Latest / Foul Territory / Maury Brown explains how TV blackouts factor into looming lockout and covers expansion team concerns

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Maury Brown explains how TV blackouts factor into looming lockout and covers expansion team concerns · Foul Territory

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Here he is Maury Brown from Forbes. Maury, great to
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: catch up with you again. We're doing well. Happy Friday
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: to you. Nice weather in most parts across the country,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: it's stormy in baseball business wise, it is. It's not good.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And I'm wondering what you've learned from the proposals and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the comments from the leaders on both sides here. I
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: want to get into eventually your expansion article two and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: TV and the business side of things, but let's just
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: start nice and simple. Why now for the battle between
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the players and the league to escalate to a point
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: where it seems as if we're going to have the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: worst shutdown in our sport since nineteen ninety four ninety five.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that's a key thing that isn't
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: really being discuss like why now. It's not like the
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: owners wouldn't have loved to have had a salary cap
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: at any point in time. I remember talking about sealing
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: in two thousand and one, basically heading into that labor agreement,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: they stopped the clock, they were right on the edge
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: of it, and then we had this bout of labor piece. Right.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I think that what you're seeing is opportunity. I think
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the owners see an opportunistic situation. Obviously, we had a
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: very acrimonious letting go of Tony Clark that didn't look
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: very good. So you have Bruce Myron as interim executive director.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I think the owners also saw that. In the last
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: labor deal, the players executive committee said, don't accept this deal.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: The rank and file said, we're going to ignore you,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: and we're going to pass that anyway to get into
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the labor deal that we're in now. And then they
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: can point to where they've seen economic disparity. So when
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: you put all those things together, I think they went,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: you know, we might have a maybe a wounded you know,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: players association right now, which I think would be really
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: bad idea for them to think that that's the case.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: But they may see that this is the best time
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: to maybe pull the trigger on really trying to push
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: for a cap.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: All right, Oh go.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: Ahead, Maury, you mentioned this is the best time. But
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: now they're also talking about blackouts. They can end blackouts
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: with the snap of a finger. They can do all
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: these magical things, right, but only if the players, who
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: are the most evil people in the world, will accept
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: a salary cap. I totally agree with everything you say.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: I think they smell blood in the water. They see
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: a weakness in the union and they're trying to exploit it.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: And I feel like you're in the press, we're in
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: the media, Like, do you feel like the owners win
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: the media battle every time? Because I just feel like
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: fans are so siding with the owners every time, and
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: especially this time. Do they just do better when it
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: comes to the media.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that obviously the situation with the Dodgers
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: winning back to back, right, I mean, the owners have
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: largely always portrayed this as a situation in which the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: economics are so far out of balance. And it's of
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: course because they look to other sports and say, well, look,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I mean obviously it's working over there. Whether it is
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: or isn't, you know, whether the parody situation if you
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: see a situation and they go, oh, we have competitive
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: imbalance and this will fix it, which of course is
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: not always going to be the case. I just don't
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: think that that's a fair thing to say. But they're
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: going to use that, and I think that there are
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: fans and a lot of small markets that believe that
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: that is the case. I don't think that it's fair
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: that the players should be the brunt of this. They
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: could do revenue sharing right now. They could fix this
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: situation at the top and the bottom without having to
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: have a cap. I believe. I think that's you know,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: they're smart people on both sides that could do this.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: But yes, the public sentiment is that a cap will
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: fix this, and that's going to in the PR battle
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: right now. And I don't know whether they fix that
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: PR battle between now and when we get this resolved.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Does a PR battle matter, because ultimately the union has
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: to decide. I get pissed off when the teachers in
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Pennsylvania are picketing outside of the school and kids aren't
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: going to school, But that doesn't change what happens in
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: their negotiations. Their negotiations are between each other. So it's
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: the same thing with baseball. Is that gonna matter? Yeah?
