Latest / Foul Territory / Evan Drellich joins Friar Territory with details on the new Padres owner takeover, MLB labor strife

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Evan Drellich joins Friar Territory with details on the new Padres owner takeover, MLB labor strife · Foul Territory

0:04
Speaker 1: All right, Marty, Well, let us welcome in Evan jel
0:06
Speaker 1: Let's senior writer from The Athletic, who is doing a
0:09
Speaker 1: lot of the heavy lifting early on here when it
0:11
Speaker 1: comes to some of the collective bargaining agreement talk. I
0:14
Speaker 1: know we're still months away from any possible work stoppage,
0:18
Speaker 1: lockout or otherwise, but we do appreciate him taking a
0:21
Speaker 1: couple of minutes to join us here on Friar Territory. Evan,
0:23
Speaker 1: thank you very much for taking the time.
0:26
Speaker 2: Thanks, guys, thanks for having me.
0:28
Speaker 1: Before we start and dive into some of the CBA stuff.
0:30
Speaker 1: You know, it's June's twenty second and the Padres were
0:34
Speaker 1: put up for sale earlier this year and new owners
0:38
Speaker 1: weren't officially announced kind of sort of maybe with Kwanza
0:43
Speaker 1: Jones and jose E Feliciano, but they haven't been voted
0:46
Speaker 1: in by MLB ownership yet. I wonder if you can
0:49
Speaker 1: give us an update on that situation.
0:51
Speaker 3: Supposedly it's going to happen later in the summer. It
0:55
Speaker 3: is not entirely clear at this point why it hasn't
0:57
Speaker 3: happened yet, except for or there's a lot of things
1:01
Speaker 3: that need to be lined up including the financing, the paperwork,
1:05
Speaker 3: you know, for not just Jose and his wife, but
1:09
Speaker 3: the various other investors. Everything's got to be in position
1:12
Speaker 3: by that point that they take that vote. And so
1:15
Speaker 3: it's possible that some piece of that is taking longer
1:18
Speaker 3: than they would have expected. It's also possible they would
1:20
Speaker 3: have thought, no, this is about the right amount of
1:22
Speaker 3: time it would normally take. So I don't think there's
1:25
Speaker 3: anything to read into it yet. Manfred said at the
1:30
Speaker 3: June owners meeting in New York publicly to the media
1:34
Speaker 3: that he expected it sometime during the summer, And so
1:38
Speaker 3: you know, if we're having the same conversation in August
1:41
Speaker 3: and we don't know when the vote is, I think
1:44
Speaker 3: then you can start to raise an eyebrow.
1:46
Speaker 1: Okay, And do you have any sense of where that
1:48
Speaker 1: leaves the padres currently? You know, only because as it
1:51
Speaker 1: applies to the team on the field, there have to
1:53
Speaker 1: be some decisions made about the trade deadline before too long?
1:56
Speaker 1: Is still John Seidler, he's the chairman. Is there influence
2:01
Speaker 1: or input from the incoming ownership group? Do you have
2:03
Speaker 1: any any sense of how things are operating on a
2:06
Speaker 1: day to day basis currently?
2:08
Speaker 3: You know, I haven't asked anybody directly, my instinct would
2:10
Speaker 3: be this, if you were going to do something notable,
2:15
Speaker 3: you know, moving a large amount of money one way
2:17
Speaker 3: or another, somehow, there's a back channel conversation that exists
2:22
Speaker 3: of you know, how, how would you guys feel about
2:25
Speaker 3: this if we if we did this, and it's quite
2:28
Speaker 3: possible that you don't end up with any kind of
2:32
Speaker 3: notable swing one way or another. I think I think
2:34
Speaker 3: probably the understanding would be keep things roughly where they are,
2:38
Speaker 3: but it would be case by case and it would
2:42
Speaker 3: require asking some more direct questions that probably people wouldn't answer.
2:48
Speaker 4: Evan, I know you wrote recently about the back and
2:51
Speaker 4: forth between MLB and MLBPA. Anything that's jumping out at
2:54
Speaker 4: you about what the league is is proposing when it
2:58
Speaker 4: comes to the domestic internationals draft.
3:03
Speaker 3: They're proposing to cut a lot of money, which is
3:05
Speaker 3: the first thing that I think jumps out at.
3:07
Speaker 2: The union, the.
