Revenue Sharing: Rebuilding Teams Through the Draft

Guest Post by Clara Culver

Which MLB Hall of Famer was drafted 1,390th overall in the 1988 draft?

It would make a pretty good trivia question, wouldn’t? It might be an easy answer for some baseball whizzes: Mike Piazza.

Perhaps his case is a little unique. Nevertheless, it serves as an example that a quality ballplayer can be found in any part of the draft. Thanks to MLB’s revenue sharing system, struggling small market teams maybe getting an extra chance to find those diamonds in the rough.

Major League Baseball introduced revenue sharing in 1996, following the 1994 and 1995 baseball strikes. During the strikes it became more apparent that there was a need for revenue sharing. Large market teams were dominating the free agent markets (1). Player salaries had been rising since the 1970s when free agency took off after the Dodger’s lost their arbitration case against pitcher, Andy Messersmith.

In fact, Messersmith’s name come up more than once when you look at the history of MLB’s competitive balance and imbalance. Although his first mention is far more subtle - being listed as a third round pick for the Detroit Tigers in the 1965 Major League Draft (2). The very first draft held by MLB.

MLB was the last of four major US sports to implement a player draft. Prior to the draft, teams sent out scouts around the country to scoop up the best players with appealing offers. Wealthier teams, such as the New York Yankees - the baseball dynasty of the first portion of the 20th Century - were able to fund large scouting networks, seek out the best players, offer them the most money and provided them with valued player development within their minor league system. Smaller clubs, like the Cleveland Indians, were stuck in a growing imbalance created by this long-time scouting tradition (3). The draft opened up the opportunities for those smaller clubs to pick up players and continues to do so today.

The way teams view the draft has surely changed. With the start of free agency, small market clubs turned to the draft more and more to build their teams. Small market teams look to the draft differently than big market teams. With large player contracts and owners fighting free agency, by the 1990s MLB had yet again become lopsided in a similar way it had been prior to 1965. Teams like the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers continued to grow, scooping up big contracts and drafting top talent. Low revenue teams struggled to hold onto talent once their players were eligible for free agency but got their choice of a draft pick first thanks to the reverse order draft.

And yet, big market teams are able to add all the right pieces to turn a bust of a season into a winner overnight. Or so it may seem on paper. Those without that kind of large revenue are expected to make a long turn around if they ever do at all.

As a Red Sox fan or a Yankee fan or the fan of another wealthy team, someone may crack a joke at the so-called “bottom feeders” making their presence known at the low end of the standings. However, they get a bonus that big market teams don’t: An extra draft pick.

In the 2012-2016 Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Competitive Balance Round of the MLB draft was installed. It is an attempt by MLB to create competitive balance in the league that is closely wound to the revenue sharing system (4). Teams with the smallest markets and revenue pools are eligible to participate in this particular portion of the draft. It's been a feature every year. The Competitive Balance Round consists of two rounds with six picks each. Formerly a lottery system in which those who didn’t make it to the six spots of Round A, were reentered into Round B. Although with the latest CBA renewed in December of 2016 the lottery has been replaced by a formula to assign draft order (5) . Round A covers draft picks in the 30-40 range, while Round B picks come from lower down in the 60-80 range. In recent years, what kind of major league players have made it from this range? Some pretty good ones. Players such as the Boston Red Sox outfielder, Jackie Bradley Jr and the New York Mets pitcher, Noah Syndergaard were both picked from the 30-40 spots in the draft.

With Round A of the Competitive Balance Round covering such a range it gives small market teams a new approach to how to rebuild from the bottom up. A small market team may value draft picks differently than how a big market team does (7). Big market teams have the freedom to sign higher priced free agents while at the same time building depth in their minor league system. Small market teams don’t have that luxury. Getting an extra pick that can benefit them long term. Not only are they getting an extra pick - draft picks from this round are the only draft picks that teams are able to trade.

