Why Won't Baseball Let Mark Cuban in?

HawkeyeMike23 said:
David Stern is going to lead the NBA into its second lockout in less than 15 years. The NBA lost $300M last year, over half of the NBA franchises lost money last season. Attendence is down in almost every small market city in the NBA, and all this while the NBA is offering a better on the court product than it has in 20 years.
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I don't disagree that the revenue model with regards to salaries needs to be reworked, however the NBA is hardly the only league in which that issue exists. The attendance argument can go right out the window. You can't really slam the NBA small market teams for poor attendance when you have teams in MLB that consistently draw turnstyle attendence numbers south of 10k per game.

The best way to judge the health of the respective leagues is to look at how the sport appeals to Men 25-54 and the health of the TV deal.

MLB's interest has been waining in said demo for years, and the NBA's has been growing for years.

MLB's TV deal is reportedly worth a combined 650 million per year.

The NBA TV deal is reportedly worth around 930 million per year.
 
HawkeyeMike23 said:
Owners don't like to spend money. Cuban does. In a league with no salary cap, Cuban comes in, runs a team with $175-$200 M payroll and now other owners have to spend money to keep up. Plus, it's a good ol' boys club and they don't want to let in the young loud mouthed guy.

It would have been very interesting to see what would have happened if he won the bankruptcy auction for the Rangers last year. The rumor was Selig was prepared to go to some extreme steps to stop him from owning them.
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That is it in a nutshell....it is not really anymore complicated than that.
 
DuffMan said:
I don't disagree that the revenue model with regards to salaries needs to be reworked, however the NBA is hardly the only league in which that issue exists. The attendance argument can go right out the window. You can't really slam the NBA small market teams for poor attendance when you have teams in MLB that consistently draw turnstyle attendence numbers south of 10k per game.

The best way to judge the health of the respective leagues is to look at how the sport appeals to Men 25-54 and the health of the TV deal.

MLB's interest has been waining in said demo for years, and the NBA's has been growing for years.

MLB's TV deal is reportedly worth a combined 650 million per year.

The NBA TV deal is reportedly worth around 930 million per year.
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That's not true at all. MLB had record attendance for four straight years up to '08 and has seen less of a decline during the recession than any of the other leagues. I think the best way to judge the health of a league is look at its revenue. And right now the MLB is number two, behind only the NFL and well ahead of the NBA.
 
HawkeyeMike23 said:
That's not true at all. MLB had record attendance for four straight years up to '08 and has seen less of a decline during the recession than any of the other leagues. I think the best way to judge the health of a league is look at its revenue. And right now the MLB is number two, behind only the NFL and well ahead of the NBA.
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MLB is very good about generating paid attendance numbers. I'm talking about fans through the turnstyles. I don't need to see attendance figures to see what 20k+ thousand empty seats look like in Pittsburg, Cleveland (despite a winning team), Tampa Bay, etc.

Let's go Pirates! Dude, I think I heard that guy in the upper deck fart.

empty-pnc-park.jpg


I've never seen anything like this in a major sport other than baseball.
 
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HawkeyeMike23 said:
David Stern is going to lead the NBA into its second lockout in less than 15 years. The NBA lost $300M last year, over half of the NBA franchises lost money last season. Attendence is down in almost every small market city in the NBA, and all this while the NBA is offering a better on the court product than it has in 20 years.
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David Stern by far is the most proactive of all the pro sports commissioners. Your not including his complete body of work since he took over for O'Brien in '83. Duff is correct while MLB has lost a generation of fans other than maybe the NFL no pro sports league has more appeal to the under 30 demo than the NBA.
 
Churlish79 said:
I'd like to hear your reasoning here..
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Look at tv numbers. Look at all the talk on this board about the NBA playoffs. Baseball has the whole summer to it's self and is still behind in the headlines with NFL preseason talk. Not to mention baseball has it's post season right in the middle of NFL/CFB season. Unless your team is in contention, most people are tuning out. Also, don't even try to compare the stars of the NBA to MLB. The NBA actually has more star power than the NFL right now.