3:11
Speaker 3: Reliance on colleges, the way MLB has proposed this so
3:15
Speaker 3: that they want to do a twelve round international and
3:18
Speaker 3: twelve round domestic draft.
3:20
Speaker 2: Right now we only have a domestic draft.
3:23
Speaker 3: Basically, MLB is saying, look, we don't need to take
3:25
Speaker 3: on this development effort as much on our own as
3:30
Speaker 3: we do now, and obviously colleges exist right now, but
3:33
Speaker 3: they're trying to raise the age at which players can
3:36
Speaker 3: be drafted, both internationally and in the US.
3:39
Speaker 2: And internationally they want to bring it up right now, you.
3:42
Speaker 3: Got to turn seventeen by September first, the year you're drafted.
3:46
Speaker 2: They want it to be eighteen internationally now.
3:49
Speaker 3: But the bigger jump is on the domestic side, where
3:52
Speaker 3: they want it to be twenty. So that's a huge
3:55
Speaker 3: change the league is asking for. It is one that
3:58
Speaker 3: the union immediately says, we don't like this, which in
4:02
Speaker 3: a way, it's all kind of expected at this point
4:05
Speaker 3: because everybody's kind of making their big ask in their
4:08
Speaker 3: initial proposals. You know, I don't think the league expects
4:13
Speaker 3: the players to accept this vision of the world that
4:15
Speaker 3: they have put forth here, but it is stark. It
4:20
Speaker 3: is a notable change from what we have today to
4:26
Speaker 3: try to bring to eliminate high school draft picks, right
4:30
Speaker 3: it is. It's a major system change, and you know,
4:34
Speaker 3: it didn't land well with the players, so.
4:36
Speaker 4: That saw some some I think Paul skin is one
4:38
Speaker 4: of them. Were notable players to come out with a
4:40
Speaker 4: statement against the proposals. That would be that would be interesting.
4:44
Speaker 4: What do you what is what's their biggest sticking point?
4:46
Speaker 4: I mean you're gonna, I know, this is gonna this
4:47
Speaker 4: is gonna get ugly a lot uglier as a month
4:49
Speaker 4: to go by. But what is the biggest sticking point
4:52
Speaker 4: for the league? At this point?
4:54
Speaker 3: It's always money. A labor negotiation in any walk of life,
4:58
Speaker 3: doesn't matter if it's ports or baseball. You're fighting over
5:01
Speaker 3: the economics. There are other things that are going to
5:03
Speaker 3: come up, and certainly the league has framed its argument
5:06
Speaker 3: for a salary cap around competitive balance. You're not willing
5:09
Speaker 3: to forego, you know, a year of revenue or whatever
5:12
Speaker 3: it might take to convince the players to relent on
5:15
Speaker 3: a salary.
5:16
Speaker 2: Cap just for the sake of competitive balance.
5:18
Speaker 3: You are willing to forego billions of dollars in revenue
5:22
Speaker 3: for the reason that you believe at some point it
5:24
Speaker 3: will also make you billions.
5:25
Speaker 2: Of dollars more than you have lost.
5:29
Speaker 3: And so a salary cap certainly thus far has been
5:34
Speaker 3: the number one issue. It is a huge difference compared to today.
5:39
Speaker 3: It would make baseball look more similar to the NBA, NFL,
5:42
Speaker 3: and NHL than it does now, And that's an age
5:46
Speaker 3: old fight. In baseball, the ninety four to ninety five strike,
5:49
Speaker 3: which lasted two hundred and thirty two days and canceled
5:52
Speaker 3: the World Series.
5:53
Speaker 2: A salary cap was a large part of that.
5:54
Speaker 3: The players successfully, you know, in their minds warded it
5:58
Speaker 3: off that did not allow app to come in. Yeah,
6:02
Speaker 3: the question is will will we get a cap this time?
6:05
Speaker 3: You know, are the owners willing to say we're going
6:08
Speaker 3: to try to miss games for this how long if
6:11
Speaker 3: that's the case, to the players.
6:14
Speaker 2: Fight them? Do the players say, okay, well we'll sit
6:16
Speaker 2: out an entire season if you want a salary cap.
6:19
Speaker 3: So it's hard to point to anything but a salary cap.
6:22
Speaker 3: But the one thing Marty I would I would say
6:24
Speaker 3: here is they're talking very different languages on basically everything
6:28
Speaker 3: at this point. And that's not to be too alarmist.
