Friday, December 04, 2015
Sports AND Economics!
We shall return to more of my Parade of Past Jobs (Paperboy - 1, 2, 3 and Blackjack Dealer, including Hippopotamus Eater) in a day or two, but right now it's time for my current job!
You may have heard about the Boston Red Sox (they're a baseball team...) signing the pitcher, David Price, to a contract. I have some thoughts on that. You can find them in today's Boston Herald.
I believe you'll find my piece includes a novel breakdown of the financial aspects of that deal.
As always, I appreciate any nice comments left at the website, while real honest-to-God letters sent to the editor earn you a spot in my Pantheon of Pals (trademark pending) which doesn't entitle you to anything special as of yet, but maybe someday I'll buy you a black & white frappe at the ballpark (that would be M Street Park, at a softball game, because Sox games at Fenway are too expensive and if you don't know what a frappe is... well, drop by M Street some night and you'll find out, especially if you're buying.)
OK, that's enough blather from me here. Please go read my professional blather there. Thanks!
Soon, with more better stuff.
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13 comments:
Arrgh, SO much money, but if we stopped watching the salaries would come down. I will say, that for some reason people get their panties in a bunch over high sports salaries, but I never hear them complain about a Tom Cruise getting 20 mil for a picture. What does that come down to, 10,000 a word of script he has to utter?
Could be, Joe. I haven't done the math on that one. All I know is capacity at Fenway is around 35,000. Therefore, every person occupying a seat whenever Price pitches pays a dollar to witness every four of his pitches. It's insane.
You're right, of course, Jim. I recall seeing something once upon a time to the effect that, until the 70s, the average ballplayer's annual salary was about 8 times the average worker's salary. Then, with the advent of free agency and the explosion of TV money, that has become something more like 100 times. Over the course of my whole life, my lifetime earnings will be something on the order of $2.5mil, and I count myself as pretty well paid. That might get you a half-decent utility infielder for one year these days. . .
I'm pretty sure it's all skewed by TV money. Like you, I can't afford to go see the Tigers at Comerica Park. Which, if I were one of the Lords of Baseball, would scare the hell out of me. If parents can't bring their kids to the ballpark, who's going to be buying tickets a generation from now? When the World Series games don't even start until after the kids are in bed, how are they gonna groom the next generation of fans? They're eating their seed corn. . .
But hey, on the happier short term, David Price is a helluva pitcher. And Dave Dombrowski seems to appreciate that more than most. Takes me back to the wistful days of the second half of the '14 season, when my Tigers had three Cy Young winners in their rotation (of course, they could only afford to hang onto one of 'em beyond the middle of this season. . .)
Craig - Had I the word count to do so, I definitely would have pointed out the same things you had to say about young fans. And I would have related my own old fart stories about watching World Series games during the day - even in the classroom, in 1967, because our teacher was the principal of the school and a Sox fan, so he wheeled a TV into our classroom for game one.
I liked you column.
I agree with you about salaries.
Now I need an explanation about why the major sports aren't subject to antitrust laws.
(not necessarily my uncle) Skip - If I knew that, I'd be a senator - and nobody wants that, so quit encouraging me to learn things.
Love reading your writing(s)....here or there....or everywhere!
Proud of you, my friend.
J.
Thank you, Jackie. You're one of the very nice ones of this earth.
You make a great point, and i wonder where all this salary inflation will stop.
It will only stop when the salaries outstrip revenues - that is, when fans decide it's too much for them to spend. For some of us, it already is.
Ahhhh yes, the famous David Price. Toronto fans really wanted him to stay here, but, as always, $$money$$ called his name and he jumped ship. He's just a commodity, not a person. $8,857 per pitch seems a little high to me, well, more than a little, but if the Red Sox baseball fans keep buying expensive game tickets, then the Price (haha) will stay up there.
Sorry, if I look too closely at the money athletes make, it will ruin my whole day.
Shammickite - They've already priced it too high for me.
Geezer - Yeah, I know. I checked my math three different times when I first did the calculation. I thought I couldn't possibly be right. Unfortunately, I was spot on.
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