Contraction in Major Sports

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

I think something truly in central jersey that could even draw Staten Islander's would work. Not that this thought really matters, but it's an interesting hypothetical.

The only location I could think that would be remotely feasable is in Holmdel where the Arts Center is but there isn't much mass transit there and the traffic on that part of the parkway is already horrific in the summer

[Logan]

Holmdel is 15 minutes from where I grew up. As most of you know (and I'm pretty sure we talked about this in one of the MLB threads related to financials), there are no unclaimed groups of fans anywhere close to that area. It's not an area where you've adopted a team because there's just no other option -- generations have been raised as fans of teams that are, at most, an hour and a half away and are on TV every night. This isn't the late 50s/early 60s when the Giants and Dodgers bolted and left dejected fans all over the place.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

The Mets were terrible for a decade and they turned out just fine. The metropolitan area is just so big you could have it in a place an hour+ less commute for a couple million people than going to either the Bronx or Queens. That alone will ensure decent attendance numbers, even if merchandising and TV numbers take a generation to catch up.

As mentioned before, the reason the Mets were able to succeed so well is because they took the disaffected Dodgers and Giants fans, who were very disappointed their teams left across the country and who would never back the Yankees.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

The Mets were terrible for a decade and they turned out just fine. The metropolitan area is just so big you could have it in a place an hour+ less commute for a couple million people than going to either the Bronx or Queens. That alone will ensure decent attendance numbers, even if merchandising and TV numbers take a generation to catch up.

The problem is that everyone in New York is a Mets or Yankee fan. How do you steal fans away from those teams? The Mets were able to survive because there were a lot of lifelong Brooklyn Dodger and New York Giant fans in the area that were now missing a team.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I look at my own city. You are either a Cubs or Sox fan here. Much of it is dictated by geographic location and how your parents raised you. People are fairly entrenched in who they root for. If another team moved to Chicago, I just don't see how they get anyone to show up to their park after the first year of novelty wears off.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Logan

Holmdel is 15 minutes from where I grew up. As most of you know (and I'm pretty sure we talked about this in one of the MLB threads related to financials), there are no unclaimed groups of fans anywhere close to that area. It's not an area where you've adopted a team because there's just no other option -- generations have been raised as fans of teams that are, at most, an hour and a half away and are on TV every night. This isn't the late 50s/early 60s when the Giants and Dodgers bolted and left dejected fans all over the place.

I grew up in Freehold and agree with you 100%. I was talking about Holmdel from a purely logistical point of view for location, space to build a stadium, etc...

The only way they would draw is people who don't want to make the trip up to NY to see a game.

[Qwikshot]

This is not my post, I'm taking it from a pretty reputable baseball forum I frequent...

Oh, for heaven's sake...

The Marlins and A's are having some trouble extorting new stadium financing from the communities in which they reside. So this columnist - likely at the behest of some scum-of-the-earth plutocrat plunderer in MLB's front offices - floats the "contraction" threat, even though that is specifically contrary to the current labor contract.

Make no mistake - this isn't about the quality of the game, or any of the other rubbish that will be expounded. This is about threatening the municipal authorities in Miami and Oakland, and the state administrations in Florida and California, plain and simple. It's extortion, no more or less.

You'll notice that the clubs mentioned aren't the ones that are having the most financial difficulty... they just happen to be the two clubs that are currently encountering difficulties with responsible public officials who don't want to waste public money on ballparks.

We're headed into a deep recession (if we're lucky), and municipal and state governments are finding it very difficult to find the funds for essential services - much less the funds to pour down the rathole of a baseball stadium. Real sacrifices are coming. It takes a special kind of chutzpah for MLB to try to extort funding for ballparks in this economy. No responsible mayor or governor can commit dollars to something so frivolous... while slashing funding for hospitals, children, schools, etc.