Now the small market team has three benefits. One, they are getting an extra pick to solidify the depth of their organization. Two, they are able to trade this player for the chance at something better in return. Three, their organization is being helped in both their building process and finances from the same source: revenue sharing.

But what about those draft picks from Round B? Is it worth it for a small market team? They may sign plenty of minor leaguers to fill their ranks, but will those players ever get a taste of the Majors? The St. Louis Cardinal’s found Jon Jay down at 74th. The Braves took Freddy Freeman at 78th.

The key is draft strategies and teams have plenty of them. From traditional scouting techniques to new sabermetric data - the major league draft is the same for all teams. A room filled with scouts and team officials pouring over every detail of every potential player on the radar (8). But for the small market teams they have that extra pick. They have that extra opportunity to create something from it. If they chose, they also have another piece to use in a valuable trade.

Teams are always looking for a fresh edge on how to navigate the draft. Figuring out how and whom is the best pick to improve their team. Every team is trying to get a competitive edge. With young players spending up to several years in the minors, it’s just another layer of questions that team have to sift through (9). It may take a couple years, but what will the final product look like? Over the past five years, the Chicago Cubs took that approach. They rebuilt through smart draft decisions, trades and signings and won the World Series as powerful team.

With the help of revenue sharing and the Competitive Balance Rounds - the Tampa Bay Rays, the Minnesota Twins and others are being given a place to use the draft as a means to build a strong team.

Revenue sharing is new to the Major Leagues at just over twenty years of being in practice. The Competitive Balance Rounds are even newer and with will be interesting to see how small market/low revenue teams are capable - if at all - use them to their advantage.

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Sources:

1. https://www.si.com/mlb/2014/08/12/1994-strike-bud-selig-orel-hershiser
2. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=1965
3. http://sabr.org/research/history-and-future-amateur-draft
4. http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/6/5/5763034/mlb-draft-2014-competitive-balance-rounds
5. http://m.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/competitive-balance-draft-picks
6.http://www.sbnation.com/2016/12/1/13806488/mlb-new-cba-collective-bargaining-agreement-luxury-tax
7.http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2016/8/13/12457662/the-value-of-competitive-balance-round-a-draft-picks
8. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/what-happens-in-the-draft-room/


Images:
http://m.mlb.com/assets/images/8/8/2/170574882/cuts/1280_draft_guo6vcpu_m8l54fkx.jpg

http://widget.campusexplorer.com/media/original/media-BCB5CA38.jpg

Are Yankees Seeking to Torpedo the Revenue Sharing Formula This Year?

Guest Post by Connor Maloney

Under the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA), set to expire on December 1st of 2016, all Major League Baseball teams are subject to a 34% contribution of their net local revenue. The sum of those 30 contributions is then distributed equally amongst the teams. The CBA states that teams must use those revenue sharing receipts in an effort to improve their performance on the field. It also openly states that teams are prohibited to use the receipts for anything other than baseball operations such as repayment of debts, distribution to ownership, etc.

Recently, the President of the New York Yankees, Randy Levine, spoke some his thoughts about the money they are paying in regards to the current revenue sharing plan. Levine spoke in an interview with FOX Sports, “What is very burdensome to us -- and is unfair -- is the amount of money we have to pay in revenue sharing compared, for example, to teams in our market that pay 10 times less than us” [Rosenthal]. He later went on to say that this was something that he hoped would be addressed in the new CBA at the end 2016.

I’m assuming that the current revenue sharing arrangement is something that might be opposed by the top 10 teams in terms due to loss of revenue (which includes the Yankees), but is something that would supported by bottom 10 teams for the same reason. This is a system that was put in place to try and level the playing field between teams in top markets that perennially drive revenue and teams that might not be in big media markets and struggle to gain revenue. There is some cause for concern that this could pit owners against each other in the next discussions for the collective bargaining agreement.

