Bud Selig gets a contract extension - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

habernac · 01-17-2008, 02:10 PM

http://tsn.ca/mlb/news_story/?ID=227532&hubname=

A bit of a headscratcher for me, but maybe not really. The owners voted for this, none of them were calling for any kinds of drug investigations when the home run derbies were filling their stadiums. The following excerpt is pretty much my feeling on the situation:

When the Mitchell Report on drug in baseball was released last month, Rep. Cliff Stearns called on Selig to resign.

"Certainly, a lack of leadership and oversight in MLB enabled these abuses to continue," the Florida Republican said then. "After 15 years of slow action, a new commissioner is needed to guide the league out of this era of drug abuse."

CaramonLS · 01-17-2008, 02:16 PM

He should resign. Easily the worst commisioner of the 4 major sports. There is no salary control, competitive balance is a pipedream and this whole drug mess... I'm honestly shocked that the owners wanted him back.

ricoFlame · 01-17-2008, 02:22 PM

he has quite the legacy...awful commish.

Bobblehead · 01-17-2008, 02:33 PM

The owners love him. Everything he does is in their best interests because he is one of them.

Personally, I believe the league only wants a commissioner to do the bare minimum to preserve the anti-trust exemption. The days when the owners are smart enough to appoint someone with enough power to kick ass, aka Judge Landis, and prove that they are interested in cleaning up the game are long past.

Cowboy89 · 01-17-2008, 04:16 PM

Attendance is up, TV contracts are up, interest in the game is up. Unless you're the Kansas City Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates the lack competative balance thing is a non-issue(Afterall many owners are either making positive cash flow or seeing their team increase in value). Only if steroids were hurting the bottom line would Selig do anything drastic about it.

GirlySports · 01-17-2008, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Attendance is up, TV contracts are up, interest in the game is up. Unless you're the Kansas City Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates the lack competative balance thing is a non-issue(Afterall many owners are either making positive cash flow or seeing their team increase in value). Only if steroids were hurting the bottom line would Selig do anything drastic about it.

Agreed. And Kansas City isn't even that poor. Their payroll is an astounding $67 millon. That's more than 3 playoff teams (Arizona, Cleveland and Colorado). Baseball would be really really watered down with salary control. It only works with the big boys being big boys.

habernac · 01-17-2008, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Agreed. And Kansas City isn't even that poor. Their payroll is an astounding $67 millon. That's more than 3 playoff teams (Arizona, Cleveland and Colorado). Baseball would be really really watered down with salary control. It only works with the big boys being big boys.

no, a salary cap is exactly what the sport needs. No one cares about the Red Sox trying to outspend the Wakees and vice versa.

CaramonLS · 01-17-2008, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Attendance is up, TV contracts are up, interest in the game is up. Unless you're the Kansas City Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates the lack competative balance thing is a non-issue(Afterall many owners are either making positive cash flow or seeing their team increase in value). Only if steroids were hurting the bottom line would Selig do anything drastic about it.

Or the Jays, who haven't fielded a playoff team in a very long time.

Or any other team in the AL East besides the Yankees/BoSox.

Or the Expos, who were were screwed over.

Or Oakland, who just dumped their Ace Pitcher/Star OF this off season because they don't feel they can compete/keep them around in the next few years, it will cost them too much money.

Or the Marlins who have to run their franchise in such a destructive way, that they've killed off their fanbase by selling quality players for prospects and a lot of lean years.

octothorp · 01-17-2008, 08:39 PM

Interesting discussion on Prime Time Sports about this... apparently Selig has a massive discretionary fund given to him by the owners, which he uses to turn around and buy votes with. For example, the Jays approached him about the disparity between the Canadian and American dollars a few years back, and he gave them money out of the discretionary fund, with the implicit condition being that they voted for any motion he put forward. So he's got the old guard who will always vote for him, and then a bunch of owners that are indebted to him.

Azure · 01-17-2008, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

He should resign. Easily the worst commisioner of the 4 major sports. There is no salary control, competitive balance is a pipedream and this whole drug mess... I'm honestly shocked that the owners wanted him back.

Owners are making money though.

Thats probably the prime reason they wanted him back.

Resolute 14 · 01-18-2008, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Or the Marlins who have to run their franchise in such a destructive way, that they've killed off their fanbase by selling quality players for prospects and a lot of lean years.

The Marlins have never been forced to do anything. Huzinga and the carpetbagger have done what they've done of their own free will.

Though it's hard to feel bad for the fans there since they do have two world titles out of it.

You Need a Thneed · 01-18-2008, 11:15 AM

Any penalty that a player gets for steriods during the "looking the other way" era, an equal penalty should be given to Bud Selig. If Steriods keeps Mark McGuire out of the Hall of fame, then Selig should also become ineligable for the HOF, etc.

CaramonLS · 01-18-2008, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

The Marlins have never been forced to do anything. Huzinga and the carpetbagger have done what they've done of their own free will.

Though it's hard to feel bad for the fans there since they do have two world titles out of it.

Check out these attendance numbers.

They might be making some coin via revenue sharing, but what they make isn't condusive to keeping a winner in tact - they simply don't get the gate revenues. They've been no higher than 14th/16th in the league as far as attendance goes in the last 9 years, and even very poor numbers overall since the beginning of that franchise.

Gugstanley · 01-18-2008, 01:33 PM

I am not very impressed with Selig. Baseball needs a salary cap, they need to take care of the fans.

For whatever crazy reason they have made it so not everyone can get MLB extra innings. On top of that baseball has strange blackout rules. I live in Utah but have to watch games from either the Rockies or the Dbacks. Well I am a Jays fan so that sucks and means I just don't watch baseball very often.

Yankees and Redsox should just form their own league and play each other 162 times.

Resolute 14 · 01-18-2008, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Check out these attendance numbers.

They might be making some coin via revenue sharing, but what they make isn't condusive to keeping a winner in tact - they simply don't get the gate revenues. They've been no higher than 14th/16th in the league as far as attendance goes in the last 9 years, and even very poor numbers overall since the beginning of that franchise.

So, they drew three million in their first year, then attendance dropped as the shine of a new team goes away, and is replaced with "losing team". Have a spike the year they won the World series in 1997, which is immediately followed up by a massive gutting of the team.

Everything from 93-97 is normal expansion team happenings. Everything after was sabotage by the owners.