Latest / Foul Territory / David Samson on CBA war chest flaunting, Marlins plan to trade Sandy + MLB v. NBA Ratings

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David Samson on CBA war chest flaunting, Marlins plan to trade Sandy + MLB v. NBA Ratings · Foul Territory

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, former Big League exact David Sampson joining us right
0:11
Speaker 1: now and you can listen almost every day on Nothing
0:13
Speaker 1: Personal with David Sampson, A great show. I listen to
0:15
Speaker 1: it all of the time for sports biz and happenings
0:18
Speaker 1: around all of sports, not just baseball. But David, great
0:21
Speaker 1: to see you. We're going to talk ball. And one
0:23
Speaker 1: of the reasons why we invited you on was we
0:25
Speaker 1: saw the article last week about the war chest money
0:29
Speaker 1: for the players and for the owners, and I loved
0:33
Speaker 1: what you said on your show, so I want to
0:34
Speaker 1: bring some of that on here. So your thoughts on
0:37
Speaker 1: that leading into what will be eventually a lockout and
0:40
Speaker 1: what I call a stick measuring contest of who is
0:43
Speaker 1: saving more money.
0:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not actually that.
0:48
Speaker 3: So first of all, the war chest situation, and you
0:51
Speaker 3: guys know this every time before collective bargaining, there are
0:56
Speaker 3: two things that happen, and it happens on management side
0:59
Speaker 3: and on the player side they start taking smaller distributions.
1:04
Speaker 3: On the ownership side, the national revenue distributions that come
1:08
Speaker 3: out from all of the deals that exist from broadcast
1:11
Speaker 3: deals to sponsorship deals. The commissioner withholds and that adds
1:16
Speaker 3: to amount of money that is there in case of emergency.
1:21
Speaker 3: The players do the same thing. They take smaller distributions
1:24
Speaker 3: which lets money build up. But then also both sides
1:28
Speaker 3: are accessing the capital markets in order to make sure
1:32
Speaker 3: they've got lines of credit, they've got the ability to
1:35
Speaker 3: have cash in order to withstand a time without revenue
1:41
Speaker 3: coming in. And then the last thing that you do
1:44
Speaker 3: is you have to have a plan. So every big
1:46
Speaker 3: league team has to submit a plan to Baseball. Hey,
1:50
Speaker 3: this is what we're going to do if there's no season.
1:53
Speaker 3: These are the employees, how much they make, who's going
1:55
Speaker 3: to be furloughed, what the savings will be, This is
1:58
Speaker 3: what it means to not have to operate the stadium
2:01
Speaker 3: every single day. So both sides are really just doing
2:04
Speaker 3: normal preparation for a negotiation.
2:08
Speaker 4: So where exactly does that money go that they withhold
2:12
Speaker 4: the ownership group side, because as a former player, I'm
2:16
Speaker 4: aware of how the union holds your money and what
2:19
Speaker 4: they're planned for the money.
2:21
Speaker 5: Is obviously it's insurance and a couple other things. What's
2:24
Speaker 5: planned with their war chess money? Is it the pay
2:27
Speaker 5: employees of the stadium? Is it to you know, if
2:31
Speaker 5: they have rent that they need to pay on their stadium,
2:34
Speaker 5: if they have loans out on it.
2:36
Speaker 4: Explain that to me.
2:37
Speaker 3: Yes, So each team and each person, every family, every
2:41
Speaker 3: business has something called fixed expenses and something called variable expenses.