My opinion and my hope is that in the next collective bargaining agreement a system like this remains in place. I would be content if the proportion of the contributions that teams made were adjusted but I just think that this is a system that tries to keep competition throughout the league. The teams that may oppose this feel that it is unfair because they are giving more than other teams. However, a point that is raised by opponents of this system may say that it acts as a disincentive for teams to increase revenue and just depend on subsidy-like proceeds from the revenue sharing.

We’ll just have to see whether the revenue sharing will create tension between owners once the season is over and they begin the effort to design a new collective bargaining agreement.

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Rosenthal, Ken. "Yankees Snipe at Mets in Revenue-sharing Gripe." FOX Sports. N.p., 25 Mar. 2016. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.

The Sports Industry and Television Rights

Guest Post by Kyle Artus
The average American will spend 9 years of their life watching television. [1] Months, or perhaps years, will be spent watching sports. Sports are becoming a bigger and bigger part of everyday life in America. Parents bring their kids to practice or games, athletes play, train, or practice, and fans will watch games and support their team every day. Due to the huge businesses that both sports and television have become, they now have a huge overlap. Sports teams and leagues make billions of dollars just by selling the right to play their games on television. Television stations engage in bidding wars to get these rights. More and more every year, the biggest product coming out of the sports industry is their television rights.

Television networks spend a tremendous amount of money every year to put major league sports on their network. For example, Fox, CBS, and NBC combined pay upwards of 2 billion dollars a year to broadcast NFL games. [2] ESPN and TNT pay about $2.66 billion every year for NBA games. [3] Fox and Turner Sports pay about $800 million annually for MLB games. [4] This is a huge source of revenue for teams and sports leagues. As this revenue source increases, it becomes more and more of a focus for the team owners. Teams and leagues are going to want to make their sports more TV friendly in order to maximize their potential for TV money. This is becoming evident in many professional sports leagues in America. The NFL has more stoppage of plays and commercial breaks than ever before, with an average of 20 commercial breaks and over 100 total advertisements. [5] The NFL game is prime for television, and this is one of the reasons that their TV rights cost so much. Millions of people watch every game and there is plenty of time for the television stations to make money by selling commercial slots.

In the NBA, the league is considering placing advertisements on their jerseys. [6] Now this is not directly related to their TV rights, but it could affect them in the future. With advertisements on the jerseys, and millions of people watching the games on television, the price for a company to place an ad on jersey could be astronomical. It is being reported that these ads would bring in approximately $100 million. [6] This could impact future deals with the NBA’s TV rights. If they get a new deal that expands their TV presence, more games on more nights on a more nationwide basis, these ads could become even more valuable. More people will see them and therefore, the NBA could charge more for them. In the not-so-distant future, I believe seeing jerseys like the one in the picture below will be unavoidable.

Major League Baseball has started experimenting with ways to speed up their games and make it more TV friendly. They have implemented rules such as strictly timed commercial breaks, requiring batters to keep at least one foot in the batter’s box between pitches, and making the managers stay in the dugout during replay reviews. Additionally, they implemented a pitch clock in the minor leagues to ensure that a pitch is throw in a reasonable amount of time. [8] This comes as perhaps a way to make the game more exciting and quick to appeal to a new generation of fans. This will make it easier for people to sit down and watch a game on television as a large complaint against baseball was the pace and how long games can be. This can only increase their appeal to television stations and could increase the value of the MLB’s television rights.

As teams and leagues make more money off of television, the games change to reflect this. It is smart business to try and make your product more appealing. As TV rights become a larger part of the revenue stream, the product that the sports industry is selling becomes more about the appeal the sport has for television. This could be great for sports fans as they could have a more accessible game to watch on TV. But it could also cause problems for traditionalists and sports purists. As the game is changed to becoming more appealing for television, some of the culture and what made the game so popular to begin with could be lost. It will be important for professional sports leagues to try and balance the changes that they do or do not make. They will need to consider how much they can change before the game becomes unrecognizable. They need to find a balance between making small changes that may help the game, and selling out to advertisers and wherever the money is coming from.




