http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m1d18-Loria-not-McGwire-embarrasses-Major-League-Baseball#
Loria not McGwire Embarrasses Major League Baseball
By Evan Weiner
January 18, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- The New Year is less than three weeks old but Major League Baseball has already endured one very embarrassing moment and it has nothing to do with Mark McGwire steroids usage admission or that a former Kansas City Royals errand boy and flunky named Rush Limbaugh again opened his mouth disgracefully after the earthquake in Haiti. Whether Limbaugh likes it or not, Major League Baseball is donating $1 million to relief efforts in Haiti.
The embarrassing moment came last week when the Major League Baseball Players Association, Major League Baseball and the Florida Marlins organization reached an understanding that the Marlins franchise will actually spend some of the revenue sharing revenues earmarked for them and other struggling franchises to pay players. Florida has been receiving stipends along with other teams but apparently has not been using the money to spend on talent.
The revenue sharing issue has been around for years and the 2002 Collective Bargaining Agreement was hatched to spread around baseball’s wealth from say George Steinbrenner’s baseball revenue generated pockets to lesser lights like the Montreal Expos franchise, Florida, Limbaugh’s old employer, the Royals, Pittsburgh and others. But there has always been a question as to whether the owners of the lesser lights were going to spend Steinbrenner’s money or pocket it or pay down the operating debt.
The players could have filed a grievance against the owners and try to prove that the lesser revenue generating teams were not spending on players salaries.
In a news release released by MLB, the MLBPA and Florida, the three parties said: “The Basic Agreement requires that each Club use its revenue sharing receipts in an effort to improve its performance on the field. This requirement is of obvious importance to all players, Clubs and fans of the game. In recent years, the Union has had concerns that certain Clubs have not lived up to this requirement, and has consulted regularly with the Commissioner’s Office about those concerns. The Florida Marlins are one of a number of Clubs that have been discussed.
“After extensive discussions, the three parties are pleased to announce that they have reached an agreement regarding the Florida Marlins’ continued compliance with Article XXIV(B)(5)(a) of the Basic Agreement.
“MLBPA Executive Director Michael Weiner said: In response to our concerns that revenue sharing proceeds have not been used as required, the Marlins have assured the Union and the Commissioner’s Office that they plan to use such proceeds to increase player payroll annually as they move toward the opening of their new ballpark. Today’s agreement, which covers the period 2010 through 2012, calls for ongoing communication among the Marlins, the Commissioner’s Office and the Union as the Marlins proceed with that plan. It also permits, after consultation among all parties, adjustments in the Marlins’ plan to respond to unforeseen developments, and calls for arbitral intervention if disagreements arise. We greatly appreciate the willingness of the Commissioner’s Office and the Marlins to engage with us and ensure that all terms of the Basic Agreement are met.”
“Marlins’ President David Samson said:
“The Marlins have consistently made every effort to put the best product on the field and our record supports the fact that we have been successful in that regard. Throughout the discussions, the Marlins maintained that there had been no violation of the Basic Agreement at any time. While we know that the Marlins will always comply with the Basic Agreement, we were happy to work cooperatively with the Union and the Commissioner’s Office on this matter.
“MLB Executive Vice President, Labor Relations Rob Manfred added:
“The Basic Agreement contains confidentiality provisions that preclude the parties from publicly discussing the specifics of the Marlins’ finances. There will, therefore, be no comment by any of these parties on any further specifics of this agreement. All three parties agree that the Basic Agreement provision on the proper use of revenue sharing dollars is an important part of our agreement. Today’s announcement is the product of a positive dialogue between the MLBPA, the Commissioner’s Office and the Club.”
Florida will be moving into a mostly taxpayers funded new stadium in 2012 at the site of Miami’s old Orange Bowl. Since Miami city officials are partnering with the Marlins franchise perhaps they should allow taxpayers to see Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria’s books as taxpayers are paying the freight on a stadium that theoretically will make Loria more money on his investment.
The price tag on the new stadium is estimated to be $645 million with some of that picked up by unsuspecting snowbirds through hotel and motel taxes. Miami-Dade County officials approved $563 million worth of bonds, with $378 million coming from Dade County’s sports tax, another $130 million from tourist taxes (no one knows whether there will be enough tourists to fund that fund) and $55 million from a general obligation bond. Loria and the Marlins owners are putting up $120 million and will pay back a $35 million loan from Dade County.