As we chatter about the "merits" of contraction, let's just keep one thing straight: MLB doesn't care at all about whether contraction will improve the quality of the game, or parity on the field, or anything else - except how much money they can squeeze out of a couple of strapped cities with the threat of abandonment. The people that run MLB really are shameless and despicable... so let's not pretend that they have some noble or altruistic motive for this latest effort to steal from the public. They should be horsewhipped.

I kinda agree with this guy.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

I think something truly in central jersey that could even draw Staten Islander's would work. Not that this thought really matters, but it's an interesting hypothetical.

Agreed. That's why I didn't even flesh it out, because it's all just pie-in-the-sky stuff. But that said, my hypothetical example is dot-com billionaire gets a wild hair to put a team in Central Jersey, 75 miles from NYC and Philly.

This is all about marketing and that's why it'd work. People are confusing loyalties with "sure, I'll go to a game." It can work and it would work, because anyone going through all of the trouble to do this -- down to the privately financed stadium -- would have to make it work.

So the goombas who say "it won't work" don't understand that this has nothing to do with fan loyalties or anything else. It's akin to saying "people won't go to Wendy's because they ALWAYS go to the McDonalds. Or that folks in the Northeast won't shop at Wal-Mart because they NEVER shop there.

People like options.

My example proposes that the team would play in a stadium that's even smaller capacity than PNC Park, to ensure sellouts almost all of the time. Like a 30,000-seat ballpark with great sightlines and ensuring it's a stone's throw away from great views of the Atlantic Ocean.

Take that, Pac Bell.

The other thing is, in my example playing in OOTP, the team needed to be in a town that had a NJ Transit rail line. Point Pleasant is on the New Jersey Coast Line, fits that mold and it's more than 75 miles away from Philadelphia, Queens and the Bronx, so the Phillies, Mets and Yankees couldn't do anything other than cry a lot, as it'd be the easiest stadium in the NYC to get to without driving or much hassle, ESPECIALLY for Jersey people.

Which would be the point.

After that, it'd be all about marketing. Well that and a joint venture TV deal with the Nets and Devils.

But mostly marketing and aggressively selling the team.

Since 1993, every expansion team that has come into the league in baseball has made the World Series.

There's just no example to say this wouldn't work other than no one has ever had the will to try it, because it hasn't become feasible except in the past 20 years or so, because the Central Jersey population has exploded so much.

The population of the area alone would give the team a bigger population (about 3.3 million) than more than half of the major leagues and that's ignoring the 13 million or so other fans surrounding the team who'd at least have a passing interest if 1) their team wasn't doing well and 2) they couldn't get tickets to see their team at home.

It'd have to be an AL team, because that way, you could piggyback all of those south Jersey Phillies fans who already hate the Yankees anyway.

At it's worst, it'd work better than teams in places like Miami, Phoenix and maybe even Colorado. The only thing this new team would kill is independent Atlantic League, but we could bring Steve Kalafer into the ownership group and he'd be just fine, fat and happy in his own luxury box on the ocean.

It would work. It won't happen, but it could work with the right vision.

But enough of that. Contraction isn't going to happen in any of the major sports. It just won't.

[RainMaker]

I think that's an overly optimistic viewpoint. Maybe not in the other major sports, but I think hockey is almost guaranteed to see contraction. Most of the teams are losing lots of money and I don't think they can continue to flush money down the toilet during these economic times. There are also a couple cities that have no business having a hockey team.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I grew up in Freehold and agree with you 100%. I was talking about Holmdel from a purely logistical point of view for location, space to build a stadium, etc...

The only way they would draw is people who don't want to make the trip up to NY to see a game.

Yep, and that's why minor league teams in Lakewood and Trenton are doing well attendance wise, but that isn't going to replace major league rooting interests.

[Fidatelo]

I don't think the NHL will contract, but some teams will likely move around over the next 5 years.

[Lathum]

DC, No offense but if you think they could put a 30,000 seat stadium in Point Pleasant you are out of your mind.

Have you ever even been to Point?

I used to live there. First off there isn't anywhere they COULD put the stadium, but lets for arguments sake say they decided to tear down the high school and put one there.