References
[1] http://www.statisticbrain.com/television-watching-statistics/
[2] http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7353238/nfl-re-ups-tv-pacts-expand-thursday-schedule
[3] http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11652297/nba-extends-television-deals-espn-tnt
[4] http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8453054/major-league-baseball-completes-eight-year-deal-fox-turner-sports
[5] http://qz.com/150577/an-average-nfl-game-more-than-100-commercials-and-just-11-minutes-of-play/
[6] http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattpowell/2014/06/20/sneakernomics-coming-soon-ads-on-nba-jerseys/#76998712263e
[7] http://phillysportslive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/nba-jerseys.jpg (PHOTO CREDIT)
[8] http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/12351883/major-league-baseball-announce-pace-play-rules

Baseball: A Model of Successful Business Adaptation

Guest Post by Steven Koonz

Baseball is as American as apple pie. It has been the American pastime since the late nineteenth century. Major League Baseball has been played since 1876. Over the years, baseball has changed and evolved into a billion dollar industry. The game today would be barely recognizable to a baseball fan in the 1870s, both in the way it is played and in the way the business of baseball is conducted. So how did we get to where we are now from when that first National League game was played in 1876?

As with any game, the rules of baseball have changed over time. The game played today is very different from the game played in 1876, or even before that. Changes have been made to make the game safer, more fair, and more exciting to watch. A century ago, players did not wear batting helmets. Spitballs were legal. Usually only one ball per game was used. The ball was made of materials that did not jump off the bat like the balls that are used today. These are only a few of the ways that the game was different.
Perhaps some of the biggest changes to the game of baseball were those that led to the end of the dead-ball era around 1920. The ball was switched out for one that was more lively, spitballs and any other form of doctoring the ball were made illegal, and umpires were required to replace the balls when they became dirty, thus making it easier for the batter to see them. These changes led to an unprecedented increase in offense, and paved the way for players like Babe Ruth to become stars. Whether it was the intended consequence of the changes or just a byproduct, these new rules made the game more exciting to watch. Another major change that was designed to increase offense was the implementation of the DH in the American League in 1973.

Rules have been adopted for purposes of safety as well. Helmets have become mandatory for all batters. MLB is experimenting with protective headgear for pitchers as well, although it seems unlikely that it will be made mandatory in the near future. However, with all of the recent concerns about concussions, the league is doing its part to prevent head injuries. Before the 2014 season, MLB tightened restrictions on collisions between catchers blocking the plate and baserunners, with the hopes of preventing injuries like the one suffered by catcher Buster Posey in 2011.

In addition to changes made on the field, the business behind baseball has changed too. Willie Mays, one of the greatest and most dynamic players of all time, made $165,000 in 1973. At the time, it was one of the top salaries in the league. When adjusted for inflation, that equates to around $900,000 in today’s money. The Red Sox just recently signed David Price to a long term contract with an average annual value of $31 million. Advertising deals, broadcast rights, and growing market size have all increased the earning potential of teams. Better technology, and cable TV becoming more accessible have led to huge broadcasting deals, like the LA Dodgers $8 billion, 25 year deal for TV rights. Free agency gave the players more leverage to negotiate their contracts with their teams and other teams, thus further increasing player salaries.

The reason MLB has been so successful over the years is that it has been able to change with the times. Men like Bill Veeck, Branch Rickey, and several others brought changes to baseball that make the game what it is today. It is this ability to adapt that has been responsible for baseballs resilience as our national pastime, despite labor strikes, cheating, and steroid use. When MLB was first founded, its founders probably had no idea that there would be games played in Tampa in air conditioning, or at night under the lights in Los Angeles, or that there would be ‘sausage races’ in Milwaukee. One can make a comparison between Fenway Park and the game of baseball. Fenway park is an old facility, one that has seen more than a century of baseball played on its field. Babe Ruth pitched from that mound. Ted Williams stood in the left handed batter’s box there for 248 of his 521 home runs. Despite its great age and history, Fenway is still a perfectly functional ballpark, with additions and renovations over the years to modernize the facility. Major League Baseball is similar, being an old game that has been modernized over the years.