2:46
Speaker 3: Fixed expenses are those expenses which don't change regardless of
2:50
Speaker 3: your situation. So for example, when you open a store
2:54
Speaker 3: and you have a rent payment to the owner of
2:56
Speaker 3: the building, you've got to pay your rent, even if
2:59
Speaker 3: nobody is your product. In baseball, there are fixed expenses
3:05
Speaker 3: like debt service on the money you spent to build
3:08
Speaker 3: a stadium, or acquisition debt service money you spent to
3:12
Speaker 3: buy the team you borrowed. You have to pay that
3:15
Speaker 3: money back to the bank. Fixed payments to players that
3:19
Speaker 3: are not related to playing that particular season, so for example,
3:25
Speaker 3: signing bonuses or deferred comp very often in contracts that
3:30
Speaker 3: does not get told if there's a work stoppage. Another
3:34
Speaker 3: expense could be rent that you pay to your community,
3:37
Speaker 3: to the owner of the stadium. And so what happens
3:40
Speaker 3: is you have access to money to borrow from a
3:45
Speaker 3: big pot of money basically is what baseball has, and
3:48
Speaker 3: then you get access to that pot of money. According
3:51
Speaker 3: to the needs you have for your fixed expenses, which
3:55
Speaker 3: you've submitted to the commissioner. On the player's side, you
3:59
Speaker 3: guys can answer this better than I. But what we
4:01
Speaker 3: always thought is what you would do is distribute that
4:05
Speaker 3: money as once you started missing paychecks, and it was
4:08
Speaker 3: a way to dephrase some of your fixed expenses like
4:12
Speaker 3: car payments or house payments or alimony payments, whatever they
4:16
Speaker 3: may be. We all have those, but so it's an
4:18
Speaker 3: example of that money would get given to given to players.
4:23
Speaker 3: That's how we viewed it.
4:25
Speaker 6: So essentially, the money isn't that big a deal. This
4:29
Speaker 6: is a something that's always happening. But back in the day,
4:33
Speaker 6: and I'm not sure what year it was, I was
4:35
Speaker 6: trying to look it up. While you're talking about it,
4:38
Speaker 6: a owner said, well, if we had just had a
4:41
Speaker 6: little bit more time, we could have drained the players
4:45
Speaker 6: out of all the money. And then after that, the
4:47
Speaker 6: next year the union made a decree they said we
4:50
Speaker 6: will never have our war chest too low. Is that
4:55
Speaker 6: a strategy? Because we hear this money and now this
4:58
Speaker 6: war chest is so high, I don't care what the
5:00
Speaker 6: war chest is. Nobody's covering somebody's twenty million dollars thirty
5:04
Speaker 6: million dollar contract. So is that still a strategy or
5:09
Speaker 6: is this just something that is, you know, bantered about
5:12
Speaker 6: in the media.
5:14
Speaker 3: It's really a way to keep different factions within a
5:17
Speaker 3: union together because you're exactly right when you're if you're
5:21
Speaker 3: distributing money to union members equally, you're covering a bigger
5:25
Speaker 3: percentage of the guys at the minimum than of the
5:27
Speaker 3: guys who are making twenty million dollars. But on the
5:29
Speaker 3: other hand, the guys making twenty million dollars in theory
5:33
Speaker 3: have higher fixed expenses, bigger house, more cars, more things
5:36
Speaker 3: they're doing because they live at court, just would have
5:39
Speaker 3: more expenses. I think everyone can understand that. So one
5:42
Speaker 3: of the things the union has to do, like every union,
5:46
Speaker 3: is they have to figure out a way to keep
5:48
Speaker 3: cohesion because what owners are trying to do is to
5:51
Speaker 3: create fissures, and what players are trying to do is
5:55
Speaker 3: make sure those fissures don't actually exist. And so what
5:59
Speaker 3: you do with the money that's withheld once paychecks start
6:02
Speaker 3: getting missed becomes an important strategic decision. But saving money
6:07
Speaker 3: or having money in a war chest, as everyone's putting it,
6:12
Speaker 3: that is very ordinary.
6:15
Speaker 5: Give me your opinion, what do you think the owners
6:18
Speaker 5: want more than anything in this next agreement?
6:24
Speaker 3: Owners want, like any owners of any company in any negotiation,
6:29
Speaker 3: they want to have as much revenue as they can
6:32
Speaker 3: have and have the expenses be as low as they
6:35
Speaker 3: can be. And that is an incredibly normal way to
6:38
Speaker 3: operate any business. It doesn't matter whether it's baseball or
6:42
Speaker 3: building widgets. You're trying to increase revenue and try to
6:47
Speaker 3: not increase expenses at that same rate. And so what
6:51
Speaker 3: owners want always is the ability to maximize what their
6:56
Speaker 3: asset's worth while maximizing the cash that gets generated each
7:01
Speaker 3: year by that asset, while still trying.
7:04
Speaker 2: To win a ring. So you're trying to do all
7:07
Speaker 2: of those things.