There are 2 ways into Point, 34/35 from Seaside or Wall depending on what way you are coming and 88 from Brick. ( I may have the highway numbers wrong, it's been a while). Both are 1 lane roads in each direction. In the summertime the traffic there is insane anyway. As a local I would stay as far away from there as possible and I certainly wouldn't brave the traffic, plus 30K other people trying to go to a ball game.

As for their being a train there, you are correct, but only a small portion of people who go to games take the train. You may get people from Long Branch, Belmar etc... to take the train but are people from Freehold, Marlboro, Jackson, Brick, Wall, etc... going to drive to a train station on the shore where they would have to brave traffic anyway? I think not.

Then you factor in all the other competition for entertainment dollars on the shore in the summer and it would never work.

[Young Drachma]

I'm not thinking of people from down there to come. I'm thinking of folks in Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties to come down to watch the games. They're the ones with the money and right now, they only go to minor league games because there's nothing else to do. The beach is cute and all, so is the Boardwalk...but this is something else to do besides go to Great Adventure and it might extend their trips, more than anything.

The stadium idea was just a random one. For the right price, you could get some seashore town to let you build a park near the waterfront. Not Point Pleasant, but somewhere along that way, because you've gotta be 75 miles away from those 3 other teams.

It's a small needle to thread, that's why I said it was a pie-in-the-sky.

I'm just saying someone with the tenacity to want to do it, would find a way to make it work...and find a town willing to play along with it. Having deep pockets seems to wish away opposition, especially in corrupt New Jersey.

[Young Drachma]

Dola --

Perth Amboy or Keansburg would be perfect places for it. But neither are 75 miles from all three teams. That's where the complication is.

[Lathum]

Even so, you arent going to get 30,000 people a night taking a train to go to a game from those counties.

I mean, if someone had enough money they could put a team on the moon, and use a space shuttle to ferry fans to and from the games. Just because someting is possible doesn't mean it would work.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

quibble - MLS will not be on life support soon. they also haven't really contracted in YEARS - they've relocated a couple teams, but there has been a net EXPANSION of the league. and the wage-structure of the league is by all accounts, very well under control

]

You could almost make the same argument for the WNBA as well. In the past 5 years they've folded three teams but added two in the same time for a net loss of just one. And expansion teams are planned/rumored/considered for some combination of Colorado, Toronto, Nashville, and Baltimore.

They pay diddly squat to the players so there's not much worry from that standpoint (revenue notwithstanding) and they're reducing the roster limit by two for the coming season so that helps make up for the current economy and/or improves the salary for existing players. And their TV deal extends to 2015, as the first women's professional league to be paid a rights fee.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Even so, you arent going to get 30,000 people a night taking a train to go to a game from those counties.

I mean, if someone had enough money they could put a team on the moon, and use a space shuttle to ferry fans to and from the games. Just because someting is possible doesn't mean it would work.

Good comparison.

I don't know what I was thinking.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Good comparison.

I don't know what I was thinking.

well as long as you can admit that

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Good comparison.

I don't know what I was thinking.

Ok, that brought a smile to an otherwise crappy day

SI

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Ok, that brought a smile to an otherwise crappy day

SI

Glad you picked it up. Hang in there. If you wanna go yell about the A-11 offense, I'll take the other side.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Glad you picked it up. Hang in there. If you wanna go yell about the A-11 offense, I'll take the other side.

Oh, the day could be much worse. It feels like a Monday due to all the snow and problems yesterday so twice as much work squeezed into one day. At least I'm just complaining about the day I'm having at work while eating lunch. I feel a lot more for all the folks out there who would love to have my problems.

SI

[muns]

Originally Posted by lynchjm24

Eh. Baltimore was at 5.15 last year with a horrific staff. I don't see how they don't take a quarter of a run off that...

Pittsburgh was at 5.10. Figure regression gets them back under 5.

Baltimore has a ton of pitching talent coming. They will be better soon.