A Plan to Bring Baseball Off of Life Support

Guest Post by P. Lumbean

Celebrating Diversity on the Roster: Marketing Accordingly

If you’re of the opinion that it’s a good idea to erect a giant wall along the US Border with Mexico, this piece is probably not for you. If you’re of the opinion that baseball is best when played by white American-born males, this piece is probably not for you either. Finally, if you’d just as soon watch a game surrounded by middle to upper income American born fans, you’re not going to like what I have to say either. Because I believe that folks from Spanish speaking countries in the Americas and those living in America who were born in Latin American countries (or are descended from such individuals) have the best chance at both saving Major League Baseball from itself and may even return it to its former glory.

Demographic Shifts in the United States

Despite what some of the political stage this year would have us believe, the demography of the United States is changing and it’s going to take a lot more than a really tall wall on our southern border to halt that change. The US Census Bureau projects that between now and 2060, the percentage of citizens of Asian heritage will be the second fastest growing group and those of Hispanic heritage will be the third fastest growing group. The fastest growing group will be those citizens who are of “mixed” or two or more races. By 2060, the Census Bureau projects that of the 416.8 million residents, 29% will be of Hispanic heritage. This represents a 115% increase from that same population in 2014. Meanwhile, the Asian-American population will increase by 128% from 2014 to 2060. By 2060, almost 40% of American citizens will identify as either Asian-American or Hispanic-American. This compares to the 23% in 2014.

It’s seems quite apparent that Asian-Americans and Hispanic-Americans combined will represent by far the largest ethnic category in the United States in 2060. Their economic clout at that time, should be significantly enhanced from what it is now. Businesses that want in on this economic gravy train would do well to start catering to these two groups sooner rather than later.

Fan and Player Demographics in Major League Baseball

If one Googles the term “fan demographics MLB,” one of the first items that appears on the results page is an article with the headline: “MLB Business Dead in 20 Years With Current Fan Demographic.” Yikes (or at least, “Yikes” for those of us who love baseball). Is this really possible? Let’s take a look by first extracting this quote from the aforementioned article:

“You know what the average baseball fan is?” Passan asked. “It’s a 55-year-old white guy. Fifty-five might be light. I’m serious. Baseball’s demographic these days is the worst demographic you can possibly find for future growth. For present business, it’s not bad – because 55-year-old white men buy things. But for future growth, if that is your average consumer, your business is dead in 20 years.”

This comes from columnist Jeff Passan who covers Major League Baseball for Yahoo Sports, and closer inspection of the data shows that he has a point. Nielsen, the self-described, global information and measurement company, releases an annual “Year in Sports Media Report.” There are some fascinating insights in these reports. Specifically, when breaking down the fan demographics, Nielsen found that among fans of Major League Baseball,

70% were male.
50% were 55 years of age or older
83% were white
36% earned $ 75,000 or higher

It does indeed appear as though the MLB fan base is (or at least was in 2013) comprised primarily of older white men in higher income brackets. This case can especially be made when comparing the demographics of fan bases in the competing leagues in the United States:

NFL: 37% are 55 and older
NBA: 40% are white
NHL: 29% are 55 and older
MLS: 27% are 55 and older

These statistics are not particularly effective unless one puts them in the context of overall popularity of sport. Logically, the more popular a sport is, the more financially healthy it is likely to be. Sports that are on the incline need to keep doing what they’re doing. Sports on the decline likely need to make some changes. Business Insider has been asking fans to identify their favorite sports since the mid 1980’s. Some of what they’ve found:

MLB and the NFL each got between 20 and 25% of the vote in the mid 80’s. Since then, MLB has seen a steady decline, reaching an all-time low of 13% in 2003. In the meantime, the NFL has seen steady growth reaching an all-time high 36% in 2011.

