Bryce Harper has a genius idea, public team ownership, and more
The Out in Left Weekly: June 16, 2024
MLB News
Bryce Harper wants an in-season tournament in London
"I wish that Major League Baseball would bring four teams [to London], make it a round-robin and stay for a week and a half or two weeks,” Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper said last weekend while across the pond for the two-game London Series. "It’s so in and out and so quick, it would be fun to rove across the country a bit, take the trains into different places and see all that."
First of all, Harper is now on record as being a train guy. I swoon.
Second, an in-season baseball tournament is brilliant. The amount of MLB games would make it easy to schedule, and the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament, played in November and December, breathed life into basketball’s regular season. MLB could use a dose of that. What is the point of, say, the Anaheim Angels and Oakland/Sacramento/Las Vegas Athletics playing each other thirteen times this season? Without relegation, the two teams, sporting a combined .376 winning percentage, are playing for nothing. A cup competition among the American League West would give the teams out of contention something to play for and would give their fans something to care about.
Few players are as marketable as Harper, and his stating his desire for an in-season tournament must have caught the attention of MLB executives. But they’ll move forward with a cup competition only if it can make them money. For once in my life, I hope they figure that out.
More than $1.5 billion in stadium subsidies will go to the… Tampa Bay Rays?
Back in December, Field of Schemes summarized reports that concluded the Tampa Bay Rays will receive about $1.5 billion in public subsidies to finance their proposed ballpark in St. Petersburg, Florida. This week, the St. Petersburg City Council took a preliminary step to finalize the deal. The new estimate: $1.6 billion from the city and Pinellas County to the Rays. Oh, what’s another $100 million?
Nothing about this deal makes fiscal sense. The Rays are owned by Stuart Sternburg, whose wealth, according to the internet, approaches $1 billion. Pinellas County’s population doesn’t exceed one million. St. Petersburg’s operating budget is $390,000,000, which is 75% smaller than the Rays’ subsidy. The team always ranks near the bottom in attendance. Last October, hardly anyone showed up for a playoff game.
The deal does make sense politically. On the stump last year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis declared war on “woke capitalism.” He used that phrase as a cultural cudgel, but he unwittingly was telling on himself. Indeed, the GOP and corporate class hate capitalism and have instituted socialism for the rich long ago. The Rays’ deal is the latest product of that.
Public team ownership can be a thing
CBS Sports published this week a must-read piece by R.J. Anderson on public team ownership, a concept so foreign in the United States I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading. I’m still digesting the story, and I will likely return to its points in this space—I work in government yet I had no idea the city of San Diego almost assumed ownership of the Padres in 1990—but for now I assign you 35 minutes of essential reading.
I attended this year’s London series and I couldn’t agree with Harper more! A mid year relegation tourney in London to replace the All-Bore Game: where do I sign?