7:08
Speaker 3: Some owners have a different order of how they want
7:10
Speaker 3: to do those things, but in general those are the
7:14
Speaker 3: metal stand of what you're after.
7:16
Speaker 4: And how's that accomplished?
7:20
Speaker 3: Well, when it comes to collective bargaining, and it's accomplished
7:23
Speaker 3: by trying to get players to agree to a deal
7:26
Speaker 3: where they are getting certain things and not getting other things.
7:31
Speaker 3: Because let me take you inside an issue, just any issue.
7:35
Speaker 3: You can talk about pension and people their eyes get dry,
7:39
Speaker 3: they can't stand it. But that's a huge part of
7:41
Speaker 3: every agreement is pension and what's going to players retirement
7:45
Speaker 3: and benefits, things like that.
7:47
Speaker 2: But that's real dollars.
7:49
Speaker 3: So what you do in a negotiation is you take
7:51
Speaker 3: every issue on the issue list and you assign a
7:54
Speaker 3: dollar amount to it. If we give on this, that
7:57
Speaker 3: will cost the league that And I assume players in
8:01
Speaker 3: the players Union does the same thing, except it's more
8:04
Speaker 3: complicated for players because there's so many more of You
8:08
Speaker 3: just take forty man rosters if you want, and you
8:10
Speaker 3: can just say, for fun, we're talking about twelve hundred
8:13
Speaker 3: people owners you're talking about thirty and so trying to
8:17
Speaker 3: get some sort of issue that can be seen the
8:21
Speaker 3: same way by at least twenty three people because that's
8:24
Speaker 3: what you need in ownership. Twenty three to seven. That's
8:27
Speaker 3: a whole lot easier. And that's just numbers. That's why
8:30
Speaker 3: it's always advantage management in any negotiation, just because unions
8:35
Speaker 3: are just they're harder to move because they're so large.
8:39
Speaker 6: But isn't part of this these arguments that essentially are
8:43
Speaker 6: being bantered about in the media owner versus owner problems.
8:48
Speaker 6: You hear fans say, oh, it's unfair it's unfair. It's unfair.
8:51
Speaker 6: That's not a player's problem, it's an owner's problem. And
8:55
Speaker 6: are the owners doing a good job of I don't
8:57
Speaker 6: know if you've ever played in the snow before, but
9:00
Speaker 6: you make a snowball you're throwing up in the air
9:02
Speaker 6: and everyone's looking at that one, and then wham, you
9:04
Speaker 6: get hit by the other snowball that's thrown. Isn't that
9:08
Speaker 6: what the owners are doing with the salary cap? And
9:11
Speaker 6: it's unfair because you just broke it down perfectly and
9:14
Speaker 6: a very elementary They just want to keep their fixed
9:17
Speaker 6: costs down to make more money.
9:21
Speaker 3: I mean, and you say that as though anyone's surprised,
9:24
Speaker 3: and it's not a surprise tactic.
9:26
Speaker 2: That is a very normal thing in any negotiation.
9:29
Speaker 3: For crying out aloud, we do these negotiations with ourselves,
9:32
Speaker 3: with the people who distribute our shows. I mean, we're
9:35
Speaker 3: having these things all the time. So let's talk owner
9:38
Speaker 3: the owner. It's a great question, because that's Bud Selig
9:41
Speaker 3: and Rob Manford. We're all very clear. You can't negotiate
9:45
Speaker 3: a good labor deal unless you have figured out amongst
9:48
Speaker 3: yourselves what you want. The Commissioner's Office spends years, not months,
9:54
Speaker 3: not days, making sure they know what our bottom line
9:59
Speaker 3: issue for each of the teams. And the questions asked
10:03
Speaker 3: very simply, if we do this, are you a no vote?
10:08
Speaker 3: If we do this, are you a yes vote? What
10:11
Speaker 3: is the order of issues that you care about the most?
10:15
Speaker 3: You then put it together on a piece of paper
10:17
Speaker 3: and it gives you the framework for the negotiation.
10:21
Speaker 2: Of course you don't share that.
10:22
Speaker 3: With the union, but owner v owner is really the
10:25
Speaker 3: first big issue that you have to get over before
10:29
Speaker 3: you can even have any sort of quality negotiation at
10:33
Speaker 3: the table.