The NHL has remained fairly steady in the 5% range since the 1980’s.

The NBA, not surprisingly, saw a surge of interest in the 80’s and early 90’s (Magic-Bird era) and then again in the mid to late 90’s (Michael Jordan era). Since then, the league has settled back in to a predictable pattern of 6 to 7%.

Finally, pro soccer has been by far the least likely sport to be identified as a fan “favorite.” That is until recently, when since 2013 it has gone up rather dramatically and now competes with both the NBA and the NHL.

To be sure, asking fans to identify their favorite sport does not directly correlate to economic health or to sheer volume of income for any given league. After all, someone who identifies the NFL as their favorite league may in fact spend no money, directly or indirectly, on any other league “product.” On the other hand, someone identifying soccer as their favorite sport may spend their money on two or three other sports that they are fond of.

What the Business Insider poll does do for us is to create one barometer. It’s one somewhat useful indicator as to the health of a league, particularly when a league either seems to be ascending or descending markedly in popularity. It’s therefore quite instructive to note that Major League Baseball, whose fan base is dominated by older, whiter, wealthier, male sports fans has been declining n popularity while Major League Soccer has seen a recent, significant uptick.

The Hispanic Sports Fan

A closer look at the MLS (soccer) fan demographics gives an indication as to who it is that may be driving the surge in the league’s popularity in the United States. Returning once again to Nielsen’s 2013 “Year In Sports Media” report, we find that an astonishing 34% of Major League Soccer’s media consumers are Hispanic. This is a particularly notable figure when seen in the context of the figures from the other leagues. The percentage of Hispanic consumers elsewhere are as follows:

NFL: 8%
NBA: 12%
MLB: 9%
NHL: 2%

The report also notes the following:

Over the past year, a young, mobile, and tech savvy audience has embraced MLS in the U.S. Consider this: 52 percent of MLS fans who have expressed strong interest in attending live events and viewing games on TV are ages 18-34, the highest percentage of any pro league. Additionally, MLS fans are far more likely to be smartphone owners, with 76 percent of MLS fans owning a smartphone (Android & iOS) compared to 66 percent of the general U.S. population. And 42 percent of MLS fans have viewed mobile video in the past 30 days, compared to 21 percent nationally

The MLS therefore seems to most definitely be a league on the rise. It then occurs to me that a league whose future might not appear to be so rosy might do well to emulate some of the tactics employed by MLS. To wit: appealing to fans who may already be naturally predisposed to a sport.

Soccer is a huge sport worldwide. It then stands to reason that a high percentage of sports fans immigrating to our country are going to arrive with a predisposition to soccer. They will likely be drawn to the sport just because of a fondness for it, but they may especially be drawn to those teams who have players on their roster(s) from their home countries or regions.

The Hispanic Baseball Player

If you’re still with me, and following my train of logic, you see where this is headed. The 2015 opening day rosters in Major League Baseball had a total of 868 players (this includes players on the active roster, disabled list, and restricted list). 230 were born outside the United States. Of those 230, 201 were from Spanish speaking countries with the Dominican Republic (83) and Venezuela (65) representing the clear majority of Spanish speaking countries. So when more than 25% of the players come from foreign countries and when 23% come specifically from Latin American countries, how is it that such a small percentage of the sports fans are Hispanics? I am suggesting here that Major League Baseball has not capitalized on this most obvious of trends and until or unless it makes a concerted effort to do so, it is a league that will continue to founder until it runs itself into the ground.

What the Smart Franchises Are Doing or Should Be Doing

To be fair, Major League Baseball is at least saying that it recognizes the importance of catering to the current or prospective Latino\a baseball fan. Last Spring, MLB signed an agreement with what they called a “multicultural partner.” Latinworks refers to itself as a “cultural branding agency” and has been tasked with working with MLB to more effectively reach out to Latino sports fans. They have done so through television advertising campaigns and an expansion and improvement of various Apps directed specifically at Spanish speakers.

