Interesting coincidence, as it turns out, not only did A-Rod take steroids, but apparently spring training is about to start pretty soon. Who knew they actually still play baseball anymore? With some big name free agents still on the market in baseball (names such as Manny Ramirez and Ben Sheets top the list now that Ken Griffey, Jr. finally signed) as pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona, the issue of the economy looms large on the upcoming season. In previous years, players like Ramirez would have signed within a couple weeks of the end of the season (it's been almost four months since play ended) and even a guy like Sheets, with all of his injury concerns, would have likely found a home. But times, they are a-changing and owners are tightening their belts around the MLB and all professional sports.
Already, there are signs that teams (outside of the greater New York metropolitan area) are cutting back, or at least minimizing their spending. Here in Houston, Astros owner Drayton McLane, not necessarily known to be extremely tight with money, has all but shut it down this offseason as the Astros have signed only one free agent (Mike Hampton for around the veterans minimum) and have let several players from last year's wild-card runner-up team sit unsigned. Starting third baseman Ty Wigginton is still on the market, and pitcher Randy Wolf, a solid late-season pickup last year, sat on free agency until just 2 weeks ago when he signed with the Dodgers. Houston is not exactly a small market, yet the purse strings are as tight here as anywhere.
Baseball is the first major pro sport in the US that will get a true taste of the bad economy. For the NBA, most teams sold their season tickets around April or May of last year, before the stock market crash, meaning that their only noticeable impact from the recession is a decrease in walk-up ticket sales and the difficulty in getting money in loans for payroll. But for the MLB, last season didn't end until the economy began it's decline, and now we will find out just how much American families and corporations are cutting back their spending on sports entertainment. After years and years of attendance gains, Major League Baseball may see a huge drop-off as fans will be very reluctant to come out to the ballpark for mid-week games early in the season or between two bad teams.
With the NBA trade deadline passing this afternoon, we began to see (and hear) similar economic rumblings from that league. Many struggling small market teams looked to make trades to trim money, but even the big market teams were reluctant to bring on big salaries leading to a relatively quiet day of action. One of the higher-profile trades, the New Orleans Hornets sending former All-Star center Tyson Chandler to the Oklahoma City Thunder (a trade that was later rescinded because Chandler failed a physical), was a clear cost-cutting move by the struggling New Orleans franchise. The trade made very little sense on paper for the Hornets as a team, but as a franchise that is in one of the league's poorest markets, they felt they had to do something, and trading a big contract for a couple of expiring contracts seemed like their best option. Who knows what will happen now that that trade has fallen through. Word out of the NBA's All-Star Weekend last week was that the talk among NBA insiders was about the economy and some of the dramatic effects it could have on the league. The question of whether some franchises, such as New Orleans, New Jersey, and Memphis, would move or even be contracted was the undercurrent of the weekend.
While the MLB free agency period has shown us one view of the struggling economy, we will get an interesting perspective in the coming weeks as the NFL, the country's most successful league, will enter its free agency stage. With a more equitable profit-sharing system and a strict salary cap, the NFL presents a much different landscape from the MLB. Small market teams will not be completely locked out of free agency as they were in baseball, and big market teams, while still having some advantage, shouldn't dominate. Then again, a team like the Dallas Cowboys offers a much stronger opportunity for a free agent looking for outside income (advertising money, for example) than a team like the Buffalo Bills does, and the Cowboys will now be far more willing to give a nice healthy signing bonus than those smaller market teams. I shudder to think what the situation would be like if this year was the uncapped year as opposed to next year. (In case you didn't know, the NFL owners exercised an option to opt out of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, reached several years ago, as of next year and if no new deal is reached, the NFL would have no salary cap in 2010.)
The reason for some of the financial woes for teams isn't even necessarily the lack of income from the teams. While this is the catalyst for problems, the root cause is that many of the super-"rich" franchise owners were really only rich on paper (in other words, companies/stocks/funds they owned had extremely high value). Now that these big companies' values have collapses, so too has the wealth of these owners. For example, the Cleveland Cavaliers owner's money comes from Quicken Loans. How do you think his portfolio is doing these days? That is a team that might be a financial risk if it weren't for LeBron James and the fact that the team is a title contender, assuring strong attendance. Many owners will be forced to cut back their spending -- such as big signing bonuses for NFL free agents -- because of the lack of availability of cash for them.
All in all, we don't know exactly how teams will respond because we don't know exactly how long the economy is going to stay bad, and how bad it will be over the next couple of years. Regardless, I'd call it a fair bet that at least one NBA franchise moves in the next two years for financial reasons (my money's on New Orleans, but Memphis seems promising, too) and the other leagues may see the same thing. Even if the franchises don't move, there's still a strong possibility that we could see some teams sold in the next two years. Which sport do you think will be first or most affected by the nation's financial turmoil?