10:35
Speaker 5: Let me ask you give me the inside of an executive. Obviously,
10:40
Speaker 5: you know the Miami organization really well. Sandy's off to
10:43
Speaker 5: an incredible start. The teams miss their opportunity to potentially
10:47
Speaker 5: buy low last year. Obviously, if he continues the success
10:50
Speaker 5: he's having this year, he will probably be a treat
10:54
Speaker 5: candidate down the stretch. And then how do you as
10:58
Speaker 5: an executive potentially WIYH that option last year? Maybe going
11:01
Speaker 5: in coming off the injury, not really performing well, how
11:05
Speaker 5: would you kind of assess him thinking he could get
11:08
Speaker 5: back to the Sandial contract we've always seen.
11:12
Speaker 3: Listen, any schnook can buy high and sell low. I mean,
11:16
Speaker 3: that's the story of how people end up losing money
11:19
Speaker 3: in the market and losing money in business is they
11:21
Speaker 3: just do it totally opposite of what you have to do.
11:24
Speaker 2: And you can say one thing for Peter Bendex.
11:26
Speaker 3: You can talk about his personal skills, you can talk
11:29
Speaker 3: about to analytics. We can debate whether you should be
11:32
Speaker 3: calling pitches from the dugout side. Note I can't stand that. However,
11:37
Speaker 3: what Peter's good at. If you're not going to hit
11:39
Speaker 3: the bid, then that's the end of it. He will
11:42
Speaker 3: actually every time have a consistent ask And there were
11:47
Speaker 3: gms like this during my career where you knew, hey,
11:50
Speaker 3: this is what we want if you'll give it the
11:52
Speaker 3: guys available, if you won't give it the guys not
11:55
Speaker 3: and that really doesn't change. So the strangest thing is
11:59
Speaker 3: when the media looks at a start, Hey, you know,
12:02
Speaker 3: Sandy's really hot. Look at that complete game Mattox he did.
12:06
Speaker 3: My god, there must be teams offering more. Now.
12:09
Speaker 2: I really don't think front offices.
12:11
Speaker 3: Say that, like, hey, I hope he gets sheld, and
12:14
Speaker 3: then at the trade deadline we'll have to give less
12:16
Speaker 3: to get him. GMS are too smart for that. You're
12:20
Speaker 3: not looking at such micro results in that way. You're
12:23
Speaker 3: looking at is this a player that you see fitting
12:26
Speaker 3: on your team for as long as possible. And so
12:29
Speaker 3: Sandy's an interesting candidate for me because the Marlins they're
12:33
Speaker 3: an interesting team this year and with the expanded wild card,
12:36
Speaker 3: who's to say they're not going to be in the
12:38
Speaker 3: race through the deadline? And who's gonna say that the owner,
12:41
Speaker 3: Bruce Sherman won't want to be a buyer Because the
12:44
Speaker 3: hardest thing to do these days is to be either
12:48
Speaker 3: a buyer or a seller. The smartest thing to do
12:51
Speaker 3: is to be both. And if you look at certain teams,
12:54
Speaker 3: they are both during the deadline, because that is the
12:58
Speaker 3: game today. It is not buy and I think the
13:01
Speaker 3: Marlins have a chance to be in that category.
13:04
Speaker 1: Wait, so, just to double down on this, do you
13:06
Speaker 1: think there's a chance that Marlins are within three games
13:08
Speaker 1: of a wild card seat and they trade Sandy alcntra
13:11
Speaker 1: but add other players?
13:14
Speaker 3: I am saying that if someone hits the ask, someone
13:18
Speaker 3: bids what Peter wants, he will trade Sandy.
13:21
Speaker 2: Everybody. Listen, I traded everybody anybody.
13:24
Speaker 3: All you have to do is make a trade that
13:26
Speaker 3: you think makes sense, and it makes sense.
13:29
Speaker 2: No matter where you are.
13:30
Speaker 3: I always would prefer to buy at the deadline because
13:33
Speaker 3: it means you're in and you can send out playoff
13:35
Speaker 3: invoices and you can get to use that cash for
13:38
Speaker 3: your expenses that people send in for their playoff tickets,
13:41
Speaker 3: which is a whole subject that we can talk about
13:43
Speaker 3: on another show. So you want to be in the
13:46
Speaker 3: race because it's way more fun to buy. But if
13:49
Speaker 3: you do trade, Sandy, you're not giving up on your season.
