Post by brady2705 on Jan 15, 2022 8:11:59 GMT -5
Part I -- The Rant
I can't stand this lockout. It's robbed me of one of my favorite winter hobbies - watching the hot-stove unfold, and wondering how my Braves are going to assemble their roster. I hate the MLBPA for what they're doing, I think their stance is ludicrous. I look no further than our own team (that I, and all of you, can be partial-owners in by owning their publicly traded stock). The liberty media financial disclosures inform us how much money ownership of a mid-tier organization like the Braves makes:
2020 - lost ($49M)
2019 - made $53M
2018 - made $94M
2017 - made $7M
2016 - lost ($16M)
Do you notice anything? That's tremendous volatility. That averages as making $17.8M/yr over those 5 years. And that's only with the help of an organization being run tremendously well - the Battery has clearly been a Godsend, and the organization reinvested a lot of those immediate 2018 profits back into the team, raising payroll and expanding it's footprint via the Spring Training facility and other Battery improvements. They've also benefitted from fielding great teams these past 4 years, which is definitely not a given - in the ebbs-and-flows of roster construction and team performance, we've been very fortunate. So while the Braves are a mid-tier payroll team, they've been fielding winners and reinvesting like a well run business should -- I point this out to presume *MOST* MLB teams are likely not even this profitable
So what does that mean to me? Well, ownership takes all the risks. In years like 2020, the players didn't "lose" money ... They just made less. The owners "lost" money. And shouldn't the owners be entitled to make at least as much as the best player on the team? Yet they don't. And it's the owners who deal with the volatility and uncertainty -- players have guaranteed contracts. They can sign a 7yr deal for $100M, go Pablo Sandoval on their team and let their health and skills go to hell, and still collect. Owners only make money if they stay on top of their game (their business game) 24/7, and deliver like the Max Scherzers of the business world.
And I know, they get their money through valuation growth, and when they eventually sell the team, they receive a massive Capital Gain. But that's a "boys with toys" fantasy. Take the cache of running a sports franchise out of it. In the real world, company values only appreciate as their ability to earn profits appreciate. At some point, reality will set in, and the billionaires of the world will realize the premiums for owning a "sports team" are excessive, as they simply just don't generate enough profit to justify the price. If the world wakes up and starts valuing franchises like any other business, paying multiples of 10-30 for their earnings-before-depreciation, you have a lot of ballclubs valued at under $1B. Goodbye capital gains ...
I digress. The point of this is to be the rare voice offering support for those wicked billionaire owners of the bourgeoisie class, and slap the hand of those helpless proletariats known as the Players Union. They have guaranteed salaries. Their top performers make more than $40M annually. They get paid even when they are involved in horrific off-field incidents that would have immediately led to the resignation/resignment of any of us, or any of the owners (hello Bauer). They have it pretty damn good, and should drop a lot of this non-sense. As you'll see in my next post, I'm on board with quite a bit to improve the health and competitiveness of the game, and I'm even on board with finding ways to get players paid sooner. But this whole "give me everything or I walk" approach really ticks me off. Somebody needs to remind these jackasses how good they have it.
I can't stand this lockout. It's robbed me of one of my favorite winter hobbies - watching the hot-stove unfold, and wondering how my Braves are going to assemble their roster. I hate the MLBPA for what they're doing, I think their stance is ludicrous. I look no further than our own team (that I, and all of you, can be partial-owners in by owning their publicly traded stock). The liberty media financial disclosures inform us how much money ownership of a mid-tier organization like the Braves makes:
2020 - lost ($49M)
2019 - made $53M
2018 - made $94M
2017 - made $7M
2016 - lost ($16M)
Do you notice anything? That's tremendous volatility. That averages as making $17.8M/yr over those 5 years. And that's only with the help of an organization being run tremendously well - the Battery has clearly been a Godsend, and the organization reinvested a lot of those immediate 2018 profits back into the team, raising payroll and expanding it's footprint via the Spring Training facility and other Battery improvements. They've also benefitted from fielding great teams these past 4 years, which is definitely not a given - in the ebbs-and-flows of roster construction and team performance, we've been very fortunate. So while the Braves are a mid-tier payroll team, they've been fielding winners and reinvesting like a well run business should -- I point this out to presume *MOST* MLB teams are likely not even this profitable
So what does that mean to me? Well, ownership takes all the risks. In years like 2020, the players didn't "lose" money ... They just made less. The owners "lost" money. And shouldn't the owners be entitled to make at least as much as the best player on the team? Yet they don't. And it's the owners who deal with the volatility and uncertainty -- players have guaranteed contracts. They can sign a 7yr deal for $100M, go Pablo Sandoval on their team and let their health and skills go to hell, and still collect. Owners only make money if they stay on top of their game (their business game) 24/7, and deliver like the Max Scherzers of the business world.
And I know, they get their money through valuation growth, and when they eventually sell the team, they receive a massive Capital Gain. But that's a "boys with toys" fantasy. Take the cache of running a sports franchise out of it. In the real world, company values only appreciate as their ability to earn profits appreciate. At some point, reality will set in, and the billionaires of the world will realize the premiums for owning a "sports team" are excessive, as they simply just don't generate enough profit to justify the price. If the world wakes up and starts valuing franchises like any other business, paying multiples of 10-30 for their earnings-before-depreciation, you have a lot of ballclubs valued at under $1B. Goodbye capital gains ...
I digress. The point of this is to be the rare voice offering support for those wicked billionaire owners of the bourgeoisie class, and slap the hand of those helpless proletariats known as the Players Union. They have guaranteed salaries. Their top performers make more than $40M annually. They get paid even when they are involved in horrific off-field incidents that would have immediately led to the resignation/resignment of any of us, or any of the owners (hello Bauer). They have it pretty damn good, and should drop a lot of this non-sense. As you'll see in my next post, I'm on board with quite a bit to improve the health and competitiveness of the game, and I'm even on board with finding ways to get players paid sooner. But this whole "give me everything or I walk" approach really ticks me off. Somebody needs to remind these jackasses how good they have it.