Loria will get all of the revenue generated in the city-owned stadium. But Miami has come up with a big plum. Loria will rename the team the Miami Marlins. That certainly is a great reason to fund a stadium. One time Charlotte, North Carolina Mayor Pat McCrory once suggested that Charlotte needed a new team and a new arena after George Shinn took his National Basketball Association team to New Orleans because of arena issues in 2002 because of the many times Charlotte would be mentioned on ESPN SportsCenter in game highlights and how much free advertising the city would get from ESPN.
The fact that MLB and the MLBPA had to go public with dirty laundry and that Loria wasn’t spending money is quite embarrassing and that Loria agreed to spend more money on players has validated George Steinbrenner’s big fears that his Yankees money would be pocketed by other owners instead of paying for players.
McGwire did not embarrass baseball in anyway with his admission of steroids usage. Again the guardians of baseball’s gate, baseball sportswriters, are upset this time with the quality of McGwire’s announcement and his subsequent interview with Bob Costas. Too bad for the baseball scribes. In a public appearance in St. Louis on Sunday, McGwire was cheered by Cardinals fans which no doubt baffled the guardians.
People who attend or follow baseball games want to be entertained. They don’t care about steroids or off field behavior which is something the guardians don’t understand. There are fewer guardians these days as the newspaper industry retrenches but baseball writers still think they matter. After all they still judge who belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame or who is not worthy of the Cooperstown, NY shrine even though it is a blatant conflict of interest to vote for any baseball awards or the Hall of Fame. True journalists should not vote on subjects they cover, particularly when their vote can conceivably put more money in an award winner or Hall of Fame inductee’s pocket. It is an ethical issue that no one really wants to take up although some newspapers did bar writers from voting.
The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) is one of the last vestiges of a bygone era, the writers are “real baseball men” or at least in the world of one of the newest Hall of Famers Whitey Herzog who preferred to talk to the “real baseball men” instead of radio or TV reporters. Perhaps it is fitting that Herzog and New York Daily News writer Bill Madden, one of the BBWAA dinosaurs (and strike breakers and why the Major League Baseball Players Association members still talk to Bill Madden is curious considering how the MLBPA dealt with players who were in training camps during the 1994-95 strike) will be honored as inductees later this summer.
The BBWAA is sort of like McSorley’s Old Ale House in Manhattan. McSorley’s was one of the last bars in Manhattan to allow women inside the premises in 1970 after being sued and losing. The BBWAA is an old boys club in a 21st century environment which no longer works. But baseball writers and newspapers have given the sport free advertising and publicity for well over a century and even though baseball and sports gets a lot of money from TV, newspapers and baseball writers still retain a special role in the industry.
Loria has promised to put more money into his payroll although that could change depending on how the stadium financing goes. Next up? Maybe Pittsburgh, another franchise that has a special relationship with taxpayers.
evanjweiner@yahoo.co
Showing posts with label Rush Limbaugh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rush Limbaugh. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2010
Friday, October 2, 2009
What Would Happen to the Olympics Without US Dollars?
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7549
What Would Happen to the Olympics Without US Dollars?
By Evan Weiner
October 2, 2009
10:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- I wonder how many of the International Olympic Committee delegates have ever watched the 1968 movie, The Producers, especially the scene where Max Bialystock is conning Leo Bloom into some creative accounting (the term creative accounting came out of Mel Brooks' wonderful screenplay). Bialystock would find backers to come up with money and then the pair would search for a bad script and produce a Broadway play which is destined to be a flop. Max and Leo would pocket the investors’ money and then flee to Rio. Bialystock croons "Max and Leo in Rio, oh me oh, oh my oh."
Max and Leo would live the good life in Rio. Rio by the sea-o.
Max Bialystock probably had more in common with the International Olympic Committee than his creator Mel Brooks ever could imagine. Like the IOC, Max was deceitful, in the world of bribery, Max was a briber while the IOC delegates of the past had no problem taking bribes and both Max and the IOC, particularly Avery Brundage had dealings with the Third Reich. Max also didn't care about stealing money from his backers, little old ladies, and the IOC doesn't care that its demands left Greece in financial ruins after the 2004 Summer Games and caused financial hardships in Montreal and Quebec and probably will produce disastrous results in Vancouver, British Columbia in 2010, London, England in 2012 and Sochi, Russia in 2014.