13:53
Speaker 3: If you're in it, you're going to do something else
13:55
Speaker 3: that makes you believe that you are in a position
13:58
Speaker 3: to play in October.
14:01
Speaker 1: David, let's finish with this. I think the story of
14:03
Speaker 1: the league so far is the ABS Challenge system. Your
14:06
Speaker 1: thoughts on how it has looked so far, and I
14:09
Speaker 1: know you've spoken about some specific imps. We do that
14:11
Speaker 1: plenty on this show too. Do you think that there
14:14
Speaker 1: will be a few amps that step down a little
14:17
Speaker 1: bit earlier based on what the results look like. It's
14:19
Speaker 1: a small sample size right now, but we can get
14:21
Speaker 1: later in the year, David, And it's going to be
14:24
Speaker 1: a leader board that looks really at performance in a
14:27
Speaker 1: more public way than we've ever seen. And then that
14:30
Speaker 1: includes forty thousand people screaming at you, knowing that every day.
14:34
Speaker 1: I know they deal with that already, but I think
14:35
Speaker 1: this is the next level.
14:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, when the Commissioner's office goes to church or synagogue,
14:41
Speaker 3: they're really not praying to a god. They're praying that
14:43
Speaker 3: CB retires or steps down, and that's not happening. I mean,
14:47
Speaker 3: I've never seen a situation where that's what umps do.
14:51
Speaker 3: You can certainly make it unpleasant and make it so,
14:55
Speaker 3: you know, that happens in a lot of work environments.
14:58
Speaker 3: You're not officially being fired, but it's certainly not fun
15:01
Speaker 3: to come to work anymore. ABS is not a reckoning
15:04
Speaker 3: for umpires who have bad days or bad weeks or
15:07
Speaker 3: bad months, because this stuff has been measured by Baseball
15:11
Speaker 3: for years and so we're evaluating umpires all the time.
15:16
Speaker 3: I love ABS because I think that it's not enough
15:20
Speaker 3: what we're doing. I don't think there should be any challenges.
15:23
Speaker 3: I think ABS should be the call. It's very simple.
15:26
Speaker 3: There's a little thing right here and after every pitch
15:29
Speaker 3: strike well, and that's it, and then the umpire makes
15:32
Speaker 3: the call. You don't have to take your helmet off
15:34
Speaker 3: and say the catcher has initiated a challenge. I love
15:38
Speaker 3: the fact that it's sponsored by T Mobile and that
15:40
Speaker 3: you can raise revenue that way and then everyone gets
15:42
Speaker 3: the picture. You can still do that during the interim
15:46
Speaker 3: period when the pitcher is getting ready for the next pitch.
15:49
Speaker 3: So I think what you're gonna see and then not
15:51
Speaker 3: too distant future is not robot oms. People use the
15:54
Speaker 3: word wrong. It's going to be a human being always
15:56
Speaker 3: at home plate. But I think that every pitch will
15:59
Speaker 3: be you will use that system and then there will
16:03
Speaker 3: not be a need for any challenges.
16:05
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, the evolution there and plenty want it now,
16:08
Speaker 1: plenty don't so, but no challenges. So that would take
16:11
Speaker 1: that strategy out back, out of the game and just
16:13
Speaker 1: put it into what technology says. Hey, David, good stuff,
16:17
Speaker 1: really great, great to talk to you always. We appreciate it.
16:20
Speaker 1: Love listening to nothing personal with David Sampson. So if
16:23
Speaker 1: anyone hasn't checked it out, please do so. Socials YouTube podcast,
16:26
Speaker 1: the whole deal. Thank you, appreciate you.
16:29
Speaker 2: Hey, have a great day, guys, Thank you you too.
16:38
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to this for a while and
16:40
Speaker 1: I think it's now time to do it. There have
16:42
Speaker 1: been articles all over the internet from a lot of
16:45
Speaker 1: websites that I frequent awful announcing the Athletic many more
16:51
Speaker 1: NBA versus MLB where we at often ratings get compared,
16:56
Speaker 1: and often those ratings just look at the World Series.
