Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
No, he specifically said it would be "disgusting" if they used the money excuse. I'm simply saying that as a corporation, that's the right thing to do.
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Of course it's the right thing to do for a corporation, but the baseball ownership structure and corporate structures are generally two separate worlds. The goal of most baseball ownership teams are A) Maximize the value of your franchise and B) Brand Association, and C) Bragging rights amongst their rich friends. This is why the Giants, Red Sox, Yankees, Cardinals, etc are so successful. They don't take every dollar of profit they make and distribute it via a dividend or move it to another project with a higher immediate return on investment. They invest it right back into the baseball team.
If Rogers wants to have a baseball team, they have to let their management run it like a baseball team. They currently do not. I, like most long-term Jays have are completely sick of the way this team is run. If they had not done anything this trade deadline I was pretty much done as a 30+ year fan of the team. It took a lot for me to come back last year after they did nothing at the trade deadline. The "We don't have the funds" excuse is not working on fans anymore. This is a team playing in the 3rd largest metropolitan area in North America, with a fan base stretching an entire country (35 Million strong) that eats up merchandise year and year out. They own their own tv network so they get every cent of the MLB tv deals, and were basically given their baseball stadium for ten cents on the dollar. I don't expect to be making stupid spending decisions and be given cart blanche to spend what they want, but to suggest that they can't sign a player because of lack of funds is an absolute slap in the face to any intelligent person.
There are only two other teams under corporate ownership in MLB. The Seattle Mariners and the Atlanta Braves. Both garbage franchises. Look at the complete nose dive the Braves franchise has taken since Ted Turner sold them back in 2007. I think Seattle is ran a little more akin to a normal franchise though because Nintendo functions like Labatt did for the Jays in the early 90's. Completely for marketing/branding, not concerned with how the team's bottom line will affect their financials.