Could Major League Baseball and the MLBPA be any more tone-deaf?
Could Major League Baseball and the MLBPA be any more tone-deaf?
That leaves us with this. I’m on seven different MLB-related pages/groups in Social Media, which is probably way less than I should. In one of them, there are 21k members, small by comparison. On Tuesday, March 1st, as MLB expanded the lockout by wiping out a week’s worth of baseball games. I counted 319 individuals “I don’t care about baseball anymore” or something similar.
In the rule of Social Media, the vocal group typically represents about 10 percent of those that feel the same way. By using simple mathematics, that one event likely led to 3K “I don’t care about baseball anymore” thoughts.
How much more of this do they think they can get away with? In 2019, baseball revenues exceeded $10 billion (the record for most revenue ever), but what if Manfred canceling part of the season also negated $749 million?
$749 million is a lot of money, and haggling over a Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) that very few teams reach anyway is pennies compared to the loss of revenue. Let’s look at it a different way.
A full season of attendance typically averages $1.32 million in per game revenue with tickets, food, concessions, parking, etc. In total, the owners have canceled 90 games so far, which equates to $123 million for the week. The difference between the Pre-Arb number the Owners want and the Players want is about $50 million.
I know it’s simple math, and for those that want the deep dive, it’s not the point. The point is that what’s happening now creates apathy. And despite the flaws in my calculations, many more are silently leaving baseball as a result of this fight.
