Tank McNamara by Bill Hinds for August 02, 2022

A fulfillment of the old joke:

A guy walked past a hot dog stand offering hot dogs at $1000 each. The passerby said to the hot dog stand owner, “At those prices you must not sell many hot dogs.” The owner replied, “No, but if I sell one I’m through for the day.”

As long as an owner is willing to offer half a billion dollars (and enough fans are willing to keep spending $$$ at the ballpark), yes he is.

$50 mil per year for 10 years is a tough nut, the player would really need to be an attraction with major post-season /World Series impact. Or $25 mil at 20 years is a big gamble the guy will last tha long, few do.

The most powerful way to fight high salaries is to not watch the games and to boycott the sponsors. Then, sure to tell them that you will buy their products only if they stop supporting the team financially.

But fans will never do that.

Inflation is the worst, especially for those who have to live on minimum wage.

What about one million for one year, cut the ticket in half making baseball affordable and filling the stadium resulting in a higher gross?

Don’t go to the game – better on TV/YouTube

Worst thing to happen to baseball – TV money. Best thing to happen to baseball owners – TV money.Going to a major league baseball game is beyond the reach of a lot of families.

And don’t forget all the additional taxes you’ll have to pay to build a new stadium to showcase and pay for the show.

and people can’t understand why I hate professional sports.

I’ll have what Bobby Bonilla is having.

Check your local minor league teams, guys. Good baseball, low prices, better food.

The big changes since WW2 are TV money, and the willingness of governments to provide various forms of direct and indirect subsidies. That’s led to a massive increase in the value of franchises (= wealth of the owners), player salaries, and the costs to the fans (in the stadium, and in those monthly cable / streaming charges).

TV attempts to keep this somewhat under control (and addict us to ever more watching) by looking for more sports that might entertain us where the broadcasting rights are relatively cheap. It’s less than 2 decades ago that OLN (now Peacock, sort of) started carrying the Tour de France. Now there are bike races streaming all the time. Soccer on TV is now ubiquitous. It’s not that hard to find rugby. And then there’s UFC, MMA, etc.

And that’s why I can’t stand to watch the “game” anymore. It used to be such a joy for me, then it turned into a greedy ego fest

Short answer… NO.

I stopped watching professional baseball 10 years ago.