At the time that the agreement was announced, Jacqueline Parkes, MLB’s Chief Marketing Officer was quoted as saying: “This is us saying to Latino consumers, 'You are here, you are part of the game, and we want you to be here more frequently.' The campaign celebrates the nuances of the game and the powerful influence that Latino players have on the game.”

Individual franchises are also taking steps to increase their marketing to their Latino communities. According to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 43% of their fan base in 2013 was Latino. So it makes a whole lot of sense for them to have trademarked the term “Los Doyers” which references the team’s ties to the Latino community. This trademarking has led to the sale of everything with the “Los Doyers” moniker on it to the “Doyer Dog” hot dog at Dodgers Stadium. Similarly, Arizona’s Diamondbacks have “Los D-backs” t-shirts, an Hispanic Heritage Night, and postgame concerts featuring Latin music.

And I Haven’t Even Touched On. . .

As someone who has spent far too much time listening to candidates and self-described “experts” during this election cycle, I am now somewhat taken aback when I hear someone say something that is actually refreshing or in some way different. Yesterday when struggling to decide how I would conclude this essay, I heard the following from Jose Antonio-Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, founder and editor of #EmergingUS, and founder of Define American. In talking about this particular presidential election, he said:
Well, what is missing is a more truthful conversation about where this country is going. Look, the country is only going to get gayer—there’s only going to be more gay people coming out—more Asian, more Latino, more black. Right? And women will break every possible barrier there is, and should be broken. You know, what’s at stake in this country, in many ways—right?—is kind of the soul of a lot of heterosexual white men, right?

This piece has focused on the rise, or at least the potential rise of the Latin-American sports fan. The wisest politicians, business owners, and professional sports leagues will recognize that our country is going through a major population evolution, will embrace that evolution, and will ultimately cater to it.
I’ve focused on only one aspect of this demographic change here. I’ve left out those Americans (or new Americans) of Asian descent, the LGBTQ community, and young people growing up in the hyper-digital age to name only three of the additional groups that are positively changing our country. Leagues that want to die on the vine will continue to cater primarily to one category of citizen. Those that want to thrive will recognize the exciting changes taking place and will market accordingly.

Other Sources
http://dsmsports.net/2015/05/11/a-snapshot-of-the-american-hispanic-sports-fan-and-their-digital-dependence/
http://www.multiculturalretail360.com/nfl-to-present-its-hispanic-strategy-at-multicultural-retail-360/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-cox/soccer-in-america_b_4740668.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/04/18/304176446/baseballs-demographic-shifts-bring-cultural-complexities


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Time for Major League Baseball to Return to Montréal?

“Le baseball peut sauver Montréal” screamed the headline of the Sports section of the 28 March 2014 edition of La Presse, one of Canada’s top 10 newspapers, and the only one with a growing weekly circulation.

“Baseball can save Montréal.”

The paper was quoting Warren Cromartie, a versatile outfielder who played with the original Montréal Expos, who has been vocal in generating enthusiasm for a return of Major League Baseball to Montréal.  And Cromartie has not been alone.

On the weekend the full-page news article appeared, not one, but two Major League Baseball games were played at Montreal’s Stade Olympique (Olympic Stadium) as the Toronto Blue Jays hosted the New York Mets for a two-game exhibition series. It was  the first time MLB baseball had been played in Québec since the Montreal Expos left town ten years earlier.

Was there interest in Francophone Québec for this stereotypically “American” sport?

To quote reporter David Lengel of The Guardian,

“Beer was poured, hot dogs were steamed (buns toasted), and programs were sold. Fans, legions of them, cheered home runs, booed errors and gasped at great defensive plays, heckling in both English and French…Montreal was a Major League Baseball city for the first time since its franchise picked up and relocated to Washington DC 10 years ago.” 

