Some people got to have it
So I’ve been reading this weighty tome lately, part one of which provides a trivia-oriented history of professional baseball. Interesting stuff. When James gets to the nineties, he begins bemoaning the unbalanced salaries (while simultaneously mentioning that the field of competition was more balanced than it ever had been), and I’m all, oh shit, here goes Bill fucking James with the salary cap bullshit.
And then Bill James slaps me upside the head for doubting him. Because he actually pretty much rejects the bizarre revenue-sharing and salary-cap fantasies that plague baseball discourse these days. Bill’s idea has to do with the TV royalties, and, well, it’s not insane. Actually it kind of makes a lot of sense. The idea is basically this: if the Yankees play the Twins at Yankee Stadium, the game will be broadcast locally in the New York area. According to the current TV structure, 100% of this revenue goes to the Yankees. Bill’s proposal is simple: the Twins should get half of it.
It makes sense, and it’s non-egregious. The current system is a relic from the days when local TV royalties accounted for exactly nothing and nobody cared about them, and updating it to be more in line with the way everything else in the world works isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Obviously, both Bill and I are aware that, in the real world, it would be a bit more complicated than this example, since there are more than two teams out there; for fuck’s sake, these people have accountants. They can handle it.
I dunno; any thoughts? It seems like it’s a sensible way to smooth things out a little. It’s not a draconian success penalty like revenue-sharing (and doesn’t lead to bullshit like the Marlins are dealing with right now, where the rich teams and, of course, the MLBPA are complaining that they don’t spend their handout money appropriately), and it’s not as destructive nor as impossible as a salary cap.
