Should Major League Baseball institute a salary cap?

[slj0101]

This is a good poll for opening day. I think it's time. One of the great things about the NFL is that the salary cap, in theory, keeps the league competitive.

[LSK]

1. Yes

[taterguy]

2. NFL teams have roughly equal revenue

All the stadiums generally sell-out every game and the TV money is split. That isn't possible with baseball where you have so many more games.

That's what keeps the league competitive, not artificially lowering the salaries of the laborers.

[slj0101]

8. I forgot about the attendance-to-games played ratio.

Good point. thanks.

[never cry wolf]

22. Exactly, there should be an owner revenue cap

The only money baseball splits evenly and the national TV deals and MLB merchandising. Home teams get 80% of the gate receipts and all of the parking and concessions. Home teams get all the local television and radio broadcast fees. Therefore the Yankees have revenue of somewhere around $300M while many teams have less than a third of that.

Forget a salary cap, institute equal revenue sharing.

[Initech]

3. Yes.

It'd prevent teams like the Yankees from being able to buy their way into the playoffs every fucking year!

[PVnRT]

4. No

The last seven World Series have been won by different teams. This year it will probably be eight years in a row without a team winning it twice (not twice in a row, just a second time in a given span). You cannot compare "competitiveness" between two different sports.

One of the reasons that you don't see the championship runs in football like you do baseball is that football has one-game playoffs. All you need to do is suck for one game, and it doesn't matter how good your team is, you leave. That prevents, say, the 49ers from winning five or six Super Bowls in a row in the 1980s. In baseball, you have to win a five to seven game series.

Besides, instituting a cap is no guarentee of competitiveness. Teams like the Royals will still just scrape the bargain basement for all the cheap players they can find and be just good enough to not lose 100 games and make a little money.

[dajoki]

5. They have Revenue Sharing...

and if some of the greedy owners would put that money back into their teams, instead of their pockets, they might be competitive.

[dolo amber]

15. ...

:thumbsup:

[jobycom]

6. Tell that to the Detroit Lions or Phoenix Cardinals.

I don't believe the salary cap, which is a team cap and not an individual salary cap, is what makes the NFL more competitive. I think they have a better free agency system, which allows teams to get good players without having to give up other good players. And as someone else pointed out, the revenue sharing plan in the NFL distributes wealth more equally, so smaller market teams aren't at such an extreme disadvantage in earnings, and all owners have a vested interest in hoping their competitors also do well.

That, and Bud Selig is a poor manager. The NFL had Pete Rozelle, Paul Tagliabue, and now Roger Goodell, all of whom seemed to be good business managers who put the best interest of the business ahead of individual teams, or the owners or players. Bud Selig usually favors management. He seems unable to force owners or the players' union to make painful decisions for the good of the sport.

Just my distant observation. Probably wrong, as always.

[madinmaryland]

7. Can we have a salary cap on what the owners make?

[Yavin4]

9. MLB Does Not Need A Salary Cap!!!!!

The 2007 NFL salary cap is $107 million per team. The 2007 NBA salary cap is $53 million per team. Yet, the Pittsburgh Pirates have a payroll of only $36.9 million. Their payroll is below both the NFL's and the NBA's, even though all three of those leagues have (1) national network broadcast deals (2) cable deals (3) DirectTV deals etc.

Teams like the Pirates, Devil Rays, and Royals are bad because their owners are engaging in arbitrage. They're making a profit without investing any of it back into their teams. The Pirates owners have already made a profit for 2007.

Having a salary cap does not make the game more competitive. It takes talent development and evaluation to make for a consistently winning team, which is why the Oakland A's have made the playoffs more often than either the Dodgers or the Cubs.

So, please stop repeating owner propaganda.

[tigereye]

10. that is very disheartening to hear

for those of us who live in Pittsburgh.

"Teams like the Pirates, Devil Rays, and Royals are bad because their owners are engaging in arbitrage. They're making a profit without investing any of it back into their teams. The Pirates owners have already made a profit for 2007."


I really wish we would spend enough money to add on to the roster we already have. The team really tried hard the second half of last year. :cry;

[slj0101]

12. I wasn't aware that I was repeating "propaganda."

I humbly apologize.

[NightWatcher]

11. No, get as much as you can

[Strawman]

13. Yeah

The Tigers spend enough to be competitive in the status quo, but if they were still in the AL East it would be really hard. Free spending doesn't guarantee a team will win, but it pretty much guarantees that certain teams will suck unless they just have an outstanding organization that can really outperform the big market teams like the Twins and the A's and the Marlins have done. I think the Marlins are on the way down in that regard though.

The Pirates and the Royals are two historically competitive franchises that just can't seem to compete. Same with the Reds. And you can pretty much write off the Brewers every year since Gorman Thomas left the lineup back in the 1980's. Every so often those teams might sniff the playoffs or sneak in until their best players leave as free agents. It's not fair to the fans in those cities. It's not fair to Toronto and Baltimore. Those are two good franchises that are just buried every year under Boston and NY.

[CC]

14. Only if there is a cap on all

profits the owners, stadium authorities and merchandise companies can make.

[ellisonz]

16. No.

[bigwillq]

17. No (nt)

[elocs]

18. How many here are in favor of a salary cap where they work?

As long as nobody is holding a gun to anybody's head, workers (even professional athletes) deserve however much they can get.

[jakefrep]

19. Yes....and institute a salary floor as well.

[Aristus]

20. They have a salary cap already. It's called Alex Rodriguez.

Pay-Rod has it in his contract that if any Major League player secures a salary agreement that is higher than his, he gets an automatic pay raise.

What a jerk.

[YankeyMCC]

21. Not unless it applies to owners and management too

and the excess goes back to the community they are based in even if it's just creating more jobs for the community.

[nickgutierrez]

23. Salary caps don't work

As it stands, MLB is just fine as far as competitive balance. You have good teams, you have bad teams, and you have teams that still have a chance to compete. An 83-win team won the World Series last year, and the league has had new champions every year for the past seven seasons. I heard an analyst who I have great respect for, Will Carroll, predict a Brewers-Indians World Series yesterday - if that's not competitive balance, what is?

[Zavulon]

24. God, NO.

Besides many of the other superb points made on the subject so far, I have to go with my own personal belief (which I already know a lot of you won't agree with): salary caps have never improved a sport, and in fact, each one I can think of has lowered the quality of the sport.