6:32
Speaker 3: It is again the start of negotiation. You know, the
6:37
Speaker 3: current deal is going to expire in December. There's probably
6:39
Speaker 3: going to be a lockout that started at that point.
6:41
Speaker 3: It's really not until the spring that I would expect
6:44
Speaker 3: you start to see material movement and maybe you start
6:47
Speaker 3: to see things taking shape, but there's a real chance
6:50
Speaker 3: that come the spring next year, the owners are still
6:52
Speaker 3: pushing a cap, the players are still saying we don't
6:54
Speaker 3: want a cap, and we're staring down potentially miss games
6:58
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty seven.
7:00
Speaker 4: On everything that you just laid out there, and just
7:01
Speaker 4: how much money is at stake now, and just the franchise,
7:04
Speaker 4: the franchise values. You know, the Padres were held as
7:07
Speaker 4: a poster boy as to what happens when you invest.
7:10
Speaker 4: Would you expect this to be a lot longer than
7:12
Speaker 4: the workstoppage in nineteen ninty.
7:13
Speaker 3: Four, longer than the work stoppage in ninety four ninety five.
7:18
Speaker 2: I wouldn't. And here's the reason.
7:20
Speaker 3: I think it's hard for any group the owners, the
7:23
Speaker 3: thirty lead owners, but they all have investors to answer to.
7:27
Speaker 3: It's really not just a group of thirty and you know,
7:29
Speaker 3: the twelve hundred or so players that are in the
7:32
Speaker 3: union at a given time, thirty team times forty the
7:36
Speaker 3: forty man rosters. It's very hard to convince any group
7:40
Speaker 3: to kind of acting unison for a particularly long time.
7:45
Speaker 3: The money is greater today, there's just more incentive to
7:48
Speaker 3: play the industry. The last number we have via MLBA
7:54
Speaker 3: was in twenty twenty four. It was a twelve point
7:56
Speaker 3: one billion dollar hall.
7:59
Speaker 2: So that's the total amount of revenue that came in
8:01
Speaker 2: through Major League.
8:02
Speaker 3: Baseball in twenty four. We don't know what twenty five is.
8:04
Speaker 3: It always goes up outside of the pandemic season. So
8:08
Speaker 3: presumably this year you're around thirteen. You've either cracked thirteen
8:13
Speaker 3: or you're about to. That's a lot of money for
8:15
Speaker 3: a lot of people to leave on the table here,
8:17
Speaker 3: and in a way, it becomes a referendum on well,
8:20
Speaker 3: are things really so bad that you're willing to forego
8:24
Speaker 3: billions of dollars in revenue? And I kind of thought
8:27
Speaker 3: last time, the players have been pushed around for a
8:29
Speaker 3: decade with service time, manipulation, tanking. It had gotten pretty
8:34
Speaker 3: ugly with the way front offices were handling players.
8:39
Speaker 2: They didn't miss a single game.
8:41
Speaker 3: And so I think there's too much at stake and
8:44
Speaker 3: there's too many reasons to play.
8:45
Speaker 2: Now.
8:46
Speaker 3: If the thirty owners get together and say, you know what,
8:49
Speaker 3: our franchise values are lagging the NBA the NFL, which
8:53
Speaker 3: they are, they are not selling for the same revenue
8:56
Speaker 3: multiple So the padres were kind of a jump up
9:00
Speaker 3: for baseball that they sold for about six to seven
9:03
Speaker 3: times their annual revenue.
9:05
Speaker 2: NBA teams NFL teams might go for twelve times.
9:08
Speaker 3: So if the baseball owners look around and go, you
9:11
Speaker 3: know what, we want to get to that point where
9:14
Speaker 3: we're selling for a lot more, our investments instantly going
9:17
Speaker 3: to go up.
9:19
Speaker 2: Screw it, We'll.
9:20
Speaker 3: Miss a year if that's what it takes. That's the
9:23
Speaker 3: wild card here. You know, do enough owners You need
9:26
Speaker 3: twenty three owners to be on the same page to
9:30
Speaker 3: ratify a CBA. So if you have a group of
9:33
Speaker 3: eight that's saying no, no, no, twenty three is kind
9:36
Speaker 3: of the magic number. If those twenty three gets together
9:38
Speaker 3: and say we're willing to miss a lot of time,
9:42
Speaker 3: then it could be that doomsday scenario.
9:45
Speaker 2: But I don't see it yet. Ask me in March.
9:48
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10:50
Speaker 2: Evan It's it's interesting.
