Friday, April 30, 2004
$$$ and Baseball's World Cup
Charles, interesting thoughts on the proposed World Cup. I think you go right to the main flaw, teams will be very unlikely to give up star players. What about that insurance? Well, right now my scorebook is one of the key exhibits in a case between the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and their insurance company. He missed 2000 and 2001 with a combined salary of $18M. Why? Some think he blew out his arm pitching in the Caribbean Series. I was there and took good notes, that's why the lawyers have my scribblings.
Player contracts are investments. Teams offer a player X because they think that the player will actually generate Y for the team. Only insurance doesn't cover Y, it pays X. So whatever return on investment the team was thinking about isn't covered, only the payroll cost. As a result, players who are good bargains, players with large Y-X's, won't be seen anywhere near the World Cup. This covers up-and-coming stars who haven't hit the jackpot of free agency. Albert Pujols is a good example here. If Barry Bonds was lost for a year, the Giants would lose out on much more than his $18M salary. The Giants will be very unhappy if Barry is anywhere near the World Cup.
And of course, all of this ignores the fact that the viewing public has very strong television habits for Thursday-Sunday during March Madness. I predict that this will be like the "we'll relocate to Miami" experiment that the Caribbean Series attempted a few years back. It might look like a good idea on paper, but there are too many fatal flaws.
posted by David 8:20 AM