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Thursday, February 19, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Guilty By Association
Now a full week removed from the startling revelation that Alex Rodriguez had tested positive for steroid use in 2003, it is interesting to take in the reactions of those both within the sports world as well as those viewing from the outside. From the perspective of pro baseball players, there seems to be three different reactions to the news:
1. Understanding/Forgiveness - This is coming almost exclusively from others that have been "outed" in the last several years for having done the same things. Players like Jason Giambi and Andy Pettite have been quick to commend A-Roid (I'm also partial to the nickname Ster-Rod, but no one seems to be catching on with it) for being forthright about his cheating. As if somehow admitting that you cheated after you were caught cheating makes it okay.
2. Anger - This is coming from those players, such as the Houston Astros' Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt, that did not cheat (supposedly). Their anger, of course, is because of that "supposedly" that must now be placed by the names of all baseball players. Before A-Rod's exposure, there were still many that wanted to believe that some great players were simply great, and didn't require or even want to use the drugs. Now, every single baseball player of the last 2+ decades is guilty by association.
3. Silence - There are a couple of explanations for this. Either they don't have strong feelings about what's going on (seems rather unlikely), or they are trying to stay below the radar because they've done something they don't want revealed. I know that not every player used (at least I *hope* that not every player used), but any players that are being quiet right now appear suspicious, like they are trying to hide something. As we know, Rodriguez was just one of 104 players that tested positive in the supposedly confidential drug test. Right now, there are 103 other players praying that the rest of the names never get released.
So how do I feel about this whole thing? It's tough to say. I want to say that I've lost all interest in baseball because the purity of the sport has forever been tarnished. Then again, we knew this for years as we watched Barroid Bonds break record after record with an increasingly bulbous head. And then I just wonder how this is any different from the sleaze-ball bankers and executives that used unethical and even illegal tactics to bilk countless Americans (and now every American taxpayer) out of billions of dollars to line their own pockets. It's all cheating. Sports are supposed to be an escape for us, and yet we are now seeing in the sporting world the same greed and corruption as we see in the corporate world. The fact is, though, players have been doing things to get an edge ever since sports began, and especially since money became such a significant factor. Sure, now it's steroids, but in the 70's and 80's it was cocaine, before that it was spitballs, pine tar, even nail files being used to change the way the ball moved. Cheating in sports, and in baseball in particular, is nothing new.
Does this make it okay for today's baseball players to cheat? Absolutely not. All I'm saying is that if you enjoy the game, take it for what it is. Watch it on t.v. where you get the best view of the action and you're not paying exorbitant ticket prices, and understand that the idea of purity in anything in society, particularly anything concerning money, is gone.
To get updates and notices each time there's a post, subscribe above. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for the blog, please post below or I can be reached at chrisf884@gmail.com. Thanks for reading.
1. Understanding/Forgiveness - This is coming almost exclusively from others that have been "outed" in the last several years for having done the same things. Players like Jason Giambi and Andy Pettite have been quick to commend A-Roid (I'm also partial to the nickname Ster-Rod, but no one seems to be catching on with it) for being forthright about his cheating. As if somehow admitting that you cheated after you were caught cheating makes it okay.
2. Anger - This is coming from those players, such as the Houston Astros' Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt, that did not cheat (supposedly). Their anger, of course, is because of that "supposedly" that must now be placed by the names of all baseball players. Before A-Rod's exposure, there were still many that wanted to believe that some great players were simply great, and didn't require or even want to use the drugs. Now, every single baseball player of the last 2+ decades is guilty by association.
3. Silence - There are a couple of explanations for this. Either they don't have strong feelings about what's going on (seems rather unlikely), or they are trying to stay below the radar because they've done something they don't want revealed. I know that not every player used (at least I *hope* that not every player used), but any players that are being quiet right now appear suspicious, like they are trying to hide something. As we know, Rodriguez was just one of 104 players that tested positive in the supposedly confidential drug test. Right now, there are 103 other players praying that the rest of the names never get released.
So how do I feel about this whole thing? It's tough to say. I want to say that I've lost all interest in baseball because the purity of the sport has forever been tarnished. Then again, we knew this for years as we watched Barroid Bonds break record after record with an increasingly bulbous head. And then I just wonder how this is any different from the sleaze-ball bankers and executives that used unethical and even illegal tactics to bilk countless Americans (and now every American taxpayer) out of billions of dollars to line their own pockets. It's all cheating. Sports are supposed to be an escape for us, and yet we are now seeing in the sporting world the same greed and corruption as we see in the corporate world. The fact is, though, players have been doing things to get an edge ever since sports began, and especially since money became such a significant factor. Sure, now it's steroids, but in the 70's and 80's it was cocaine, before that it was spitballs, pine tar, even nail files being used to change the way the ball moved. Cheating in sports, and in baseball in particular, is nothing new.
Does this make it okay for today's baseball players to cheat? Absolutely not. All I'm saying is that if you enjoy the game, take it for what it is. Watch it on t.v. where you get the best view of the action and you're not paying exorbitant ticket prices, and understand that the idea of purity in anything in society, particularly anything concerning money, is gone.
To get updates and notices each time there's a post, subscribe above. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for the blog, please post below or I can be reached at chrisf884@gmail.com. Thanks for reading.
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