BASE-BALL

[Roadgeekteen]

The White Sox also almost moved to Tampa. I think that the Giants also almost moved there.

[1995hoo]

.... Or, Denver could have mirrored St. Louis and named both teams the Rockies. ....

St. Louis didn't "name" the football Cardinals. They had already been named that for many years (pre-dating the NFL itself) when they moved to St. Louis from Chicago in 1960. They didn't change their name when they moved and the baseball team chose not to object to that.

[Henry]

The White Sox also almost moved to Tampa. I think that the Giants also almost moved there.

I remember hearing about the White Sox relocation plans before the New Comiskey Park saved them. Had the Tampa plan gone through, I would not have been the least bit surprised, seeing that Chicago has only one team in each of the other three pro leagues (Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks); however, it would've done a great disservice to the Second City in the way that having no NL baseball for four years in New York did for that city, and it doesn't matter if the Cubs and Yankees are the more prominent teams in their respective cities.

[SEWIGuy]

Despite the Cubs having a larger fan-base, the White Sox have a pretty huge following.  And weren't they the more popular team prior to the Cubs being owned by the Tribune and having all of their games broadcast on WGN?

The White Sox played a few home games in Milwaukee in the 60s to both show that Milwaukee was still a viable alternative as a baseball city, and because they drew pretty large crowds. 

[NWI_Irish96]

Despite the Cubs having a larger fan-base, the White Sox have a pretty huge following.  And weren't they the more popular team prior to the Cubs being owned by the Tribune and having all of their games broadcast on WGN?

The White Sox played a few home games in Milwaukee in the 60s to both show that Milwaukee was still a viable alternative as a baseball city, and because they drew pretty large crowds. 

Historically, the popularity of both teams ebbed and flowed. In 1982, the Sox moved a good chunk of their schedule to a pay TV sports station. By 1984, the Cubs were the more popular team and never looked back.

[Roadgeekteen]

Despite the Cubs having a larger fan-base, the White Sox have a pretty huge following.  And weren't they the more popular team prior to the Cubs being owned by the Tribune and having all of their games broadcast on WGN?

The White Sox played a few home games in Milwaukee in the 60s to both show that Milwaukee was still a viable alternative as a baseball city, and because they drew pretty large crowds. 

Historically, the popularity of both teams ebbed and flowed. In 1982, the Sox moved a good chunk of their schedule to a pay TV sports station. By 1984, the Cubs were the more popular team and never looked back.

Sports teams really suffer when they don't make their games readily available. See Blackhawks.

[SEWIGuy]

Despite the Cubs having a larger fan-base, the White Sox have a pretty huge following.  And weren't they the more popular team prior to the Cubs being owned by the Tribune and having all of their games broadcast on WGN?

The White Sox played a few home games in Milwaukee in the 60s to both show that Milwaukee was still a viable alternative as a baseball city, and because they drew pretty large crowds. 

Historically, the popularity of both teams ebbed and flowed. In 1982, the Sox moved a good chunk of their schedule to a pay TV sports station. By 1984, the Cubs were the more popular team and never looked back.

Sports teams really suffer when they don't make their games readily available. See Blackhawks.

That is a fairly recent phenominon.  When I was growing up, the local television only showed Brewer games when they were on the road.  MAYBE once or twice a year they would broadcast a home game.  When they had a nationally televised home game on the weekend, it was a big deal.

[NWI_Irish96]

Despite the Cubs having a larger fan-base, the White Sox have a pretty huge following.  And weren't they the more popular team prior to the Cubs being owned by the Tribune and having all of their games broadcast on WGN?

The White Sox played a few home games in Milwaukee in the 60s to both show that Milwaukee was still a viable alternative as a baseball city, and because they drew pretty large crowds. 

Historically, the popularity of both teams ebbed and flowed. In 1982, the Sox moved a good chunk of their schedule to a pay TV sports station. By 1984, the Cubs were the more popular team and never looked back.

Sports teams really suffer when they don't make their games readily available. See Blackhawks.

That is a fairly recent phenominon.  When I was growing up, the local television only showed Brewer games when they were on the road.  MAYBE once or twice a year they would broadcast a home game.  When they had a nationally televised home game on the weekend, it was a big deal.

Yes, but in the case of the Sox, they took something that was widely available and seriously curtailed its availability. That's going to have a much more negative impact than never having had it be widely available.

[Bruce]

If you have over 3.5 hours of spare time, the John Bois six-part series on Mariners history is a masterpiece.

Full playlist

[Alex]

The White Sox also almost moved to Tampa. I think that the Giants also almost moved there.

There were some efforts to relocate the Giants to Tampa. Those were officially dead in 1993.