The numbers?  More than 96,000 Canadian fans turned out for two games.  They chanted, “Let’s go Expos!” and “We want baseball!”

For comparison purposes, that’s just about the equivalent of two complete sell-outs of the entire 50,000-seat-strong new Yankee Stadium. The average attendance at Boston Red Sox games so far in 2014 has been 36,000; for Seattle, 22,500; for Tampa Bay, just 18,000. The number of fans at the Blue Jays-Mets games was astounding.

 

 Once upon a time, Montréal had an MLB team in the Expos.  In fact, they were home to the very first MLB franchise located outside of the United States.   

Montréal seemed to burst on the scene in the 1960s. The 1967 World's Fair, called Expo 67 was hailed as a success, and the city subsequently won the bid for the 1976 Summer Olympics and then unveiled a new subway system, the Métro. This was all capped by winning of one of the four MLB expansion franchises awarded 1969.

While they had a long and slow growth period, the Expos had achieved the best record in Major League Baseball (74–40), when the 1994 players’ strike suddenly ended the season.  The strike dragged on through the fall, forcing the cancellation of the playoffs and the World Series. Shut out of their best season to date, the strike damaged the Expos' campaign for a new stadium, and the local ownership group chose not to invest additional funds to retain the team's best players. 

In fact, they did the opposite:During the 1994–1995 offseason, owner Claude Brochu instructed general manager Kevin Malone to conduct a “fire sale” of their players: ties with their major stars were severed, players were released as Free Agents, and others traded away. Game attendance dropped to under 20,000, and Malone resigned in October 1995, saying "I'm in the building business, not in the dismantling business."   Subsequent years found the owners engaged in head-scratching gambits such as having the Canadian team play games in Puerto Rico.

On September 29, 2004, the date of Montreal's last home game of the season, MLB announced that the Montreal franchise would move to Washington, D.C. for the 2005 season, and the team was reborn as the Washington Nationals.

Nonetheless, Montréalers have never stopped hoping for the return of a team, and they made their feelings known this past spring.

Basic sports economics would support the notion that Montréal is ripe for another team:  the largest source of revenue for Major League Baseball teams are local media broadcast revenues, the majority of which stay with (and enrich) the home team; this is why baseball teams are always located in large media markets like New York and Chicago and Los Angeles, and never in media-poor cities hosting NFL teams like Green Bay and Nashville.

Montreal is currently the largest North American media market without a major league baseball team.

Andrew Zimbalist, prolific author and my sports economics colleague 20 minutes down the road at Smith College, agrees.  Interviewed by La Presse, and asked if a Montréal team could be viable, he stated (and this is my translation; original French appears at the end of this blog post),

“For me, there is no doubt. If Montréal possessed a good stadium, it would work. I don’t see why not – there is no longer a serious devaluation of the Canadian dollar against the American, which contributed to the Expos departure in 2004.”

Cromartie and others have started an actual internet campaign to generate momentum for a team, with a website at Montreal Baseball Project and a Facebook Page  .

But does that mean moving the Nationals back, or shuffling the hapless Rays or the Cleveland Indians (currently possessing the poorest attendance records in MLB) to Canada? 

Not necessarily.

In a May 16 article in Sporting News, Jesse Spector of  Sporting News  argued for expansion to 32 teams.

 “With 32 teams, it would be possible to go to four divisions of eight teams each. The playoffs could then place a heavier emphasis on divisional rivalries, with the second- and third-place teams in each division squaring off in one-game wild card playoffs, then facing the division winners….Why wouldn’t a division of the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Phillies, Orioles, Nationals, Blue Jays and Expos 2.0 work?  The time is right for the move from 30 teams to 32.”

Indeed.

*”Pour moi, il n’ya pas de doute. Si Montréal possède un bon stade, c’est un marché positif. Je ne vois pas pourquoi pas non plus d’une possible dévaluation du dollar canadien par rapport à la devise américaine, ce qui avait contribué au départ des Expos en 2004. »

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