MLB needs to look to NFL as example

by Dan Horton
For The Post

The World Series isn't the only premier match-up this October. The Montreal Expos, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Florida Marlins are fighting it out–but this fight is to stay together.

Commissioner Bud Selig and his baseball cohorts are considering downsizing the number of Major League Baseball teams from 30 to 28 in the near future. This time, I don't blame good ol' Bud, because the numbers tell the story.

The Yankees' expected revenue in 2001 is $210 million, while the Expos' expected revenue in 2001 is $20.5 million. Its losses are expected to reach $20 million. Alex Rodriguez makes $25 million a year, and Montreal loses $20 million. Brilliant.

The MLB expanded the amount of teams in the 1990s too far and too fast. It granted Miami, Denver, Arizona and Tampa Bay all new teams. The influx of teams saturated the market. That is why many of them are struggling. The veteran Expos might be gone. The rookies, Tampa Bay or Florida, might be mere whispers in MLB history.

Baseball executives need to learn a lesson from the National Football League. NFL revenue sharing and team salary caps give the smaller market teams an equal chance. George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees do not need $210 million in revenue. Take a portion of the revenue from all 30 teams, add it up and divide it equally amongst them.

In turn, this will help struggling teams stay afloat and compete with the top free agent prospects, such as Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, who are leading the charge for the Arizona Diamondbacks. A communistic theory can survive in a capitalistic game.

The insatiable love of money by some baseball players needs to be tamed. For baseball to survive in all cities, the MLB needs a salary cap. Not only will it help teams manage their money; but it also will bring back the millions of baseball fans that are still in limbo from the 1994 labor strike.

The player's union and the MLB must find an agreement in this mess, or it might be the final blow to the already fragile national pastime.

In 1869, a small team of nine known as the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first professional baseball team. The future looked bright for baseball.

Now the future looks as dazzling as the dirt it is played on.

–Horton is a sophomore Journalism major who predicts the Post Sports staff will beat the News staff 47-0. Send him an e-mail at dh180500@ohiou.edu