10:51
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you brought up because I read what
10:53
Speaker 1: you wrote about about the revenue and about the franchise
10:56
Speaker 1: valuation and how it is not pacing as well as
10:59
Speaker 1: it is in the NBA or the NFL, and I
11:01
Speaker 1: thought to myself, who cares? Like, why would a fan care?
11:03
Speaker 1: Not a reflection of your work, my friend, Just so
11:05
Speaker 1: you know, but it makes me wonder. Just a finger
11:09
Speaker 1: in the air. Opinion about the court of public opinion?
11:12
Speaker 1: You know, who do you sense now, how do you
11:14
Speaker 1: sense that the messaging is coming through to the fans
11:17
Speaker 1: of this sport? Do you sense that people would care
11:19
Speaker 1: about that about you know, franchise valuation. The Potters were
11:23
Speaker 1: an eight hundred million dollar team that just sold for
11:26
Speaker 1: a valuation of three point nine billion dollars. It feels
11:28
Speaker 1: like that's a pretty good deal for most people, for
11:31
Speaker 1: most fans of the sport that just want to watch
11:33
Speaker 1: baseball games. So how do you sense that the pr
11:37
Speaker 1: campaign the court of public opinion is going early on,
11:40
Speaker 1: at least based on some of the stuff that you've
11:42
Speaker 1: written and the kind of feedback that you get.
11:45
Speaker 3: I think it depends to some degree on the subset
11:47
Speaker 3: of topics. So, if the Athletic did a poll recently,
11:51
Speaker 3: it is not a scientific poll, It should not be
11:53
Speaker 3: treated as a scientific poll, but it's nonetheless a poll
11:55
Speaker 3: that fans can fill out and respond to and can
11:57
Speaker 3: give you a little at least slice of a glimpse
11:59
Speaker 3: of of how people are thinking. And from memory, the
12:04
Speaker 3: responses when they were asked do you care? There were
12:06
Speaker 3: two individual questions I believe about do you care about
12:09
Speaker 3: how the owners do economically.
12:10
Speaker 2: To care about how the players do economically.
12:13
Speaker 3: And the answer for both was no. I think there
12:16
Speaker 3: was a little bit more caring for the players than
12:19
Speaker 3: the owners in the responses we got back. Look, you know,
12:24
Speaker 3: fans look at the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL.
12:27
Speaker 3: They see salary caps everywhere, and I think there is
12:31
Speaker 3: a baseline if you were to draw up the most
12:35
Speaker 3: fair way to do things, everybody would have the same
12:37
Speaker 3: salary figure. You'd give each team x million and say
12:41
Speaker 3: this is everybody starting on the same platform, but that
12:45
Speaker 3: the negotiation is not about what is most fair or
12:48
Speaker 3: what is best for fans. If it was the best,
12:50
Speaker 3: if the league was at every point trying to do
12:52
Speaker 3: what is best for fans, beer prices would be three dollars.
12:56
Speaker 2: That's not how this works, right.
12:58
Speaker 3: This is ultimately about on both sides, and both sides
13:04
Speaker 3: will have to deal with some amount of angry fans,
13:07
Speaker 3: a very large amount of angry fans if there are
13:08
Speaker 3: miss games.
13:10
Speaker 2: You know where does that swing on balance? Do you?
13:14
Speaker 3: Is it sixty percent angry at players or sixty percent
13:17
Speaker 3: angry at owners?
13:19
Speaker 2: Kind of to be seen.
13:20
Speaker 3: You know, we haven't had I think Marty referenced Paul
13:24
Speaker 3: Skins making a comment we've seen some players talk at
13:28
Speaker 3: this point. In my experience, when players speak up, there's
13:33
Speaker 3: more an emotional attachment that fans have for what players
13:36
Speaker 3: think and believe in anything else. And so, you know,
13:39
Speaker 3: if you got to the point of April or May
13:41
Speaker 3: and you have star players across the league ripping the owners,
13:46
Speaker 3: which side are the fans going to be on? Are
13:48
Speaker 3: they going to side with their they're the guy who's
13:51
Speaker 3: jersey they own. Are they going to side with the
13:53
Speaker 3: guy who owns the team?
13:55
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think.
13:58
Speaker 3: The bottom line for me, there will be so much
14:01
Speaker 3: animosity in public, the rights holders, the sponsors, the season
14:06
Speaker 3: ticket holders, which are fans, the casual fan who just
14:08
Speaker 3: watches the watch.
