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Baseball's Rich Get Richer

If you listen to Bud Selig, you would believe that this is the golden age of baseball. Attendance has never been higher. Parity, in his mind, has come to the game, as the participants in the World Series have been changing every year. Television deals have been signed at ever higher numbers, notwithstanding the ever shrinking ratings and new stadiums are coming on line almost every year. So, what's not to like?

Try this, according to Forbes latest listing of the value of baseball franchise, one-third of the clubs lost money last year. Remember, this is not the owners claiming to have lost money in a year in which they are either trying to get a stadium built and paid for by taxpayers or they are negotiating with the players union; no this is Forbes' own estimate of profit and loss. While Selig's labor negotiators may think that is a good thing as the collective bargaining agreement will be up for negotiation soon, heading into the teeth of the recession/depression with that money clubs already losing can't be a good sign . That number can only dramatically increase after this season.

That is exactly why this parity that Selig loves to claim is a myth. Sure, the teams in the playoffs may change from year to year, but the teams at the team of the Forbes leaderboard almost never do. The same large market teams are at the top with the same top three of Yankees, Mets and Red Sox every year. It took Arte Moreno a few years to turn around the Angels and reposition them into a Los Angeles team, but now they will be on the leaderboard for the foreseeable future too. True parity can only come with a hard salary cap that would prevent the Yankees from having a payroll equal to that of the Rays, Marlins, Pirates and Nationals combined. Sure, New York is a bigger market but the Giants and the Jets don't get to spend that much more than the Dophins do they, and we all know which sport is America's true national sport. Think about Bud, everybody but ESPN is tired of seeing the Yankees-Red Sox every other week.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).