Every single one of them - no, don't want to open the old discussion about baseball players being overpaid, and how the owners don't have to pay them the money, and how it's a free market, and 'blah blah blah' - I do understand it, really. But personally, I think it's insane to place a worth on a human being hitting, pitching or fielding a baseball that high, which means I think that the economics driving it has gotten out of hand. And yeah, we're all paying for it in one way or another, those who go to the games, those whose cable bills are incrementally higher due to ESPN increasing its fees when it signs contracts to broadcast games, those who are paying higher motel/hotel taxes in cities who've raised them to help pay for improvements to (or additions of) stadiums, and those whose cities like Kansas City are considering a new sales tax (this one bistate) to help pay for primarily improvements to their stadiums (Arrowhead and Kauffman). To me, I say (well, here I go anyway - lol) screw the owners for passing the costs onto taxpayers and screw the players and their union: cap the maximum salary paid to $2 mill or less per year, and force the owners to contribute essentially the difference into a team trust fund, managed independently, that can only be dipped into for the same damn improvements that they're always asking the taxpayers to fund. The problem lies not with baseball fans who consciously choose to pay the price and support their team, but with the 'innocents' who don't give a shit yet whose wallets and purses are made lighter against their will for a commercially-owned and operated SPORT: not extra police or firemen, but a game in which they have no interest and do not benefit from. Unless of course they win the World Series and then they get to pay for the clean-up of the resulting celebratory riots - lol!
None of these people are worth that kind of money when it's so heavily subsidized by taxes.
[This message was edited by Jazz on February 26, 2004 at 12:20 PM.]
None of these people are worth that kind of money when it's so heavily subsidized by taxes.
[This message was edited by Jazz on February 26, 2004 at 12:20 PM.]
p.s. Along with capping player salaries, you also force the owners to fully open their books in exchange for a guaranteed profit percentage for them, which would alter from year to year the amount they'd be required to put in the trust fund.
Can you imagine how much money you'd have in a fund for even a small market team after five years if you froze all ticket and related prices at the same level (or even lowered them once the trust fund reached a certain figure, enough to build a new stadium perhaps)? Then maybe I'd truly care about baseball again, when we're not getting our pockets picked by multi-millionaires indulging in their childhood fantasy of owning a team, by public officials who are giving the farm away and by players only too willing to accept $20 million a year for a game children play.
[This message was edited by Jazz on February 26, 2004 at 01:14 PM.]
Can you imagine how much money you'd have in a fund for even a small market team after five years if you froze all ticket and related prices at the same level (or even lowered them once the trust fund reached a certain figure, enough to build a new stadium perhaps)? Then maybe I'd truly care about baseball again, when we're not getting our pockets picked by multi-millionaires indulging in their childhood fantasy of owning a team, by public officials who are giving the farm away and by players only too willing to accept $20 million a year for a game children play.
[This message was edited by Jazz on February 26, 2004 at 01:14 PM.]
