- Do we do anything about the budget disparity in the league? Right now, Seattle's budget is $264m, nearly $100m more than Brick's. Four teams (Norfolk, Atlanta, Houston, and Highland) all have less than $130m in their budget.
- Should we enact a salary cap, or have revenue sharing or a luxury tax to even out the budget disparity?
- The media revenue per team also has a large spread, with Seattle making about $76m more than Brick (and over $100m more than Atlanta, Norfolk, and Highland). Should we do something about this?
If anyone has any suggestions or topics related to finances we should talk about, feel free to speak up in the comments.
My own opinion:
ReplyDeleteWe should institute a salary cap, say $130m, with the teams exceeding that limit paying a 100% tax to be distributed to the bottom four teams in budget. So, if a team has a salary of $145m, they will lose $15m cash, which will be given to the pool to be distributed to the four poorest teams.
I think we should check salaries on Opening Day, and after the trade deadline, and disburse he revenue sharing after the Cecil Cup, when teams are resigning possible free agents.
FWIW, I'm not a huge fan of a hard salary cap. I think it will restrict trading among owners and, in truth, I don't mind some disparity... I think winning should have it's rewards. However, there does need to be an limit to the disparity. I know that Mack isn't using most of his budget in order to keep the league competitive, but the fact that his budget does dwarf other teams would make it that, if he chose too, there is pretty much no way anyone could ever compete with him again.
ReplyDeleteI'm more in favor of simply flattening the budgets and media revenue. We did this once years ago, but never reset it again after that. Perhaps we just need to reset the budgets/media revenue annually.
Zev
Fred reminded me, via email, that teams rarely exceed $130m in payroll. So, if we do have a salary cap, it should be lower ($115m?).
ReplyDeleteI'd be fine with Zev's suggestion, though. We can always implement that and see how it shakes out in a few seasons.
Maybe for the budget disparity we can do this? Big market teams like Seattle and Brick there budget is 175 mil and everyone Else stay's to what there owner gives them and if the lower teams start winning and there budget gets to 175 than they get capped to. Just a thought
ReplyDeleteI don't like a salary cap either, but I think compressing the budgets/media revenue is a good idea. This is purely pulled out of the air but I think about $50 million separating the highest/lowest teams is about right. This will reward success but not allow for runaway budgets/payrolls.
ReplyDeletei think bringing the bottom budgets up to 115 million and the top budgets down to 170 makes it closer and allows for more balance...a hard cap well not work here ..and adjust every 5 years if there is separation ...
ReplyDeleteThis issue has come up before in the league. What we've done in the past is to adjust team's media revenues and budgets to narrow the gap between low income and high income teams.
ReplyDeleteI think any reasonable set of numbers could be picked, but my set would probably be $130M to $170M. Seattle's budget gets dropped by $94M, with the media revenue being dropped to match Brick and Brooklyn. Brick, Maui, London, and Brooklyn stay as is. Highland, Houston, Atlanta, and Norfolk all get bumps in media revenue and budgets to bring their budgets $130M. Antelope Valley, Ohio, and Shackamaxon all get small bumps to move them up closer to the $150M median.
And then everyone sings Kumbaya.
P.S. I'd be against a salary cap, because I think teams should get the flexibility to allocate their money as they see fit among players' salaries, coach and staff salaries, scouting, and player development. Different teams may want to do that differently. I'm in favor of parity of resources, and then letting owners spend them as they see fit.
We did what Mack described in my other league, and I think that's the best way to do it. I made a spreadsheet once upon a time with different options, and I'd be happy to do that again if people want to crunch some numbers
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of just revenue sharing, but I think some cap/adjusting of the media revenue may be necessary as well. No salary cap.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of just revenue sharing, but I think some cap/adjusting of the media revenue may be necessary as well. No salary cap.
ReplyDeletei think the following numbers well help bring things into balance and with out a salary cap....split media revenue this way Seattle and Brick gets 110..Maui,London and Brooklyn get 105 Shackamaxon and Ohio get 100..Antelope,Highland,Houston get 95 with Atlanta and Norfolk get 90..then the budget Seattle and Brick get 170 ...Maui,London and Brooklyn get 160...Shackamaxon and Ohio get 150...Antelope,Highland and Houston get 140 with Atlanta and Norfolk getting 130... i believe that well balance it out better what you guys think
ReplyDeleteFred would it be better for budget's if we did something like top 5 teams have a 175 million and the other 7 have 150 million? wouldn't that make more sense?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know if there are any examples teams with limited budgets can share about players lost to free agency when they couldn't afford to resign. I don't mean players whose demands were unreasonable, or players you willingly let walk, just examples where you simply didn't money to pay a player you really wanted to keep.
ReplyDeletei think there needs to be some separation not to clumps together..you could adjust a little more but till better with some distance
ReplyDeleteSo I am one of the small budgeted teams and I really don't even look at free agency anymore as a place to pick up talent. If I can't home grow it, then I just can't get it. If I pick up anyone in FA it is normally the washed up old timers that no one wants or a guy who has had a bad season or two that I am hoping I can turn around. Last year I spent way too much money on Yang as I would have just lost the money if I did not spend it on anyone (my owner does not only give me a very small budget, but he takes away any extra money at the end of the season).
ReplyDeleteI really do not mind not having loads of money. I do not think it is why last season was my first winning season in over a decade. It has been injuries to my star pitchers and some really bad FA decisions in the 2016-2017 seasons and some really, really bad drafting decisions that put me behind the 8-ball for more than a decade.
I have thought about this issue a lot, and I actually do not think it is as big of a deal as we are making it out to be. I do think when there is a run away budget like Seattle's, we need to reign that back, but overall, I do not see an issue in having some big market high payroll teams and some small market, budget teams. Maybe we can do a switch-a-roo where people can choose what sort of budget they want to manage and have fun with it that way. Other than that, I think we should keep our hands off, unless a team has more than a 25% greater budget than the next team below it, and then we should normalize their budget to the rest of the league.
That is my opinion on this, I think the draft pick was a much bigger issue than this one, to be honest.
Going off what Jeremy said, I tend to agree... I didn't have a ton of money to sign big free agents but I thought outside of the box to land some. 1 or 2 year deals with options were I have the choice to keep them or not if they don't perform. Plus I don't want to give out massive deals or get players in trades who are over priced and declining. I think we should keep as it is.
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