16:58
Speaker 1: The problem is often see right now, say a run
17:02
Speaker 1: for MLB, because you've got Dodgers and Yankees and big
17:05
Speaker 1: teams and big markets right with larger fan bases. And
17:09
Speaker 1: then you have other cases where you can point to
17:11
Speaker 1: how the NBA has beaten up MLB. So there's just
17:14
Speaker 1: been this tail of the tape. I'll bring up a
17:16
Speaker 1: few things from the article in The Athletic. It includes Evandraluic,
17:20
Speaker 1: but others wrote in there as well, and they brought
17:23
Speaker 1: up this one poll Toddfather that says there's clear signal
17:28
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five polling conducted by Sports Poll. That's
17:31
Speaker 1: what it's called, I Guess, a monthly poll that basically
17:34
Speaker 1: asks you know where fans are at in terms of
17:37
Speaker 1: liking MLB versus NBA and other sports. NFL isn't a
17:40
Speaker 1: world of its own. It is so far ahead of
17:43
Speaker 1: the others in terms of the polling in terms of
17:45
Speaker 1: the money franchise values, revenue for the league is worlds ahead,
17:49
Speaker 1: right But these two NBA and MLB report very similar
17:52
Speaker 1: revenues right now. So this poll said that MLB is
17:57
Speaker 1: outpacing the NBA and casual fans, avid fans and fans
18:01
Speaker 1: who identified the league as their favorite, NBA had the lead.
18:05
Speaker 1: This is no surprise, and who is your favorite athlete?
18:08
Speaker 1: There are many more recognizable names according to this poll,
18:11
Speaker 1: but MLB had the edge in many other categories. So
18:14
Speaker 1: just curious to get your take on all of this.
18:16
Speaker 1: While your revenues look similar, the TV rights goes up
18:19
Speaker 1: and down. In terms of who's got it. Franchise valuation,
18:22
Speaker 1: NBA is way ahead of MLB, but that doesn't necessariarily
18:26
Speaker 1: tell the story. Just seeing which billionaires think what a
18:30
Speaker 1: team is worth and a salary cap does help the
18:33
Speaker 1: franchise valuation because you have cost certainty in there. The
18:37
Speaker 1: social media and digital world, I'll finish with this and
18:39
Speaker 1: then get your thoughts. NBA is world's ahead of MLB
18:43
Speaker 1: in terms of following in terms of engagement, and it's
18:45
Speaker 1: not just for their league, it's for their creators influencers.
18:48
Speaker 1: We're part of that for MLB, So we're trying to
18:50
Speaker 1: bring more coverage to fans. That's part of what we're
18:52
Speaker 1: here for baseball the way it should be covered. But
18:55
Speaker 1: that also has to do with how much access fans
18:57
Speaker 1: and creators have for highlight usage stuff like that, which
19:00
Speaker 1: the NBA gets a lot more leeway to than MLB.
19:03
Speaker 1: At all of that up, what do you think NBA
19:05
Speaker 1: or MLB.
19:07
Speaker 7: MLB for sure? For me? Yeah, when it comes to online,
19:13
Speaker 7: I think MLB needs to work on that with the instagrams,
19:15
Speaker 7: the growing the game online because that's that's where it is.
19:19
Speaker 7: We're always on these guys here, So that's that's the
19:21
Speaker 7: biggest I would say that would be as you see here,
19:25
Speaker 7: the comparison of social media followings. I think that's the
19:27
Speaker 7: biggest thing. How do we do that is yet to
19:30
Speaker 7: be you know said, so for me, I think this
19:34
Speaker 7: is fantastic. I thought baseball was ahead already in NBA.
19:37
Speaker 7: I know, I like college basketball better than NBA. I
19:41
Speaker 7: I really I haven't watched a full NBA and not
19:43
Speaker 7: to knock NBA, but I haven't watched a full NBA
19:45
Speaker 7: game probably in five six years at least. I'm I'm
19:51
Speaker 7: a fan of basketball. I love it, but I love
19:52
Speaker 7: the college basketball aspect. The kids are fighting, their battling,
19:55
Speaker 7: they're playing, and they know, you know, there's an awesome
19:59
Speaker 7: thing they got at the end of the year in
20:01
Speaker 7: Sweet sixteen, the Final four. It's really cool. But yeah,
20:05
Speaker 7: this is great. I always thought MLB was number two,
20:08
Speaker 7: and now factually it is. I think it's absolutely fantastic.
