Opinions vary.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I thought that was because it the first offer was not calculated on no fans in the stands and subsequent direct and indirect revenue. I get hate the owners but this situation calls for hey, lets be real that was a fluid situation and still is.

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Elections have consequences.

At least partially that is getting to a date in order to start a minor league season it would almost be over.

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Elections have consequences.

People talk about anti trust and open the books. I don't see why. What do the owners gain in the last 10 year by anti trust over other sports? Furthermore, open the books isn't necessary until revenue sharing is approved.

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Elections have consequences.

Mercy...that's some bad law. I honestly thought this was a thing of the past.


I agree with that.

And revenue sharing only is ever suggested when it benefits the owners.

If owners don't want to sacrifice money for the good of the country, that's fine.

But it's their choice.

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No league gets to the deep down sources of income team owners have. Not only is it not likely possible but it is likely not really fair. If you looked at any corporation say like an airline they have a CFO with so many fingers in so many pies trying to max profit your head would spin let alone Denisdman.

Every CBA for sports with a salary cap/floor speaks of it as a percentage of designated revenues. These usually are easily measured things like tickets, merchandise and tv/media revenue.

The thing the players in MLB can't get in order to make this work is what the owners themselves can't get. A monster national broadcast contract like football.

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Elections have consequences.

It's argued plenty as a benefit for the players in the NBA. The NFL is slightly different as it isn't 50-50 but it's still good for them.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

It would be weird to have pro sports leagues without an anti trust exemption. How would the owners negotiate with labor as a group? How would they set rules for play? They have to “collude”, meaning agree, on a certain set of rules to make play equitable. It is very hard to have true competing sports leagues to avoid anti trust because we all want talent aggregated in one league to make play as competitive as possible. I just don’t know how these leagues could operate and avoid anti trust issues. Insurance companies also have a limited anti trust exemption to allow for sharing of loss data and forms to standardize stuff across the landscape.

As for opening the books, the issue is what are team revenues? Owners have all sorts of side interests related to the team, but not direct sports revenues. Also, the accounting treatment of certain items in this business can make the bottom line look depressed. I have seen the financial statements of several pro teams through the course of my employment, and their bottom line does not equate to cash flow. That is actually true in many businesses, but for leagues with revenue sharing, it is a big issue.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Then the owners were fucking idiots not to expect this. As was said, if players agreed to a deal and it suddenly got better, they would be told to get fucked.

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Yeah they threw some extra money at minimum players to get deal through. But also made it easier to take that money away if the minimum guys get injured.

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Oh, okay.

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All players got more money.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The deal was aimed at minimum guys to get it through. It is a terrible deal that last ten years with no opt out.

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Once again, the share of revenue for all players went up 1 to 1.5% and the 17th game also increases the total money split making it even better for the players.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

NFL/NBA/NHL don't have anti-trust exemption, and they manage. MLS is structured differently to get around it.

MLB should tell the players: We promise to expand to 32 teams by 2025. We'll give the players who play this year a portion of the expansion fees to make up for their inconvenience, and the union gets 80 more jobs (two more 40-man roster).

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

I don't know if the owners would truly lose money this year if they played an 82 game season and paid the players their prorated salaries, but if there aren't any MLB games being played people are going to find other uses for their time, and when they do, at least some probably won't come back. The owners have to wake up to the fact that baseball is no longer the national pastime, and probably hasn't been for decades, and that they need to do everything in their power to get the game as close to the front and center as possible.

They did not get enough for the 17th game. Disability pay was also slashed. They get an extra 0.3% percent if NFL gets 120% more.

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This is wrong. I tried to show you the links. The 120 percent is split the same as any other revenue. If it reaches 120 percent it is 48.3 instead of 48.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Well said, I love MLB and I'll be back..but many won't. They are already hurting for fan interest and this just compounds that problem.

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David Price shames the billionaire owners:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/9274214 ... 970243366/

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

i'm ok now w/ no baseball. not because they can't do it just so i don't have to listen to these fucking owners and players have a pseudo-strike all summer. fuck these greedy bastards, both sides.

He's also shaming the other ultra high paid players who won't follow suit as well. It's a really bright pr move on behalf of the MLBPA, especially if another dozen or two players kick in as well.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

The weasely little pos Tim Kurkjian was just on tv advocating for a 62 game season and expanded playoff if that's the best the parties can do. As if that doesn't render it all meaningless.

If that's the best they can do this year I say bankrupt the owners, to hell with all their sweetheart deals and start over without those jackals.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

If Ricketts can't pay his bills then he should sell 12% of the team to make ends meet. I have no sympathy for any of these over extended billionaires. Pay the players the pro rated 80 games and let's play ball.

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It's not really gonna bankrupt most owners though. I think they're the ones that don't want the season played and they're trying to make the public blame it on the players and it's working.

I'm completely pro-player regarding this disagreement or whatever you want to call it. But it seems pretty obvious that, at least for the foreseeable future, economic conditions have changed in a way that isn't going to be able to support the salary structure to which players have become accustomed.

The problem is that the owners cannot be trusted. I think the players would be willing to make concessions if they could really have an understanding of the financials. But the owners obfuscate. There's just no trust there. And the owners aren't going to run a business that is bleeding money for any extended period of time.

It kind of reminds me of a busted deal I once had. I was negotiating with a guy to sell him 100 15" woofers. I had paid like $23 each for them and I just couldn't sell them. At some point they're just taking up floor space in my warehouse and it's better just to get them the hell out of there. I was going to sell them to this guy for $2000. Obviously no one likes taking a loss like that. If you do it too often you're going to go out of business. But as I said, the floor space has value and sometimes you just have to take one on the chin. So the guy is trying to beat me up on the price. But I'm not going lower than $2000 which is a bad loss for me. If I have to I can slowly sell them at $60 a piece retail. I'm not that desperate.

Anyway, to get to the point, I tell the guy the truth about what I paid for them and said I just wasn't going any lower. He said to me, "You wouldn't be selling them at a loss. If that was the case you wouldn't sell them for $2000." So I just said, "Okay, don't buy them" and I hung up. And that's the whole thing with the owners and the players. Like my customer and me, there just isn't any trust. The difference being that the owners have a long history that justifies the players' stance and I never did anything to make that motherfucker distrust me.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Granted, this is not necessarily a representative cross section, but judging from the comments on this board and what I'm seeing on twitter, it seems like the owners aren't winning. The players have agreed to take a prorated salary, and that seems pretty reasonable.

Given the collusion scandal that took place in the 80's and the recent frozen free agent markets, I understand why the players don't have a high level of trust in the owners, but do you think the owners' demands during this dispute are really some Machiavellian attempt to break the union or do you think they are in some way based on financial reality? I think it's more than likely the latter.

The owners are screwing minor leaguers and the teams over relatively small end money in a particularly short sided way. And that's after by most accounts, several strong revenue and profitable years. And with franchise values that have doubled and tripled over the last decade. They were so awash in cash that most teams are in palatial spring training homes. For practice. Practice?!? But we're supposed to believe the woe is me pablum they're offering up now? Please.

So if they take a small haircut this year, long term I don't see this wrecking their balance sheets.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

That's also why killing a season is going to hurt the players more than it hurts the owners.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Agreed. And it's why the owners' actions are so cynical and craven imho.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.