Where are they going to get the $300 million for the down payment?
They have had high expenses, but also high income. They might not have the money on hand, but they could finance it.
Tim, there a lot of good players who never get to the majors because there are not enough openings for them.
A lot of good players by every day standards, but not by the standards of the top leagues. The teams in those leagues already have quite a few players that are not good by the high standards of the top leagues.
And its the great players, not the merely good, (esp. not merely good by lower standards, which is really marginal by top league standards) who get the high 7 or 8 figure salaries that you hate. There are certainly openings for great players in every position in every major sport right now. If merely having the openings caused the players to appear, then where are they?
I also notice how you ignore my real world examples - "bidding up their salaries, just like what happened when the AFL and NFL competed, or later when the NFL competed with the USFL". If there where so many extra players available, why did those new leagues lead to an increase in player salaries?
How has the MLB gotten into a dominate position by its own efforts? They have one of the coziest setups in the country; whereby franchises are limited
What does franchise limits have to do with it? If they didn't limit the franchises the new franchises would still be MLB. And the MLB would be just as dominate (even if the individual teams had slightly less income each).
As for the stadium subsidies - That's one of (probably the biggest) reasons I said "mostly by their own efforts. The AL and NL where dominate leagues back when stadium subsidies where less of an issue. In any case to the extent that the subsidies help maintain the domenence that might be one more reason to oppose them, but its not like I need more reasons. Using it as a reason to give the federal government control over salaries is bizarre. If your not calling for control of the salaries, and just stating that in your opinion they should be lower, than fine, everyone is entitled to his own opinion.
I am saying they need to pay their own way.
Fine, I agree.
What I said was.....forcing owners of teams to pay their own way will reduce players' salaries while creating another league will increase the number of eligible players.
They are both likely true, but perhaps not to a meaningful extent, esp, the later. The salaries may decrease (or at least not increase as fast). If the salaries go down by 10%, grow slower after that, and the stadium subsidies end, would you still complain about the salaries being a disgrace? If you wouldn't complain, then fine I see how your plan might achieve one of your goals. As for a 2nd or 3rd league in each sport it will certainly increase the number of players (you have to staff the teams), but you haven't given one bit of evidence or argument that suggests that the number of super-star caliber players would go up as fast as the total number of player slots.
Its a well known premise in business the more opportunities created the more customers generated
Sure two leagues would have more customers than one. They probably wouldn't have twice, but lets assume they did. That just means twice the revenue, and all that extra revenue would help keep the salaries for the most desired players high.
Same with entertainment..........you create more venues more entertainers show up.
Perhaps, but not at the same rate. You can't simply double the number of singers or baseball players and esp. double the number of people with superstar level talent. You could if the groups where entirely random. If the pool of players the major leagues look at (and before that the minor leagues, college teams, even high school teams look at) wasn't selected by talent. But the pool already is selected for talent. The more talented people try out for high school teams, not a random sampling.
Only the best of those get considered for college teams or minor leagues, and only the best of those get considered for the pros. The current pros are the players who have made all the cuts. The closest available players are the ones who didn't make the last cut, they where rejected because it was thought they were not good enough for the pros. And of course many of those rejected players have moved on and have different careers. Some of them might come back (many of them would if they are offered very high salaries) but they haven't kept developing their talent, more often than not its regressed.
Even in terms of new young players you have a problem, because the pool they are selected from doesn't double. Doubling or tripping the major league teams, might not double the minor leagues, and won't double the number of college teams, or have much effect on the number of high school, little league, CYO, Pee Wee, Pop Warner, etc. teams.
You make general statements about how the number of good players would increase. Fine, it probably would, but do you really think the number of NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL level players would go up linearly with the number of new leagues? If you think it would do you think the number of top superstar players would go up just as fast? If yes, why? If no, then why bother arguing against the point that increasing the number of teams would push top salaries up?
The sports industry is like the music industry has been....closely guarding and limiting viewing of its product. That has resulted in huge salaries for rock stars.....[and ball players]. However, downloads on the internet and CD pirating is changing that, breaking the control the industry has over its product output.
Legal or illegal copies of music can be made for negligible amounts of money. You can crank up as many copies as you want. If demand went up a billion fold, you could just produce a billion times as many copies. You can't produce a billion times as many skilled players, you can't easily produce even 2X. People aren't factory or computer produced items, that you can just run off more of any time you have the demand. |
