Baseball Owners Research Articles

Stealing Home: Political, Economic, and Media Power and a Publicly-Funded Baseball Stadium in Denver

In 1990, the Major League Baseball owners announced that the National League would add two new franchises in 1993. Two issues immediately confronted the various groups attempting to secure a baseball franchise for Denver. One was finding an owner for the franchise, the other was providing a stadium for the team. This study focuses on the events and social processes involved in the baseball stadium issue in Denver's bid to secure a major league baseball franchise. The taxpayers of metropolitan Denver were asked to vote on a sales tax initiative that would finance the construction and operation of a new baseball stadium ifaMajorLeagueBaseballfranchisewasultimatelyawardedtoDenver. This study centers on how various forms of power were used to persuade taxpayers that they should pay the costs of constructing a baseball stadium and how the same forms of power were later used to obtain a stadium lease agreement. Other issues addressed by this study include why citizens were not more active in questioning either the public expen diture of money for the construction of a stadium or the terms of the stadium lease agreement. Analyses and explanations for these questions are grounded in the dynamics of power as it was employed by the various entities whose interest was in securing a Major League Baseball franchise for Denver.

Coming apart at the seams: how baseball owners, players, and television executives have led our national pastime to the brink of disaster

Coming apart at the seams: how baseball owners, players, and television executives have led our national pastime to the brink of disaster

Financial Restraint in the Free Agent Labor Market for Major League Baseball: Players Look at Strike Three

Professional baseball has provided economists with a wealth of issues and data over the years. Research in this area has been particularly productive because the pay and marginal revenue products of the players are easily measured. The principal issues have been salaries, the player pension fund, and the negotiating opportunities of players who are classified as free agents. In this study we examine the salary consequences of the baseball owners' boycott of the free agents market for players following the 1985 and 1986 seasons. In 1987 baseball arbitrator Thomas Roberts ruled that baseball team owners had violated baseball's Basic Agreement by colluding in the free agent market for baseball players. The owners, in an effort to exercise financial restraint, did not bid on eligible free agents after the 1985 season (unless the former team was no longer interested in the player). In 1988 baseball arbitrator George Nicolau ruled that the owners once again boycotted the free agent market following the 1986 season.

From Chattel to Employee: The Athlete's Quest for Freedom and Dignity

Sports owners in America have always played by different rules than other corporate entities. Team owners are given tax breaks that are the envy of other businessmen; baseball owners have divided up the country among them selves, giving exclusive franchises to each other, and yet the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that such practices are exempt from federal antitrust laws. Football, hockey, basketball, baseball, and soccer owners operated a reserve system that divided up player talent in the same way they divided the country into exclusive franchises. When the NFL asked for an exemption from antitrust laws which would allow the clubs to pool their television rights, the Congress gave it to them. That exemption allowed the club owners to bargain collectively with the networks, control the announcers, and kill off future competitors. In 1966, Congress acted again to help the NFL, providing another exemption from the antitrust laws for the merger of the American Football League and the NFL. The professional athlete has had no choice but to accept the system imposed by management. However, the courts have started to change and athletes now have unions to help them gain dig nity and freedom from the reserve system. Whether the ath letes will continue to make progress in the 1980s is the pri mary question posed in this article.