The IOC delegates have done President Barack Obama and the United States along with King Carlos of Spain and the new Japanese government a favor by awarding what is sure to be a money losing venture, the 2016 Summer Olympics to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The United States President went to Copenhagen, Denmark where the vote was held along with the leaders of Brazil, Japan and Spain to lobby what is still one of the most corrupt organizations that is in business in the world, the International Olympic Committee. The president has a lot bigger fish on the table like reforming the Health Care system in the U. S., dealing with North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, Russia, the broken economy and high employment and did waste his time on appearing before the delegates.
But the 2005 vote for the 2012 Olympics started a new traditional. Bidding countries sent their leader to genuflect before the IOC. British Prime Minister Tony Blair was there, United States President George W. Bush was not but even if the sitting US President was there it was highly unlikely New York would have won the bid. New York lacked an Olympic Stadium and that killed the bid. Tony Blair’s appearance helped London and having Vladimir Putin lobbying the IOC to award the 2014 to Sochi, Russia didn’t hurt Sochi’s cause.
Spain's King Juan Carlos has about a 20 percent unemployment rate and Rio has a major crime problem and the Japanese economy died in the 1990s and remains a problem. The IOC blissfully ignores the day-to-day realities and goes about making demands such as the host city better have a slush fund to cover operating losses. That is the IOC.
Obama is from Chicago and a President, Prime Minister or a King also is required to sell his country. The IOC, a group that likes American television money and American security to protect their Games, listened and then dumped Chicago in the first round of the playoff voting. Of course the noise crowd led by the never done anything in my life but bark behind a microphone crowd like Rush Limbaugh pronounced Obama a failure which should make the oxycontin dependant carnival barker happy because he wants Obama to fail. On cable TV news, the xenophobic, jingoistic CNN presenter Lou Dobbs had a rather embarrassing discussion with political consultants, columnists, and a newspaper/magazine owner Mort Zuckerman with the gist being whether Obama wasted much needed political capital by going to Copenhagen.
"Mr. Independent" Dobbs was in a tough spot in that he had no knowledge of how the International Olympic Committee operates because had the xenophobic, jingoistic Dobbs understood the process, he would have been extremely happy knowing that the IOC delegates are not pleased with the United States tougher rules since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks for entering the country.
Of course the radio talk show noise and the food fighting cable TV news presenters will not address a side issue that will be coming up for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics that does have an impact on American consumers. It appears the Walt Disney Company will make a big push to buy the American TV rights for the two week sports extravaganza for the ESPN cable TV network. There is a real question of who will actually pay for those rights? The TV network or will it be Americans who are totally unaware that their money will go into Rio?
For the pencil-neck geeks, rodeo cowboys and windbags with a microphone, here is the answer. The American public who subscribe to basic expanded cable TV will reach into their pockets, unknowingly, and pay for the Rio Games if Disney wins the bid and gives the IOC billions for the rights. You see, Disney's subsidiary ESPN has lived in a world of Cable TV socialism since 1984 when the Congress allowed various cable TV networks like ESPN, CNN and The Weather Channel to be bundled by cable operators and collect fees as one instead of being bought by consumers on an a la carte basis. The President who signed the legislation into law was Ronald Reagan; the same Reagan who blasted socialized health care in 1961.
Americans like their socialized Cable TV even though they probably are not aware that ESPN is a product of government socialism and a flagrant violation of American antitrust. But thanks to Congress and Reagan, they is no problem.
Will Disney's CEO and President Bob Iger grow a backbone or be a spineless jelly fish when it comes to bidding on the Olympics? The International Olympic Committee was supposed to wrap up the American TV deal for 2014 in Sochi and now 2016 in Rio last year but the broken economy has stalled American TV negotiations. The American TV contract is one of the major sources of revenue for the Olympics. Iger should stiff IOC President Jacques Rogge and his gang and make Rogge find other countries pay for the boondoggle.
If Real Madrid can get more than $105 million euros annually for their football rights globally, then Rogge should be able to get the UK, other Europeans, the Chinese and other Asians to fund his little athletic tournament. Iger should just say no as should NBC CEO and President Jeff Zucker. By 2016, NBC, whoever owns the NBCUniversal entity, will also be pulling money out of cable consumers. Ruppert Murdoch and his global News Corp will not bid on the 2014 and 2016 Games.