[amroad17]

I have the 1992 Sports Illustrated Year in Review Book, which discussed the potential Giants re-location to the Tampa Bay area.  In the story, it was written that if the Giants did move there that "they would be playing in the God-awful Suncoast Dome" in St. Petersburg.  I still get a kick out of that line. 

Oh yeah, remember when MLB was seriously considering contracting.  They were attempting to contract Montreal and Minnesota and going back to 28 teams instead of 30.  Good thing that did not happen--especially for Nationals fans (looking at you 1995hoo).  Although I am a Yankees fan (since 1975), the Nationals are my favorite NL team.  And yes, I am a Redskins fan.

[Roadgeekteen]

I have the 1992 Sports Illustrated Year in Review Book, which discussed the potential Giants re-location to the Tampa Bay area.  In the story, it was written that if the Giants did move there that "they would be playing in the God-awful Suncoast Dome" in St. Petersburg.  I still get a kick out of that line. 

Oh yeah, remember when MLB was seriously considering contracting.  They were attempting to contract Montreal and Minnesota and going back to 28 teams instead of 30.  Good thing that did not happen--especially for Nationals fans (looking at you 1995hoo).  Although I am a Yankees fan (since 1975), the Nationals are my favorite NL team.  And yes, I am a Redskins fan.

Contracting? Was the league really doing that badly?

[Max Rockatansky]

I have the 1992 Sports Illustrated Year in Review Book, which discussed the potential Giants re-location to the Tampa Bay area.  In the story, it was written that if the Giants did move there that "they would be playing in the God-awful Suncoast Dome" in St. Petersburg.  I still get a kick out of that line. 

Oh yeah, remember when MLB was seriously considering contracting.  They were attempting to contract Montreal and Minnesota and going back to 28 teams instead of 30.  Good thing that did not happen--especially for Nationals fans (looking at you 1995hoo).  Although I am a Yankees fan (since 1975), the Nationals are my favorite NL team.  And yes, I am a Redskins fan.

Contracting? Was the league really doing that badly?

Yes, post strike baseball was doing terrible.  Big market teams essentially were buying championships and a couple small market clubs came close to going away.  The Twins ended up having some really good teams right around then and managed to get a new stadium.  The Expos went on life support by the MLB and ended up in Washington.  The Expos had a really good thing going in Montreal for awhile but drove all their fans away with constant tanking. 

Like it or not what got people really interested in baseball again was all the home run record chases.  For as much as some of the steroid era players are vilified they did get people watching again.  Post 9/11 there was an all time classic World Series between the Diamondbacks and Yankees which also helped. 

[NWI_Irish96]

I have the 1992 Sports Illustrated Year in Review Book, which discussed the potential Giants re-location to the Tampa Bay area.  In the story, it was written that if the Giants did move there that "they would be playing in the God-awful Suncoast Dome" in St. Petersburg.  I still get a kick out of that line. 

Oh yeah, remember when MLB was seriously considering contracting.  They were attempting to contract Montreal and Minnesota and going back to 28 teams instead of 30.  Good thing that did not happen--especially for Nationals fans (looking at you 1995hoo).  Although I am a Yankees fan (since 1975), the Nationals are my favorite NL team.  And yes, I am a Redskins fan.

Contracting? Was the league really doing that badly?

Yes, post strike baseball was doing terrible.  Big market teams essentially were buying championships and a couple small market clubs came close to going away.  The Twins ended up having some really good teams right around then and managed to get a new stadium.  The Expos went on life support by the MLB and ended up in Washington.  The Expos had a really good thing going in Montreal for awhile but drove all their fans away with constant tanking. 

Like it or not what got people really interested in baseball again was all the home run record chases.  For as much as some of the steroid era players are vilified they did get people watching again.  Post 9/11 there was an all time classic World Series between the Diamondbacks and Yankees which also helped. 

There is still a big market/small market problem. Unlike the NFL, where the league owns and sells the rights to every game, and distributes the money evenly, in baseball the league only owns the rights to the postseason, Sunday night (ESPN) and Saturday afternoon/evening (FOX) games. The rights to the rest of the games are owned and sold by the individual teams. The big market teams make far, far more money in TV revenue than the small market teams. Yes, there are competitive balance draft picks and luxury tax redistributions, but under the current system the Rays are never going to be able to afford the payroll that the Yankees can. MLB needs to completely restructure to centralize the sale of and distribution of revenue from TV rights to all games. This wouldn't necessarily mean that your local team's broadcasts would change, just that the money would be distributed more equitably.

[SEWIGuy]

The contraction plan was from 2001.  It was a few seasons after the steroid fueled home run chasing and well into the Yankees run, which brought as many fans back to baseball as anything.

