in decline since the strike of 1994 and even the steroid-fueled home run surges in the late 1990s and early 2000s couldn't stop the decline.
The last viewers of a dying sport are the gamblers.
Pretty close to $5 million average in 2024. But everyday starting position players are closer to $10 million average. Teams resist beyond that for ‘average’ players (average in MLB is a very high mark). MLB minimum this year is $740k.
Minor leaguers are now much better paid than they used to be. $60k+ minimum.
I used to check the box scores on the sports page. Now I don't care.
You’re not alone in that. If you ask anyone to name half a dozen players on Major League Baseball teams, they can’t
I can name Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout and Aaron Judge. Basically, that’s it.
I’ve had people try to name a few and when I look them up, I find out they retired a few years back.
Revenue sharing sounds like a right thing to do at this point in time.
As far as watching baseball, naw, I’ve grown accustomed to just watching the recap on ESPN. Great timesaver.
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