Baseball fans don’t matter.
You have to hand it to Major League Baseball owners for the holiday presents that they are about to give baseball fans. There is a lockout of the players coming but before you get to December 1st, the date the lockout will more than likely start, there is a question that needs to be asked. If MLB is doing so poorly financially, how come the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Houston Astros have each committed to paying more than $20 million to two pitchers who have missed seasons? There is no guarantee of any success for either. Paying tens of millions of dollars for pitchers is always risky but paying tens of millions of dollars for broken down pitchers seems inane. The shutdown of the industry in the winter will deprive fans of the Hot Stove League. The rumor season. The actual trades or signing of free agents cannot occur until a new collective bargaining agreement is reached.
With a new CBA, MLB could set up a mechanism to expand by two teams. Speaking of two teams, what in the world are John Fisher and Stu Sternberg doing to their fanbases? Fisher is playing Las Vegas versus Oakland in the stadium game. Fisher wants to build a stadium village in Oakland but might also be open to building a Las Vegas stadium so he could move his Athletics franchise to the desert. Fisher is in Oakland in 2022 and 2023. He is raising ticket prices and may trade away some of his best players to reduce payroll. In the Tampa Bay market, Tampa Bay Rays officials are still pushing a plan that would see one half of Rays’ home games played in the Tampa market and half the home games in Montreal. Fisher and Rays owner Stu Sternberg are playing hardball and the fans could be collateral damage.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
