Which isn't applicable to these numbers.
Took you awhile, but you finally got there.:-)
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Exactly right. Each team is it's own brand and business :-)

The minimum is always three minor league clubs. It gets cloudy after that, there are some teams that exist and compete with no major league affiliation. Minor league teams also change hands rather frequently, i've lost track myself to be honest

And just to be clear, i'm enjoying the conversation thus far. Kudos to everyone contributing constructive posts :-) I like the back and forth and wasn't suggesting anyone was making the thread sour. I'm just surprised it has gone on as long as it has so well, on the old boards I remember a thread like this going south in a matter of hours :-)

Oh and I pulled this from a site comparing 2010 baseball salaries and 2009 football salaries:


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You did get there. Average salaries for MLB players is 3 times as high as NFL players. :-)
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League minimum for 2010 was $310,000 not $193,000. Maybe they were accounting for the tax man, but it would be even lower. :-)
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Which is why we have the differing viewpoints.
Right on. I thought it was like that but haven't followed minor league baseball all that closely for the past decade.
Yeah, on a sports message board that I post at from time to time, this thread would've gotten ugly, and ugly fast. Then of course Godwin's Law would've been evoked somewhere a page or so ago and that would've been the end of that.
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I'm not sure who said it where, and I hope I have am responding in context...but as for minor league baseball, those players (after receiving their signing bonus) don't get paid all that well. And, they do sell tickets, concessions, parking, etc. at the venues. I would guess most minor league teams are really close to break even - or even making a few dollars.
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Again, that's not what I'm arguing. I know that the average baseball player makes more than the average football player. Where have I ever said otherwise?
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This:

Followed by this:

:-)

I simply helped analyze the data, showing that the top 25 players in the NFL on average make 2/3rds of the average of a MLB player of a similar sized roster. :-)
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Single A ball gets paid around 20K, AA and AAA between 30-35k. The contracts are open to negotiation after a year, they don't make anywhere near the 400k MLB minimum but it's also tough to peg a definite salary range. Plus the trend in baseball is changing, quite a few teams are locking up young players early, skewing the salaries a bit. I think most minor league teams do at least break even, agree with you there.
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They are acting in their own best interest, which is to be competitive, sell tickets, and sell merchandise. Isn't that also what is best for the league too? In my eyes, teams acting in their own self interest is good for the sport.
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Competition is good for sports, not putting a competitive team on the field in an effort to save money is hardly acting in the best interest of any one but the owner. See: Pirates, Bengals, Clippers :-)
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No, that's not what you did. You ignored a good percentage of their monies received because, well, actually I don't know why you did that. But you did.
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But yet it appears that several teams own best interest is the bottom line in the accountant's ledger, not in the win/loss column. How is that good for the league?
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It's only a few teams. Again, what right does the league have to tell a team like the pirates how to run their organization? Fans keep coming, thats what's important. As long as ticket sales are there, merchandise sells, and people watch on TV, what does it matter? So what if the Pirates or Royals ownership pockets most of the money, the fan base doesn't care. The team is still profitable, which is good right? Why would the league complain as long as they are turning a profit and not on life support.
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The title of this thread should be NFL Vs MLB. How did that happen LOL.

The players decertified the union and left the negotiation table so the owners had nothing else to do but lock them out. Next time you go to sign a work contract tell the owner you want to see his last ten years of audits so you can decide how much you want to get paid and see where that gets you!
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That was not a lockout, that was a player strike. This is a owner lockout, will not be anybody playing football untill it is resolved.
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(Playing Devil's Advocate) What right then does MLB have to tell the Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies, Mets and Dodgers that they have to give up almost a third of their revenue (last time I checked revenue sharing was at 31%) to prop up these struggling franchises?
No offense, but baseball fans don't show up to root for the accountants. We want to see a semblance of a competitive team on the field.
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The players decertified because they were backed into a corner. And yeah, if you're going to pull a BILLION dollars off the table because you claim you're losing money, do you just expect the players to take the owners at their word, seeing how untrustworthy they've proven to be? The owners were not negotiating in good faith, period.
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There was one of these :-) after it, so yours still stands as the silliest.:-)
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Ask the Bengals, Lions, and Panthers. The Panthers especially. Jerry Richardson acted out of his own self interest this past season in preparation for the lockout. Made big cuts, hurt our competitiveness, but it set him up nicely in case there is no NFL this season. That's not just a baseball issue. He's not as cheap as the Pirates, but that's still cheap. See the quote below:

There are always exceptions to the rule, but as long as they are selling merchandise and bringing in fans, then it is good for baseball. Now, if all the teams acted like the Pirates, then it would not be good for baseball, but remember they are (along with a few other teams) the exception to the rule, just like the NFL has exceptions too.
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