If the American TV networks pull their billions from the IOC coffers, what will happen? It would certainly knock the IOC delegates off of their pedestal and it would put the whole Olympic spectacular in a world of major financial hurt. But then again the IOC knows something about financial hurt. Montreal, Sydney, Australia, Athens, Greece, Turin, Italy and the next three sites, Vancouver, B. C., London and Sochi, Russia have and will be saddled with huge financial liabilities because of their dealings with the IOC.
If American TV turned away from the Games, the IOC would crumple. Congress has never really tackled the cable TV problem and give consumers a choice. Why should 90-95 million American cable TV subscribers pick up the bills for Sochi or Rio?
The IOC loves seeing portraits of dead presidents on little green pieces of paper from the US come their way. But they don’t like America.
Here is another Olympics problem.
Does Brazil have the security force that can protect the Games from terrorism? The answer is, of course, not. Guess what military force will be asked to help out? Obama might still be the American President or someone else could be in the Oval Office. No matter, the American show of force will be there. The IOC doesn't particularly like America but the IOC cannot love without US TV dollars and America's protection. Perhaps it is time that Iger and Zucker to not spend other people's money on Rio. Perhaps it is time America's military take a rest and let someone else protect Rio. What would happen to the IOC and the 2016 Rio Olympics? It is a thought that probably frightens IOC head Jacques Rogge and his merry band of IOC delegates.
eweiner@mcn.tv
What Would Happen to the Olympics Without US Dollars?
By Evan Weiner
October 2, 2009
10:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- I wonder how many of the International Olympic Committee delegates have ever watched the 1968 movie, The Producers, especially the scene where Max Bialystock is conning Leo Bloom into some creative accounting (the term creative accounting came out of Mel Brooks' wonderful screenplay). Bialystock would find backers to come up with money and then the pair would search for a bad script and produce a Broadway play which is destined to be a flop. Max and Leo would pocket the investors’ money and then flee to Rio. Bialystock croons "Max and Leo in Rio, oh me oh, oh my oh."
Max and Leo would live the good life in Rio. Rio by the sea-o.
Max Bialystock probably had more in common with the International Olympic Committee than his creator Mel Brooks ever could imagine. Like the IOC, Max was deceitful, in the world of bribery, Max was a briber while the IOC delegates of the past had no problem taking bribes and both Max and the IOC, particularly Avery Brundage had dealings with the Third Reich. Max also didn't care about stealing money from his backers, little old ladies, and the IOC doesn't care that its demands left Greece in financial ruins after the 2004 Summer Games and caused financial hardships in Montreal and Quebec and probably will produce disastrous results in Vancouver, British Columbia in 2010, London, England in 2012 and Sochi, Russia in 2014.
The IOC delegates have done President Barack Obama and the United States along with King Carlos of Spain and the new Japanese government a favor by awarding what is sure to be a money losing venture, the 2016 Summer Olympics to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The United States President went to Copenhagen, Denmark where the vote was held along with the leaders of Brazil, Japan and Spain to lobby what is still one of the most corrupt organizations that is in business in the world, the International Olympic Committee. The president has a lot bigger fish on the table like reforming the Health Care system in the U. S., dealing with North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, Russia, the broken economy and high employment and did waste his time on appearing before the delegates.
But the 2005 vote for the 2012 Olympics started a new traditional. Bidding countries sent their leader to genuflect before the IOC. British Prime Minister Tony Blair was there, United States President George W. Bush was not but even if the sitting US President was there it was highly unlikely New York would have won the bid. New York lacked an Olympic Stadium and that killed the bid. Tony Blair’s appearance helped London and having Vladimir Putin lobbying the IOC to award the 2014 to Sochi, Russia didn’t hurt Sochi’s cause.
Spain's King Juan Carlos has about a 20 percent unemployment rate and Rio has a major crime problem and the Japanese economy died in the 1990s and remains a problem. The IOC blissfully ignores the day-to-day realities and goes about making demands such as the host city better have a slush fund to cover operating losses. That is the IOC.