20:12
Speaker 7: It's going to It shows you where MLB is at
20:14
Speaker 7: right now. NFL your number one forever. We know that
20:17
Speaker 7: the sport is really awesome. I love NFL. I love
20:20
Speaker 7: football in it in general. So to see this and
20:24
Speaker 7: to see that we've taken over, I mean, I think
20:27
Speaker 7: it goes to show you the athletes we have. I
20:29
Speaker 7: think it goes to show you people are more engaged
20:32
Speaker 7: now in seeing you know, these guys play, and I
20:36
Speaker 7: just think it's fantastic. I think it's fantastic for the sport.
20:39
Speaker 7: This is only a plus.
20:41
Speaker 6: My question would be, like we started this because we're
20:44
Speaker 6: able to add a online platform, a streaming service that's
20:50
Speaker 6: not connected to cable. My question would be on this,
20:55
Speaker 6: If the NBA has so much more social engagements, why
20:59
Speaker 6: is that Is that something that Major League Baseball needs
21:02
Speaker 6: to connect with or are they going to get left behind?
21:05
Speaker 6: In my opinion, yes, and why do they have more
21:09
Speaker 6: of a connection because they're allowed to have access to
21:14
Speaker 6: their like, there's way less. There's way less Rob Manfred
21:20
Speaker 6: versus the players, or Major League Baseball versus the players.
21:23
Speaker 6: It's NBA. It's you know there. It feels like they
21:27
Speaker 6: try to be a little bit more cohesive and not
21:31
Speaker 6: restrict players from having their game highlights or things like
21:37
Speaker 6: that that aren't allowed to be used, and so they're
21:39
Speaker 6: able to engage with this crowd. They're able to engage
21:42
Speaker 6: with their social media crowd, which is an instant engagement.
21:46
Speaker 6: I think the NBA game is what has drawn people away.
21:50
Speaker 6: I think the game has turned a certain way and
21:52
Speaker 6: they don't. It's like, you know, they put this team together,
21:56
Speaker 6: they're not really that great. We almost had the greatest
22:00
Speaker 6: team ever assembled and the Dodgers lose in a Game seven.
22:04
Speaker 6: That adds intrigued. That adds intrigued to a team like
22:07
Speaker 6: the Pirates who added to their team. They have the
22:12
Speaker 6: best pitcher, one of the best pitchers in baseball, the
22:14
Speaker 6: best prospect in baseball. There's intrigued to see that and
22:18
Speaker 6: see that grow and say, there's a chance we could
22:21
Speaker 6: be the Blue Jays and we could make a good
22:24
Speaker 6: base running decision and beat the Dodgers. There's a chance
22:28
Speaker 6: we could. You don't see that as much in the NBA,
22:31
Speaker 6: and I think that's where baseball has really done a
22:33
Speaker 6: great job. There's more parody than anything. So it gives
22:37
Speaker 6: so many fans an opportunity to say we're gonna win,
22:40
Speaker 6: not so in the NBA.
22:43
Speaker 1: MLB has had its share of tanking problems, and it's
22:45
Speaker 1: not perfect. There are some teams that go through rebuilds
22:48
Speaker 1: more often than you'd like to see. It has gotten
22:50
Speaker 1: much better, though we had a time period where there
22:53
Speaker 1: was too much tanking. Baseball's version of tanking. NBA is
22:57
Speaker 1: much more extreme with it. You see more quantity and
23:00
Speaker 1: the quality of tanking is crazy. I mean, it seems
23:03
Speaker 1: like there's essentially guys being paid not to play in
23:05
Speaker 1: games like stay home. We want to lose the rest
23:08
Speaker 1: of the season so we can try and get a
23:09
Speaker 1: top draft pick. So NBA has tanking problems, they have
23:11
Speaker 1: load management problems. I think they have three point shot
23:14
Speaker 1: problems where you go to a game and it's one
23:16
Speaker 1: forty to one thirty five and they just they just
23:19
Speaker 1: chuck threes all day, right. You see some games like
23:21
Speaker 1: that in season tournament. Plus how many teams making the
23:24
Speaker 1: playoffs that devalue is the regular season and they have
23:28
Speaker 1: half the games that baseball does. So baseball has taken
23:31
Speaker 1: significant strides in their on field product. I think they
23:33
Speaker 1: fell behind the NBA with the on field product, and
23:36
Speaker 1: some of these rule changes have really helped them to
23:38
Speaker 1: catch up. Now the next layer. Can they catch up
23:41
Speaker 1: in places like social digital? Globally, MLB has a good
23:46
Speaker 1: battle with the NBA. NBA has their countries where it's great,
23:49
Speaker 1: but MLB, I mean dominates in Latin American countries, dominate
23:54
Speaker 1: in parts of Asia, now of course Japan. It is
23:57
Speaker 1: everything out there. So I think it's a really cool
24:00
Speaker 1: and a good matchup to follow over the next three
24:02
Speaker 1: to five years. They both have significant pros and cons.