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember, you know, some time ago, the late
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Marvin Miller I interviewed her and I asked them, to
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: the fans play into your decision making process, and he
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: said that it is not. Ultimately, the union's job is
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: to think about their constituents with through other players. Rob
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Manford's job as an employer of the owners is to
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: think about the owners. You can use the fans as
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: leverage to try and you know, curry public sediment, but
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: ultimately it's about your constituents. And in this case, again
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: it's the owners and the players and who's going to
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: try and get the most out of it. The question
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: becomes how far can you leverage a lockout and do
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: you do institutional damage which is money for both sides
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: by an extended, protracted lockout, And that's the thing that
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: everybody's hoping that we don't have happen.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Are the players at a better spot because they have
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: a lawyer back as the PA's director instead of a player,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: which the last few cbas under Tony Clark went the
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: owner's way. Rob Manford even said it, wow, you know,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: the financials after the eighteen CBA really were you know,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: they were in pretty good shape, which means, you know what,
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: we won that CBA. Now, are the players at a
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: better spot because of the fact that there's a lawyer
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: in Bruce Meyer And before that it was it was
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Michael Wiener, Before that it was Donald Feuer and that's
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: when it was the strongest. So could this be a
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: benefit for the players.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it absolutely is. I mean they hired Bruce for
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: this very reason, and we've seen in this current labor
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: deal that the players were able to claw back. They were,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: you know, able to go ahead and especially address the
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: pre r pool, you know, get money to some of
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: the rank and file players. They saw that as being
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: weakened under the agreement prior. So yeah, it does. I
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: mean the key thing is, in many ways it's the
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: same as it ever was. Bruce was the lead negotiator
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: for the players during the last round of collective bargaining
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: with Dan Halem. Rob Manfred is the former head of
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: labor negotiations before you know he took over as commissioner.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So in that sense, I think that it's there. It's
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: largely on the communication side with Bruce. Now, you know,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Tony had a lot of faults. He was a very
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: good communicator and we don't know exactly how that will
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: be with Bruce, but we know that if you go
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: ahead and say that you want to implement a cap,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: you want a hard line guy in there to push
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: back on that. So I would say that Bruce is
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: maybe the perfect guy to be in this position for
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the players right now. I really do. I think that
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: in that sense, you know, maybe the battle wasn't the
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: perfect timing to go ahead and fight it.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Hey, mare a question for you. I just thought of
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: this as we're talking about it. You have both sides fighting, clearly,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: you know these two sides have not gotten along for
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: a long period of time. You know, I think, for example,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: in the NBA, the players Association gets along much better
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: with the league. And that's been described to me behind
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the scenes many times. It's like, hey, they try and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: tell them your partners, and that doesn't really pop up
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: when these conversations occur. How much do you think damage
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: control happens where you know, it doesn't make players look good,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: it doesn't make owners look good, right, it turns into
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: billionaires versus millionaires. It just overall hurts the Q score
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: of the league. Or is baseball in such a good
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: spot and they think that, you know, fans are going
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: to show up and be happy no matter what. That
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if you suddenly are complaining that you know,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the superstars are being paid too much and they're preventing
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: you from playing baseball or watching baseball next year, or
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: even preventing blackouts, which we'll get into in a moment too.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Blackouts is in people you know that are in different
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: markets can't watch games no matter what, even if they
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: try to pay. So just curious, like overall, right, looking
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: at teams, looking at the leaguet owners, looking at players.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: How much damage do you think this does to the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: sports Q score?
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question. I think that the short term,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: in the short term, they'll say, okay, you know, they
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: bounce back before they'll they'll bounce back again. In other words,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: hardcore baseball fans will want their fix and they will
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: go ahead and they will return. But I think that
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: that would be a very dangerous place for anybody to
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: be in right now. Look and now are very different
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: where there are a lot more entertainment options, and if
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: we figured out something during the pandemic is people will
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: find other entertainment options to go ahead and move to.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: So the window or how much you can go ahead
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: and have a lockout, especially if it seeps into the
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: regular season, you can't go very long before you start
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: to get into institutional damage. And that doesn't play well
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: with the TV deal coming up. I mean, you know,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: the timing on this is really in a lot of
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: ways dangerous. And the bad thing about it is you
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: really don't get into leverage until March, right, and so like,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: how far are you going to push that? How long
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: can you go ahead and hold out? And does it
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: hurt both sides to go ahead and do this? I
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: think the players are looking at the or I'm sorry,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: the owners are looking at the long game. They're like,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: you know what, we'll go through this institutional pain right now.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: But well, once you get a cap in place, you
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: don't undo that. So okay, in thirty or forty years
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: will have been long past this painful period and we'll
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: go ahead and do something about this. And that's the
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: calculus that they have to try and make.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Right now, can you give the fans real knowledge about blackouts?