I don't see why that means they need to contract. There are always going to be teams who finish last in ERA. There will just be more good lineups to go against if they contract.

Heck ya Pittsburgh is gonna get under 5 this year and the next however many years. We signed the 2 Indian Reality TV stars to deals and they are the next big things coming up in baseball, mark my words there

The Pirates are the biggest losers in all of sports I swear!

[Icy]

Being from Spain (40Million population) were we have professional leagues for different sports, with a ladder system and dozens of pro teams in them (and hundreds of semi-pro and amateur), i can't underestand how it could be thought that 30 teams is too much in any major sport in a country like USA (300+ Million population). Specially when sports are really important there and totally integrated in your culture and education, unlike here, that we don't have high school or college sports, so our % of habitants practicing sports is way way lower than in USA (that means less available potential pro athletes).

I still find weird that the NFL doesn't have a minor league with all the thousands of college players available that are not drafted every year and just stop to play the sport as they didn't reach the pros. At least the NBA has the development league and the MLB and NHL have minor leagues.

Of course i must ask pardon for my ignorance, as it's easy to talk about things you don't know enough and there must be valid reasons, just that i can't find them with my "Euro biased" brain.

[Young Drachma]

Americans love capitalism Icy, but only when it benefits rich people who set up the industries. After that, they love socialism and hate competition. It's our dirty little secret to success.

[Balldog]

I've always been curious what the MLB would be like today with 26 teams.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Icy

Being from Spain (40Million population) were we have professional leagues for different sports, with a ladder system and dozens of pro teams in them (and hundreds of semi-pro and amateur), i can't underestand how it could be thought that 30 teams is too much in any major sport in a country like USA (300+ Million population). Specially when sports are really important there and totally integrated in your culture and education, unlike here, that we don't have high school or college sports, so our % of habitants practicing sports is way way lower than in USA (that means less available potential pro athletes).

For some reason people can't accept teams in bigger population areas being better over the long term. We have small markets (our Mallorca's and Real Betis's) making it to the WS all the time in baseball, yet people still complain vociferously about even slight relative dominance of big-market teams (the Real Madrids and Barca's). In European soccer terms, Kansas City and Minnesota fans would be ecstatic to be competing in the top league with the NY/LA's and Boston's, but instead they spend their time complaining they aren't as competitive as teams that make 4x the revenue.

Originally Posted by RainMaker

The problem is that everyone in New York is a Mets or Yankee fan. How do you steal fans away from those teams? The Mets were able to survive because there were a lot of lifelong Brooklyn Dodger and New York Giant fans in the area that were now missing a team.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I look at my own city. You are either a Cubs or Sox fan here. Much of it is dictated by geographic location and how your parents raised you. People are fairly entrenched in who they root for. If another team moved to Chicago, I just don't see how they get anyone to show up to their park after the first year of novelty wears off.

The numbers don't bear this out. New York Mets Attendance Records by Baseball Almanac The Mets started getting some momentum, especially from 196, but quickly started tapering off and were down <10,000 fans a game by 1979. Then they started winning again and the fans came back in force. The cycle repeated itself the last 15 years - in 1995 NYM was at about 67% of MLB average attendance and now they're 1.5x the average and #2 in MLB. Even the Yankees were below average in attendance from 1990-1995, now they're back to #1. Fans are fickle - win and they'll show up, lose and they won't. But considering 8.5 million fans went to games in NY last year (19 teams averaged less than 1/3 that figure, 8 averaged less than 1/6th), the two teams were probably #1/3 in revenue and there's still large portions of the fans that find it very inconvenient to get to a game in Queens or the Bronx and you could stick a team almost anywhere in an hour radius of NYC and expect it to draw more than Florida or Tampa. Make it a competitive, exciting team like Tampa last year and you would have seen 2.5m+, with a plurality of youngsters choosing the Rays as their team, which pays off a generation later.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Fans are fickle - win and they'll show up, lose and they won't. But considering 8.5 million fans went to games in NY last year (19 teams averaged less than 1/3 that figure, 8 averaged less than 1/6th), the two teams were probably #1/3 in revenue and there's still large portions of the fans that find it very inconvenient to get to a game in Queens or the Bronx and you could stick a team almost anywhere in an hour radius of NYC and expect it to draw more than Florida or Tampa. Make it a competitive, exciting team like Tampa last year and you would have seen 2.5m+, with a plurality of youngsters choosing the Rays as their team, which pays off a generation later.