14:10
Speaker 2: There's gonna be so much energy directed toward.
14:13
Speaker 3: Getting baseball back on the field, including potentially from the
14:16
Speaker 3: White House, that you know, the.
14:19
Speaker 2: Question of who's getting more pressure, I.
14:20
Speaker 3: Don't know that it's gonna matter. I think they're both
14:23
Speaker 3: gonna feel a ton of pressure if they miss games.
14:26
Speaker 1: Marty referenced to the potteris a little bit earlier in
14:28
Speaker 1: the sale, the valuation, etc. We've also seen the pottery
14:31
Speaker 1: is held up by the MLB Players Association as an
14:34
Speaker 1: example of what can be done in some of these markets. Right,
14:37
Speaker 1: For a lot of people, it's I don't believe that
14:41
Speaker 1: some teams cannot compete.
14:42
Speaker 2: I believe that they choose not to compete. Right.
14:44
Speaker 1: There's been no team that has been more impacted by
14:47
Speaker 1: the LA Dodgers than the Potters, not one. There's no
14:50
Speaker 1: team that's played the Dodgers more. The Potteris have finished
14:53
Speaker 1: behind the Dodgers every single season since twenty eleven, and
14:57
Speaker 1: yet they still are getting three million people through the
14:59
Speaker 1: turnstile every year. So, you know, I don't believe this
15:03
Speaker 1: stuff that Manford puts out there when he talks about
15:05
Speaker 1: competitive balance and he talks about parody, and he said
15:09
Speaker 1: it's been good in baseball, but then he's worried about
15:12
Speaker 1: how you sell tickets in the off season. But the
15:13
Speaker 1: Pottery should be held up as an example for somebody here, Evan,
15:17
Speaker 1: I don't know who exactly, but I feel like we're
15:19
Speaker 1: sort of the bandana in the middle of this tug
15:21
Speaker 1: of war when it comes to baseball. How do you
15:23
Speaker 1: think that the podres whether it's the sale, whether it's
15:26
Speaker 1: their attendance, their success their payroll. I just feel like
15:29
Speaker 1: we're going to hear a lot about the potterys, like
15:31
Speaker 1: when these guys are all negotiating, right.
15:33
Speaker 2: No, that's right. You reference.
15:35
Speaker 3: They did this long story on franchise values recently, and
15:39
Speaker 3: the Padres sale more or less spurs that story because
15:44
Speaker 3: they do sell at a higher revenue multiple. Why do
15:46
Speaker 3: they sell at a higher revenue multiple than the other
15:49
Speaker 3: baseball teams before them? And the answer is because they've
15:51
Speaker 3: done such a good job getting people into the stadium.
15:54
Speaker 3: Will have they done such a good job getting people
15:56
Speaker 3: into the stadium? They've spent a lot of money. Now
16:00
Speaker 3: the owners can look say, okay, the Padres went for
16:03
Speaker 3: seven X rather than six X. Good better, it's not
16:09
Speaker 3: twelve x. It's not the NBA, it's not the NFL.
16:12
Speaker 2: They can take that position where you end up.
16:15
Speaker 3: Isn't kind of a large existential philosophical discussion about should
16:21
Speaker 3: a baseball team be bought to be an investment?
16:24
Speaker 2: The reality is they are, you know, kind of whether
16:26
Speaker 2: or not they should be.
16:28
Speaker 3: The owners certainly treat them that way, and they have
16:31
Speaker 3: big money riding on maximizing the value of these things.
16:36
Speaker 2: And surely they want to do that. As cheaply as possible.
16:39
Speaker 3: And so you have other owners who look at the
16:42
Speaker 3: pot what the Padres did and go, I can't do that.
16:44
Speaker 2: I can't pour this much money into it.
16:46
Speaker 3: I can't on an operating basis year to year lose
16:50
Speaker 3: x millions of dollars. You know, whether they could or
16:53
Speaker 3: could not is ultimately their decision. We don't see their books.
16:57
Speaker 3: The union does get quarterly find angel information. The union
17:01
Speaker 3: has a pretty good picture of how these teams are doing,
17:04
Speaker 3: but they can't disclose it publicly, and the league certainly
17:06
Speaker 3: doesn't volunteer this stuff publicly. So sometimes I hear people say, well,
17:11
Speaker 3: the books aren't open. That's not really true. They're open
17:13
Speaker 3: to the union. They're not open to to three of us,
17:16
Speaker 3: which which is.