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: Because ownership Rob Manfred keeps saying, well, you know what,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: I understand what the players are saying, but you know,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: the we're listening to the fans. We're listening to the
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: fans and they want parody and that's a cap. So
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: we're listening to the fans. But when blackouts are brought up,
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: they're like, what did you say? I can't hear you.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Huh what They're not listening anymore.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is this is something that I think
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: is getting lost in this discussion. The lifting of blackouts
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: would be a side effect of the caps system. It's
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: not something that or it is something that could be
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: done on their own. But until they get all thirty
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: clubs that they can package all their local rights, you
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: don't get one hundred percent ability to lift the blackouts.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: And even then your national exclusivity deals through ESPN, Fox, TBS, Apple,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: what have you will still be there. You know it.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: We're largely talking about the local rights, and so why
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: is this with with the cap? Why are they presenting
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: this because the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox to a lesser extent,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: maybe you know, some of the other clubs in the
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: large markets that own their regional sports networks, they have
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: no incentive to give up those local media rights and
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: share them equally with all the clubs and offer that
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: up in a package without the cap upsetting it. I
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: mean there's economic you know, abilities to go ahead and
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: offset that. With the cap, the clubs at the top
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: are going to make much more in the way of profits.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: So the Mets, the Yankees, again, the Dodgers, they'll save
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: money with the cap system, so they'll go, okay, we'll
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: go ahead and we'll pack g's all up with you guys,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: But it has to come with the cap. And oh,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: by the way, we'll sell that to the public as Hey,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: if you get us a cap, you guys won't have blackouts. Well,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: it's only at the local level. Again, if we sell
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: it to somebody like I don't know, Apple, then you know,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: if you have an Apple subscription, all your local rights
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: will be there. But again, that doesn't remove the national broadcast.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Those will still be exclusive and they will still be
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: blacked out. You'll still have to have other services.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: Mariy. Why would teams like the Dodgers, the teams you name,
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: the Red Sox, the Yankees, why would they want to
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: go all thirty teams controlled by Major League Baseball. That's
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: their advantage, right, that's those teams alleged superpower where they
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: make the most money. How can Rob Manford get these
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: teams to accept Hey, yes, Dodgers, you're making three hundred
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: million a year, but you're only going to make seventy
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: million now from if we all put it all into
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: one pool.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Well again, aj, it's the cap. I mean they're going
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: to I have. I can't even imagine how profitable some
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: of these clubs will be if they get a cap
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: system in, it'll be extraordinary how much money they will
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: be able to make buy offsetting and basically tamping down
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: on player costs. So that's how they're selling it. And
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Rob will be able to say, Rob Manfred will be
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: able to say, look, we can package this, We'll get
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: a great deal. Like who wants to buy a package
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: of local media rights? If the Dodgers, are Yankees or
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Red Sox are not in there, of course it's not
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: as enticing. You need to have those brands in there
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: right that have national presence to go ahead and make
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: that thing work. And the way they're gonna make that
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: thing work is by pushing for the cap. They can
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: do this right now. They just have to get those
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: teams to say, yeah, we'll give up that money. Well,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: of course they're not going to give up that money.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: That's an advantage for them right now. It's lucrative. And
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: so again it's only through a cap system that you
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: get them to agree to that sort of thing.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Is that something that's capitable. Is that something that we
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: could sit down and say, at a cap with two
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty million, they're giving away x amount in
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: their TV rights, but the cap system would help them
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: be this amount profitable. And that is that a number
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: that you could even estimate right now or is it
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: something that needs to be researched.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it needs to be researched. And you know, again,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: the league doesn't offer up their financials the public information
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: that we have. Heck, even the Players Association, who has
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: a lot more information, right, I mean, AJ can attest
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: to this. They get that information. They don't get everything.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: You know, there's some stuff that's shielded, and that's part
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: of this discussion about the fifty to fifty revenue split,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: all of this stuff that is somewhat questionable about how
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: that impacts. And you know, given the history of what's
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: happened between the players and the owners, whether it was collusion, right,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: whether we had that in the late eighties and early nineties,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's always going to be this I don't
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: trust you stance going on. And so that's why we're
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: in the position that we're in. That's why it was
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: so in many ways so surprising that we had the
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: stretch of labor piece that we did for the longest time,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: because the sides really don't trust each other. Now we're
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: going to have this again, you know again, we're going
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: to have this discussion about whether sides can be trusted
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: with the information that they're going to go ahead and have,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: and of course it's going to get spun one way
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: or the other. I mean, the idea that if you
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: put in a cap system in twenty twenty seven, that
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the players will make more money, well yeah they will,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: but they're going to make more money in twenty twenty
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: seven anyway outside of the cap system. I mean, we
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: can look at contract dollars right now and benefits and
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: we can figure that stuff out right now to look
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: at what that's going to be based upon the year end,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: the luxury tax numbers. Again, it's you know again the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: talking past each other largely, And so I wonder how
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: this will play out again over the next few months.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Could this system ever be completely overhauled in the sense
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: that it's handled more as like an arbitration case between
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: the union and the PA, where the PA, I mean
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: the PA and the owners, where the players would say, Okay,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: this is our offer. Owners say this is our offer,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: and then it goes to arbitration if they agree upon