I'm glad you broke it down for them. Because I got tired of trying. The only reason this hasn't happened already is pretty much because of what someone else has already said. That it'd be hard to put a stadium somewhere down there.

But until the early 1990s, there were NO minor league teams in New Jersey at all. Independent or affiliated. Then the New Jersey Cardinals showed up in the Skylands, the Trenton Thunder came on board and then the Atlantic League showed up and started building ballparks all over the state and now the Lakewood Blue Claws manage to lead the South Atlantic League in attendance 8 years in a row....

...and this is from a place that people said could never succeed at minor league baseball because of those three major league teams.

The sheer population make it an virtual certainty to succeed over and above the Marlins, Devil Rays or other infeasible teams with terrible ballparks and geographic caps of populations well below that of the area we're talking about.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Balldog

I've always been curious what the MLB would be like today with 26 teams.

Not anymore interesting than it is now, with slightly better divisional alignments.

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by Balldog

I've always been curious what the MLB would be like today with 26 teams.

I just want the AL and NL to have same number of teams, 24 or 28 would be a better number.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

I'm glad you broke it down for them. Because I got tired of trying.

Sorry, you're still talking about extreme hypotheticals, and it doesn't convince me.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

I just want the AL and NL to have same number of teams, 24 or 28 would be a better number.

32 is the best number. Contraction is not necessary.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

32 is the best number. Contraction is not necessary.

What he said

SI

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

32 is the best number. Contraction is not necessary.

I guess that could work too. Give Dark Cloud his Jersey team and put one in Portland?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

I guess that could work too. Give Dark Cloud his Jersey team and put one in Portland?

Or the Inland Empire of California. San Bernardino/Riverside.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Icy

I still find weird that the NFL doesn't have a minor league with all the thousands of college players available that are not drafted every year and just stop to play the sport as they didn't reach the pros. At least the NBA has the development league and the MLB and NHL have minor leagues.

I think part of that might be historical/traditional in nature, at least in modern history.

There's a rich tradition of minor league baseball in the U.S., older Atlantans for example still recall fondly a class AA team that was here long before the Braves & some of us who don't actually remember them still find them of interest. I think there's a better than average tradition behind some of the minor league hockey franchises as well (Fort Wayne comes to mind, since I can recall hearing Komet hockey on late night radio even when Atlanta didn't have an NHL team ... kind of like now come to think of it)

The NFL & AFL seemed to have killed off lower quality pro football leagues and depending on how you feel about the ABA, I'm not even sure there was ever a significant minor pro basketball league. Semi-pro football can't draw flies for attendance, minor basketball suffers largely from the same thing now. Minor league sports lean heavily on attendance for their revenue & since there's little to be had, there's little desire for people to lose money trying to launch teams/leagues.

Maybe you're asking more about why they couldn't attract a following than why they don't exist. The money largely answers the latter I think, the answer to the former is probably more complicated and gets into everything from social psychology to I don't know what all else.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I think part of that might be historical/traditional in nature, at least in modern history.

There's a rich tradition of minor league baseball in the U.S., older Atlantans for example still recall fondly a class AA team that was here long before the Braves & some of us who don't actually remember them still find them of interest. I think there's a better than average tradition behind some of the minor league hockey franchises as well (Fort Wayne comes to mind, since I can recall hearing Komet hockey on late night radio even when Atlanta didn't have an NHL team ... kind of like now come to think of it)

The NFL & AFL seemed to have killed off lower quality pro football leagues and depending on how you feel about the ABA, I'm not even sure there was ever a significant minor pro basketball league. Semi-pro football can't draw flies for attendance, minor basketball suffers largely from the same thing now. Minor league sports lean heavily on attendance for their revenue & since there's little to be had, there's little desire for people to lose money trying to launch teams/leagues.