24:05
Speaker 1: Like krats Mat mentioned, NBA players considered more partners with
24:09
Speaker 1: the league. There's definitely an enemy component here right now
24:12
Speaker 1: as we're going to approach and definitely have some version
24:15
Speaker 1: of a lockout at least in the offseason, will carry
24:17
Speaker 1: into games. To me, that's the battle. Like Todd father
24:20
Speaker 1: if you don't tell it for the tape right now,
24:22
Speaker 1: I know it comes up pretty often on our show.
24:25
Speaker 1: If we get a lockout and suddenly start missing significant
24:28
Speaker 1: chunks of games, the NBA is gonna jump right past
24:30
Speaker 1: MLB again.
24:32
Speaker 7: That's gonna be. That's the only issue. And that's what
24:34
Speaker 7: that was my thought process as you were talking like
24:37
Speaker 7: this is gonna be the biggest problem is if they
24:39
Speaker 7: have a lockout or they don't play games, or there's
24:42
Speaker 7: a struggle, because it turned a lot of fans off
24:44
Speaker 7: of what five years four or five years ago, what
24:46
Speaker 7: it's every five years. I forget, I forget the year,
24:48
Speaker 7: but I remember fans online this is bold. They need
24:52
Speaker 7: to figure it out. People were against the players, people
24:55
Speaker 7: were for the players, people were against the brass. So
24:59
Speaker 7: you're gonna have a divisi and that's the last thing
25:01
Speaker 7: you want in Major League Baseball. You want everything to
25:03
Speaker 7: come together, even if somebody has to give a little
25:06
Speaker 7: bit more. Figure it out to make the seasons go,
25:08
Speaker 7: because right now we're in a really really good place.
25:10
Speaker 1: Yeah we are, Baby, they'll shock the world and just
25:13
Speaker 1: announce that everything got figured out.
25:14
Speaker 2: I doubt it.
25:15
Speaker 1: Based on how lawyers like to fight but I just
25:17
Speaker 1: think it's a really cool discussion. Curious to see what
25:21
Speaker 1: people say based on the live comments, and then I'll
25:24
Speaker 1: check the comments later on when we post this. But
25:26
Speaker 1: NBA versus MLB, the revenues are almost identical the reported revenues,
25:31
Speaker 1: and that's when you can start to figure out where
25:33
Speaker 1: their edges on one side versus another side.
25:36
Speaker 6: Salary cap to I mean, that shows you what the
25:39
Speaker 6: salary CAP's going to do, just line the owner's pockets.
25:41
Speaker 6: So fans really want a salary cap to make their
25:44
Speaker 6: quote teams more fair. Yeah, they have a salary cap
25:48
Speaker 6: and the revenue, the revenue growth is about the same.
25:51
Speaker 6: But NBA franchises valuation are through the roof. So just
25:56
Speaker 6: saying when you're arguing for a salary cap, just know
26:00
Speaker 6: you're just making the owners richer. You're not making your
26:03
Speaker 6: team better.
26:06
Speaker 1: And I promise you this. Your concessions are not going
26:08
Speaker 1: to be cheaper. Oh, let's ease up on it now
26:11
Speaker 1: because we have cost certainty. Okay, so significant pros and cons.
26:16
Speaker 1: Really cool article if you want to check it out
26:18
Speaker 1: in The Athletic. But there are other publications that have
26:20
Speaker 1: put out great articles over the last like one to
26:22
Speaker 1: two months, I've seen many of them pop up, so
26:24
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up the discussion