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: that and the arbiter takes it. Or is that something
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: that would never happen and would be just completely irrelevant
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: for both sides.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: No, it's something that could absolutely come into play. The
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: NLRB was involved the last time in ninety four and
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: certain facets of it and ruling. I think that that
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: is the other wild card. How in this current environment
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: will either the NLARB and to the National Labor Relation Board,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: or how political pressure would come into play. You know,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I think that we've seen right now during this current
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: administration that they're willing to pull the levers and in
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: either social media or through pressure otherwise, to try and
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: get people to come to bear on this. How long
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: that goes on and how that plays out is something
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: that we just don't know. I think that a lot
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: of people might say that the current administration would land
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: on the side of the owners and maybe in some way,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: shape or form, But I think that basically you could
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: have the Trump administration say that baseball in general needs
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: to get their act together, do something, or we're going
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: to bear down on this, and it could hurt both sides.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I just think you don't know how that's going to
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: play out. But that's absolutely a wild card factor that
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I don't think anybody really understands how that would turn out.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: So again, last time we lost a week, but we
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: compressed the schedule with double headers. You know, if we
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: get to that point and they get it settled, then
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: that doesn't become a factor. You start to get into
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: losing games in April and May. I think change change
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: comes around pretty dramatically. I think that it would be
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: something that would be, you know, a kitchen table discussion
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: across the country, and certainly Congress and the President would
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: have something to say about it.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: What's your view but also your knowledge on possible expansion?
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Why would the Yankees want to take on another team
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: that they have to pay for? Why would the Dodgers
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: take on another team that? I get it, we're getting
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: our two billion dollar franchise value tag. But then for
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: the next you talked about playing the long game next
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: thirty or forty years. You're propping up these teams with
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: the crutch that you're like, all right, here's more money
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: out of our pockets so that we can have what
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: two more teams? That waters down the product of our game.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Well, the big thing would be that you're going to
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: almost assuredly get two more wild card teams. I would
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: think the owners pressed for this last time and the
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: last negotiations, the player said, will allow a team in
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: the ALE and the team in the NL, and we'll
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: expand playoffs there, but we're not going to give you
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: two in each league. That happens, and then you'd have
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: regional realignment, I mean potentially radical realignment where the line
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: between the ALE and the NL becomes really blurred and
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: we go ahead and we have less travel, less stress
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: on the players. So you can look at it that way.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: It's another two teams to put into a package for
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: the local rights, so you'd get more teams on television
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: for the postseason that they can go ahead and sell.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: You get two more teams that you can go ahead
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: and package into a local media rights thing. And then, oh,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: by the way, depending upon whether you get a cap
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: or not. If they get a cap, then you can go, hey,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: let's bump up that expand fee. And that's how you
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: would placate those groups. Not all clubs are going to
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: be for this. I mean we're already hearing about it.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: We haven't even gotten to the point where we have
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: an expansion committee yet. And we're already hearing buzz from
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: certain owners that don't want to see it happen. You
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: have to have twenty seven and that's going to be
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I think the barometer right Whether the Dodgers or the
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Yankees want to do this or some of these other
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: large markets, I think is really going to be predicated
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: on whether we get a salary cap. And I think
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: that that's again, that is something that's going to dovetail
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: off all of this. You can talk about expansion conceptually,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: and I know that Rob Manford wants to have this,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: he's been talking about it for fifteen years. The A's
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: and the Rays are very close. And where with that,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: there's this idea that as soon as this collective bargaining
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: room is done, there's going to be a push to
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: put together an expansion committee right away. And again, at
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: that point, it's going to be what can these markets
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: offer I think largely is dependent upon what happens out
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: of this collective bargain agreement. The franchise viyos are going
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: to increase dramatically when that happens, because you have cost certainty. Well,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: if that's the case, then we can ask more for
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: expansion fees. So instead of four or five billion dollars
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: being infused, maybe it's six or six and a half billion,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: whatever that number is going to be. So all of
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: this is interconnected. The current labor situation and this idea
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: of expansion I think are intrinsically entwined right now.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Hey, Mary, the part that rose a flag for me
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: is how you mentioned adding another wildcard team. I was
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: a big proponent of adding a wildcard team, and I
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: think it's mostly been a good thing for our sport.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: But I do feel like there's a dangerous threshold that
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: you have to be careful about right now. I know
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: it's early in the season. It's like anybody's involved, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I think we had an issue years back where too
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: many teams fell off and fan base has just moved
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: on right football season or whatever else was going on.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I feel like we're in a sweet spot where you
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: have to be really bad to be out of it,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: especially at this point of the year. Things are going
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: to look different in August and September, Okay, but for
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the most part, I feel like we've got most teams
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: in some type of mix. If we keep pushing this,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: is there a risk of getting towards the NBA, and
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: for me, especially this past season, the NBA regular season
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: kind of sucks. I don't pay close attention to it,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: but there's too many teams involved the tanking, like they
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: have a lot of fixes to do. So is it
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: a be careful what you wish for a situation where
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: they're trying to copy the NBA in many ways?