Maybe you're asking more about why they couldn't attract a following than why they don't exist. The money largely answers the latter I think, the answer to the former is probably more complicated and gets into everything from social psychology to I don't know what all else.

I think another aspect as to why basketball and football minor leagues can't survive is the popularity of high school and college sports. What we don't get from the pros we get from them. There just isn't enough room for minor leagues in those sports.

College baseball has never really caught on like that. The seasons end too early and minor league baseball was entrenched long before the college game became strong.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Maybe you're asking more about why they couldn't attract a following than why they don't exist. The money largely answers the latter I think, the answer to the former is probably more complicated and gets into everything from social psychology to I don't know what all else.

Originally Posted by Rainmaker

I think another aspect as to why basketball and football minor leagues can't survive is the popularity of high school and college sports. What we don't get from the pros we get from them. There just isn't enough room for minor leagues in those sports.

Thinking about this more I think geography and population density plays a large role too. European league structures seem based on basically local YMCA/semi-pro teams banding together and creating a league structure, which is possible when travel is short and cheap. You can probably get to any part of the country from Madrid in 3 hours or less by train/car and even a century ago when league structures were being sorted out, probably a day's journey. Conversely, the US is twice the size of the EU - England would be the 29th biggest state, and even there about half the top teams are in Greater London. Therefore, travel costs were so great that any teams intending to play a national schedule has to be fully professional and well funded (many great early teams were barnstormers - going around recruiting the best players off local teams they played and then traveling for gate receipts). This led to a consolidation of the top talent and big investors at the top, and regions would end up with one top draw instead of several growing up organically.

Soccer-wise, we still have organic local leagues (at least in Boston and I know New York) that would be similar to a 4th or 5th division, with lots of former pros and borderline guys, but there is almost no national crossover because players don't have the time or money. (There is the US Open Cup, which a Boston amateur team I almost ended up playing against made it to the round of 64 last year.) Same reason MLS struggles to convert European fans - Americans won't pay good money to watch good teams when they know there are better out there - combined with Americans channeling all their sectarian rooting energies into High School and College sports means that any new league is either going to be nationally accepted or local, and there is no fanbase for regional ones. I do sometimes wonder how awesome it would be to have locally-based sports franchises along the lines of AAU basketball, but the logistics are a nightmare. Seriously, LA is a 10-hour+ flight away. I'm not even sure Seattle is a real city it's so far removed from anywhere I've ever been or seen.

[lynchjm24]

The NFL does have a minor league. It just has strong eligibility rules.

Anyone who ever went to more then a handful of CBA games knows why there is no strong minor professional basketball league.

[sterlingice]

Hey! I saw Quin Snyder lose the NBADL title last year. And you're telling me there's no strong minor professional basketball league?

(True story: I was in Boise for training last year during the NBADL finals 3-game series and saw game 3- $10ish, right on the court seats, day of the game. Can't beat that. And, yes, Quin Snyder coached the team that lost)

SI

[Young Drachma]

People forget about the NBA's minor league, because the NBA owns it, but you're right...they've done a good job creating a good domestic league that's better than the old CBA's antics and swallowed up the franchises in that league that were worth anything in the process. It's still growing and doing well, the D-league is.

[Young Drachma]

Is a Third N.Y. Baseball Team Feasible?

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Is a Third N.Y. Baseball Team Feasible?

No. Wanna know why?

One obstacle is that the city itself cannot afford to foot the cost of another stadium — but New Jersey might.

Didn't need to read any further. Even when the article was written, NJ was dead broke.

[lynchjm24]

Originally Posted by Logan

No. Wanna know why?



Didn't need to read any further. Even when the article was written, NJ was dead broke.

New Jersey spent all their money going to the Papa John's Bowl.