Obama is from Chicago and a President, Prime Minister or a King also is required to sell his country. The IOC, a group that likes American television money and American security to protect their Games, listened and then dumped Chicago in the first round of the playoff voting. Of course the noise crowd led by the never done anything in my life but bark behind a microphone crowd like Rush Limbaugh pronounced Obama a failure which should make the oxycontin dependant carnival barker happy because he wants Obama to fail. On cable TV news, the xenophobic, jingoistic CNN presenter Lou Dobbs had a rather embarrassing discussion with political consultants, columnists, and a newspaper/magazine owner Mort Zuckerman with the gist being whether Obama wasted much needed political capital by going to Copenhagen.
"Mr. Independent" Dobbs was in a tough spot in that he had no knowledge of how the International Olympic Committee operates because had the xenophobic, jingoistic Dobbs understood the process, he would have been extremely happy knowing that the IOC delegates are not pleased with the United States tougher rules since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks for entering the country.
Of course the radio talk show noise and the food fighting cable TV news presenters will not address a side issue that will be coming up for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics that does have an impact on American consumers. It appears the Walt Disney Company will make a big push to buy the American TV rights for the two week sports extravaganza for the ESPN cable TV network. There is a real question of who will actually pay for those rights? The TV network or will it be Americans who are totally unaware that their money will go into Rio?
For the pencil-neck geeks, rodeo cowboys and windbags with a microphone, here is the answer. The American public who subscribe to basic expanded cable TV will reach into their pockets, unknowingly, and pay for the Rio Games if Disney wins the bid and gives the IOC billions for the rights. You see, Disney's subsidiary ESPN has lived in a world of Cable TV socialism since 1984 when the Congress allowed various cable TV networks like ESPN, CNN and The Weather Channel to be bundled by cable operators and collect fees as one instead of being bought by consumers on an a la carte basis. The President who signed the legislation into law was Ronald Reagan; the same Reagan who blasted socialized health care in 1961.
Americans like their socialized Cable TV even though they probably are not aware that ESPN is a product of government socialism and a flagrant violation of American antitrust. But thanks to Congress and Reagan, they is no problem.
Will Disney's CEO and President Bob Iger grow a backbone or be a spineless jelly fish when it comes to bidding on the Olympics? The International Olympic Committee was supposed to wrap up the American TV deal for 2014 in Sochi and now 2016 in Rio last year but the broken economy has stalled American TV negotiations. The American TV contract is one of the major sources of revenue for the Olympics. Iger should stiff IOC President Jacques Rogge and his gang and make Rogge find other countries pay for the boondoggle.
If Real Madrid can get more than $105 million euros annually for their football rights globally, then Rogge should be able to get the UK, other Europeans, the Chinese and other Asians to fund his little athletic tournament. Iger should just say no as should NBC CEO and President Jeff Zucker. By 2016, NBC, whoever owns the NBCUniversal entity, will also be pulling money out of cable consumers. Ruppert Murdoch and his global News Corp will not bid on the 2014 and 2016 Games.
If the American TV networks pull their billions from the IOC coffers, what will happen? It would certainly knock the IOC delegates off of their pedestal and it would put the whole Olympic spectacular in a world of major financial hurt. But then again the IOC knows something about financial hurt. Montreal, Sydney, Australia, Athens, Greece, Turin, Italy and the next three sites, Vancouver, B. C., London and Sochi, Russia have and will be saddled with huge financial liabilities because of their dealings with the IOC.
If American TV turned away from the Games, the IOC would crumple. Congress has never really tackled the cable TV problem and give consumers a choice. Why should 90-95 million American cable TV subscribers pick up the bills for Sochi or Rio?
The IOC loves seeing portraits of dead presidents on little green pieces of paper from the US come their way. But they don’t like America.
Here is another Olympics problem.
Does Brazil have the security force that can protect the Games from terrorism? The answer is, of course, not. Guess what military force will be asked to help out? Obama might still be the American President or someone else could be in the Oval Office. No matter, the American show of force will be there. The IOC doesn't particularly like America but the IOC cannot love without US TV dollars and America's protection. Perhaps it is time that Iger and Zucker to not spend other people's money on Rio. Perhaps it is time America's military take a rest and let someone else protect Rio. What would happen to the IOC and the 2016 Rio Olympics? It is a thought that probably frightens IOC head Jacques Rogge and his merry band of IOC delegates.
eweiner@mcn.tv
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