Also, was that previous poster serious about Steinbrenner being classy? I don't ever remember Cuban ripping a current player or coach the way GS did.
 
trj said:
David Stern by far is the most proactive of all the pro sports commissioners. Your not including his complete body of work since he took over for O'Brien in '83. Duff is correct while MLB has lost a generation of fans other than maybe the NFL no pro sports league has more appeal to the under 30 demo than the NBA.
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The bottom line is the NBA is not in a very healthy place financially. That above anything is the commissioner's job.
 
Selig wants owners to run their teams like he does/did (I don't know if he still owns the Brewers or not). Selig invested little if any money into his team and typically banked the money that other teams had to give him when they went over the cap. He never invested in high salaries, preferring to keep the money for himself.

If he were to let Cuban buy a team, owners like Selig would be pressured to invest in their teams rather than bank the money and they don't want to do that.

Keeping him out of baseball is not in baseball's interest...only the other owner's interests.
 
FML said:
Look at tv numbers. Look at all the talk on this board about the NBA playoffs. Baseball has the whole summer to it's self and is still behind in the headlines with NFL preseason talk. Not to mention baseball has it's post season right in the middle of NFL/CFB season. Unless your team is in contention, most people are tuning out. Also, don't even try to compare the stars of the NBA to MLB. The NBA actually has more star power than the NFL right now.

Also, was that previous poster serious about Steinbrenner being classy? I don't ever remember Cuban ripping a current player or coach the way GS did.
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Look at overall revenue. It's not even close. MLB is way ahead of the NBA.
 
Of course MLB is ahead in revenue, thats why there will be NBA lockout so they can fix those issues. More revenue does not equal more relevant though. Nice try.
 
I'm a huge Dodger Fan and I want nothing more than for Frank not to make payroll at the end of the month and force MLB to take them over. I hope the MLB will then take a look at letting him in. I want nothing more than Mark Cuban to be the new owner of the Dodgers. He is a great owner and the players would love him.
 
FML said:
Of course MLB is ahead in revenue, thats why there will be NBA lockout so they can fix those issues. More revenue does not equal more relevant though. Nice try.
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More revenue does not equal more relevant.. Isn't that just a matter of opinion?

I'd venture to guess the majority of people would have the opposite opinion..
 
HawkeyeMike23 said:
MLB
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Really? Two of MLB's largest and most historic franchises have difficulty meeting payroll on a regular basis. 1/3 of MLB teams exceed MLB's own standards for debt loads. I can think of 6 teams off the top of my head that routinely draw less than 10k live bodies to see games.

Baseball is just in terrible shape. I'm a fan and I'm willing to bet I can't name half the all-star team or pick them out of a police lineup.
 
It's an opinion, but also the truth in this case. While the NBA is almost as popular as it was in the "Jordan" days, it's losing money due to it's over expansion, outrageous player contracts and the fact that is will continue to waste money trying to keep the WNBA alive. I'm really not even a big NBA fan ,but I can't deny it's mainsteam popularity right now. Besides the fact that baseball has a better system in place for revenue, I would really like to hear some reasons on how it is more popular right now than the NBA.
 
Food for thought regarding the popularity of the major sports leagues in the US...

There are 3 sports currently in season, the NHL, the NBA, and MLB (techincally the NBA just finsihed but for all intents and purposes they are still in season).

If you google NHL you get 219 million results, google MLB you get 239 million results, goolge NBA and you get 575 million results.

What does that say?
 
DuffMan said:
Food for thought regarding the popularity of the major sports leagues in the US...

There are 3 sports currently in season, the NHL, the NBA, and MLB (techincally the NBA just finsihed but for all intents and purposes they are still in season).

If you google NHL you get 219 million results, google MLB you get 239 million results, goolge NBA and you get 575 million results.

What does that say?
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I only get 151 Million results for NBA..

If you google "National Basketball Association" (which is smart enough cross check NBA as well), you get 20.4 Million results.

If you google "Major League Baseball" (which is smart enough to cross check MLB as well), you get 44.9 Million results.

What does it say? That anything largely can be manipulated to say what you want it to say.
 
Churlish79 said:
I only get 151 Million results for NBA..

If you google "National Basketball Association" (which is smart enough cross check NBA as well), you get 20.4 Million results.

If you google "Major League Baseball" (which is smart enough to cross check MLB as well), you get 44.9 Million results.

What does it say? That anything largely can be manipulated to say what you want it to say.
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I got the same results that Duff did...
 
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