17:17
Speaker 2: Too bad here. But yeah, at its core, this fight
17:21
Speaker 2: is over.
17:21
Speaker 3: Okay, you have teams, some teams that have much lower
17:25
Speaker 3: revenues than others.
17:26
Speaker 2: What's the way to fix that? The league is saying,
17:29
Speaker 2: the way to fix.
17:30
Speaker 3: That is to put a salary cap in, you know,
17:32
Speaker 3: cut off the head, you know, eliminate these seven hundred
17:36
Speaker 3: million dollars types of contracts.
17:38
Speaker 2: The players are saying, you don't have to do that.
17:40
Speaker 3: There are other things we can do with with revenue sharing,
17:43
Speaker 3: things to incentivize teams to behave like the padres, get
17:47
Speaker 3: them to spend more if they're, you know, kind of
17:49
Speaker 3: bottom feeding teams. You know, which which, which way will prevail?
17:55
Speaker 3: Is what we're grabbing our popcorn here and trying to
17:58
Speaker 3: find out.
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19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just to be real quick, because you wrote
19:03
Speaker 1: this and you quoted the commissioner and he's talking about
19:05
Speaker 1: I'm just get to read this quote from the athletic.
19:08
Speaker 1: When we think about it from a laborer perspective, we're
19:10
Speaker 1: focused on an entirely different part of the calendar, that
19:13
Speaker 1: is the off season when you're trying to sell season tickets.
19:15
Speaker 1: And the perception among our fans that's really strong is
19:18
Speaker 1: we have a lack of competitiveness. And again, I just
19:21
Speaker 1: go back to what the potteries are doing. They're going
19:23
Speaker 1: to break three million again, and this is a team
19:25
Speaker 1: that has finished second of the Dodgers for well over
19:28
Speaker 1: a decade. Like, I just don't I don't understand that, Like,
19:31
Speaker 1: it just doesn't gel for me. It just doesn't jive
19:33
Speaker 1: what he's talking about. If they're having trouble selling tickets
19:36
Speaker 1: in the off season. Why don't they look at the
19:38
Speaker 1: potteries and say, well, how are you guys doing it?
19:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a very interesting reliance on fans sentiment that
19:45
Speaker 3: the league is using to shape its arguments here.
19:47
Speaker 2: You know, we're trying to serve fans, and they're almost in.
19:52
Speaker 3: A way removing themselves from from kind of the culpability
19:58
Speaker 3: or kind of the accountability to the act actions that
20:00
Speaker 3: might spur fan sentiment. It's there'd be a whole interesting
20:05
Speaker 3: discussion of the pr that the sides are employing here,
20:09
Speaker 3: I think particularly the league, because the league often frames
20:13
Speaker 3: it as a perception, it's a fan.
20:15
Speaker 2: Perception that the team can't compete.
20:17
Speaker 3: Well, then you get into a whole other discussion about
20:20
Speaker 3: does the math show that teams cannot compete?
20:23
Speaker 2: What do we mean by compete? Does it mean make
20:26
Speaker 2: a playoff? Does it mean when a World Series?
20:29
Speaker 3: We've long known that Baseball's playoff system is relatively random.
20:33
Speaker 3: One thing on the question, on the quote you just
20:35
Speaker 3: read back to me. That was his response to a
20:38
Speaker 3: question I had asked. The question I had asked paraphrasing
20:42
Speaker 3: was basically, you guys say this is kind of harming
20:47
Speaker 3: the way fans view the sport. Do you have any
20:50
Speaker 3: specifics you can point to as to where that harm
20:54
Speaker 3: shows up?
20:55
Speaker 2: Is it in ticket sales? And you know, I don't
20:58
Speaker 2: expect them.
20:59
Speaker 3: To necessarily area around a list of statistics to rattle
21:02
Speaker 3: off at every moment. He didn't rattle off a number
21:05
Speaker 3: that says, you know, here's where we're seeing this clear
21:08
Speaker 3: decline because of this perception that exists. And so what
21:12
Speaker 3: I'm what I'm trying to say is there's so much
21:15
Speaker 3: loaded into every argument here, including what is the state
21:19
Speaker 3: of parity in baseball? What a salary cap fix it?
21:22
Speaker 3: You know, what is the state of it compared to
21:23
Speaker 3: the other sports? It's it's it's stuff that takes hours
21:28
Speaker 3: to in a discussion to really unpack.