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that it's something to be concerned about.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: You know, you don't want to have sub five hundred
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: teams in there. We've had it happen before. It's very
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: rare in baseball to see that the ALS and the
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: AL Central aren't helping this situation right now, So it
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: is a concern. I think that the thing that might
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: be different is how how would we squeeze more in
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: with the one hundred and sixty two game season, And I
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: think that there's a real possibility of going to one
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty four game regular season. If that is
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the case, does it dilute things even more? I mean,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: we're having a discussion now as to whether some of
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: these teams whether the regular season even matters with the
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: chaos that comes along with the obviously the wild card series,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: the five game series with the LDS. You know, it's
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: not really until you get to the LCS and the
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: World Series that you start to see the muster of
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: how these rosters line up. There's a lot of you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: variables and chaos that goes along with it. You could
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: portray that as something good. Oh, you know, the Dodgers
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: get knocked out in a three game series somehow. Oh okay,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: you know that's not out of the rum of possibility.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: And we've seen this in the past, So it's a concern.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: It really is how that plays out, whether you're starting
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: to get weak teams in there. Again, I think you
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: look at the postseason money that could be made, you
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: could package that. I think that the league looks at that.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Otherwise they wouldn't be looking at expansion at all. I mean,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: you just have to figure that expanded playoffs come along
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: with that. I don't see why why they would go
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: that route anyway, especially if they're going to upend everything
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: with regional radical realignment. With this idea of potentially eight
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: divisions of.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Four, can you handicap the top four? Obviously the probably
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: there would only be two expansion teams, But can you
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: give us the top four in your ranking? Based on
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: how they've sold it and the feasibility in that city
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: and what owners would want besides just cash.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean obviously in terms of right now, we're
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: going to get two expansion locations. So let's just say, well,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: right now and this is going to change. I think
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Salt Lake seems to have a leg up on the
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: competition out west. The East is a questionable thing. I
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: think everybody is looked at Nashville thought about it, but
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I think that there's some questions around what the ownership
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: would be like. I think they're leaning on the league
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: to go ahead and put those together. So how four
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: wild card teams wind up and how that would look right,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: I think is largely dependent upon how that looks afterwards.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: But you know, we're looking at two markets for expansion
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: and then out of that how that divisional alignment looks.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And that's going to be something that it's going to be,
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: I think, a real shock to the system. It will
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: require an adjustment that we haven't had. And again I
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: don't know whether you keep the al NL structure and
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: do it that way, But of course the League is
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: trying to look at how is that going to look
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: from a travel perspective that saves travel Heaven knows. I
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: mean by then, you know, hopefully this situation with the
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: cost of jet fuel and everything is obviously resolved, but
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: it's less wear and tear on the players, you know,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: less travel costs. That's how you're going to go ahead
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: and frame it.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Maury, Really appreciate the insight. Always very thoughtful and educational
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: for us, So thanks for jumping on, have a great weekend,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and for everyone else watching and listening much much more
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: from Marey and his sports articles and on X and
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: everywhere else.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Thanks Mary, Thanks a lot, guys man, it's always a
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: pleasure of being onrepren