21:30
Speaker 4: Two quick things for me, Evan, because you mentioned that
21:32
Speaker 4: the White House could get involved, that there's if there's
21:34
Speaker 4: a stellmate, I do believe that the White House has
21:37
Speaker 4: already come out in favor of a salary cap, so
21:40
Speaker 4: I'm sure the MLBPA is going to love that one.
21:43
Speaker 4: And a quick thing on the padre is just what
21:45
Speaker 4: what have you gotten any indication what sort of owners
21:48
Speaker 4: financial owners you expect? Kwanza Jones and jose E Pelissiano TB.
21:52
Speaker 4: We know that Peter Seidler was beloved by San Diegans
21:56
Speaker 4: for how he spent He was asked about how sustainable
21:59
Speaker 4: it was to go and held out these contracts. What
22:01
Speaker 4: are you expecting from this from these from the new group?
22:04
Speaker 2: Right?
22:04
Speaker 3: So, so President Trump was asked, I believe it's a
22:07
Speaker 3: board air force one by you know, some of the
22:10
Speaker 3: White White House Press Corps. Someone in that group asked,
22:14
Speaker 3: do you support a salary cap or not? And his response,
22:17
Speaker 3: I think his initial response was, uh, don't they already
22:22
Speaker 3: have one, which which is a reference to I guess
22:24
Speaker 3: to the luxury tax I'm assuming, But when it was
22:27
Speaker 3: clarified for him that no, they do not, then his
22:30
Speaker 3: answer is yes.
22:31
Speaker 2: So he's already you know, lightly jumped in.
22:34
Speaker 3: He was asked a question about it. It's not like
22:37
Speaker 3: he just issued a statement kind of on a random Tuesday.
22:40
Speaker 3: But if if the if there is a if if
22:43
Speaker 3: this does drag on, if there is a lockout that
22:46
Speaker 3: is threatening games. You know, the President has at so
22:49
Speaker 3: many points involved himself with with professional and amateur sports.
22:55
Speaker 2: It's it would be.
22:57
Speaker 3: Surprising if he didn't try to move the in some direction,
23:01
Speaker 3: try to be the one to mediate a deal. Any
23:04
Speaker 3: and all the above, you'd expect some involvement from him
23:08
Speaker 3: in his office, and it might not only be his office.
23:10
Speaker 2: You could see uh.
23:12
Speaker 3: Perhaps senators other politicians getting involved. So we'll see. On
23:16
Speaker 3: the Padres ownership question, it's i'd be I'd only be speculating,
23:21
Speaker 3: you know, the the.
23:22
Speaker 2: Amount of money. My my instinct, my instinct here.
23:25
Speaker 3: Is that what Peter Seidler did was pretty unique and
23:32
Speaker 3: special for fans, and the history shows us that most
23:36
Speaker 3: owners aren't going to behave that way. And so I
23:40
Speaker 3: don't know if you can expect someone walking in to
23:42
Speaker 3: any ownership group to to do what he was doing,
23:45
Speaker 3: which is you can argue too bad. But but I
23:50
Speaker 3: just think if you look at the body of evidence
23:52
Speaker 3: that exists, how do most owners behave How is somebody
23:55
Speaker 3: with a you know, the background that Feliciano has coming
23:59
Speaker 3: from private equity, Most of those guys kind of are
24:04
Speaker 3: pretty disciplined, and you know, Peter, you can argue, was
24:08
Speaker 3: not disciplined to great results or often great results.
24:13
Speaker 2: So I don't know, is.
24:15
Speaker 3: What I'm saying, But I think just look at the
24:18
Speaker 3: evidence of how most owners operate.
24:20
Speaker 2: Most of them don't operate like Peter.
24:23
Speaker 1: And Evan's also written really good stuff about the future
24:25
Speaker 1: of private equity, which we're not ready for yet when
24:28
Speaker 1: it comes to this ownership group, but maybe somewhere down
24:30
Speaker 1: the road. Evan, I mean this, a lot of the
24:33
Speaker 1: stuff that you've written has been super informative for people.
24:37
Speaker 1: I realize we got a long way to go in
24:38
Speaker 1: this journey when it comes to the Collective Marketing Agreement,
24:41
Speaker 1: but it has been really, really great reporting from you,
24:44
Speaker 1: and we do appreciate your time here on Friar Territory.
24:46
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for taking it. Thanks Marty, Thanks Darren,