It was all about leveraging new stadium deals in Minnesota and Montreal.

[1995hoo]

There is still a big market/small market problem. Unlike the NFL, where the league owns and sells the rights to every game, and distributes the money evenly, in baseball the league only owns the rights to the postseason, Sunday night (ESPN) and Saturday afternoon/evening (FOX) games. The rights to the rest of the games are owned and sold by the individual teams. The big market teams make far, far more money in TV revenue than the small market teams. Yes, there are competitive balance draft picks and luxury tax redistributions, but under the current system the Rays are never going to be able to afford the payroll that the Yankees can. MLB needs to completely restructure to centralize the sale of and distribution of revenue from TV rights to all games. This wouldn't necessarily mean that your local team's broadcasts would change, just that the money would be distributed more equitably.

To be fair, the NFL is the only major American pro sports league in which the league controls all broadcast rights. The NHL and the NBA teams all have local broadcast deals as well (as was mentioned by someone on this forum recently in connection with the late Blackhawks' owner's intransigence as to local broadcasts of home games). It makes sense to me that centrally-controlled broadcast rights work better for the NFL than for the other leagues due to the differing schedules. NFL teams play far fewer games on fewer nights a week, with most games concentrated on a single day of the week. Baseball teams play almost every day, subject to CBA provisions about how often a team must get a day off. NHL teams play up to four nights a week (the CBA prohibits a team from playing on three consecutive days). I don't know what the NBA rule is, but it's closer to the NHL's scheduling than it is to the NFL's.

Long way of saying, the other three leagues aside from the NFL have way more games to air, so it makes sense for there to be local broadcast deals in a way the NFL does not have nor need. I'd like to see the MLB office take over the streaming rights. Right now there are three teams whose games cannot be streamed in their local broadcast areas unless the customer jumps through some technical hoops to get around MLB.tv blackouts; two of those teams are Baltimore and Washington, this because the owner up in Baltimore controls a majority stake in MASN and is afraid to allow streaming because he knows it'll show his team has far lower viewership than the Nats do. It's a pain in the arse for those of us who have dropped conventional satellite or cable TV and there's no good reason for it other than his attempt to maintain a litigating position.

[SEWIGuy]

Of course local TV deals make sense.  The question is whether or not the revenue for such deals should be shared in some way.

[Max Rockatansky]

I have the 1992 Sports Illustrated Year in Review Book, which discussed the potential Giants re-location to the Tampa Bay area.  In the story, it was written that if the Giants did move there that "they would be playing in the God-awful Suncoast Dome" in St. Petersburg.  I still get a kick out of that line. 

Oh yeah, remember when MLB was seriously considering contracting.  They were attempting to contract Montreal and Minnesota and going back to 28 teams instead of 30.  Good thing that did not happen--especially for Nationals fans (looking at you 1995hoo).  Although I am a Yankees fan (since 1975), the Nationals are my favorite NL team.  And yes, I am a Redskins fan.

Contracting? Was the league really doing that badly?

Yes, post strike baseball was doing terrible.  Big market teams essentially were buying championships and a couple small market clubs came close to going away.  The Twins ended up having some really good teams right around then and managed to get a new stadium.  The Expos went on life support by the MLB and ended up in Washington.  The Expos had a really good thing going in Montreal for awhile but drove all their fans away with constant tanking. 

Like it or not what got people really interested in baseball again was all the home run record chases.  For as much as some of the steroid era players are vilified they did get people watching again.  Post 9/11 there was an all time classic World Series between the Diamondbacks and Yankees which also helped. 

There is still a big market/small market problem. Unlike the NFL, where the league owns and sells the rights to every game, and distributes the money evenly, in baseball the league only owns the rights to the postseason, Sunday night (ESPN) and Saturday afternoon/evening (FOX) games. The rights to the rest of the games are owned and sold by the individual teams. The big market teams make far, far more money in TV revenue than the small market teams. Yes, there are competitive balance draft picks and luxury tax redistributions, but under the current system the Rays are never going to be able to afford the payroll that the Yankees can. MLB needs to completely restructure to centralize the sale of and distribution of revenue from TV rights to all games. This wouldn't necessarily mean that your local team's broadcasts would change, just that the money would be distributed more equitably.

I agree, that's been probably one of the biggest reasons the NFL took off.  Every team regardless of market has a legitimate chance of fielding a top level team.  A salary cap would help too but it would never get approved by the MLB Players Union. 

[Roadgeekteen]

I have the 1992 Sports Illustrated Year in Review Book, which discussed the potential Giants re-location to the Tampa Bay area.  In the story, it was written that if the Giants did move there that "they would be playing in the God-awful Suncoast Dome" in St. Petersburg.  I still get a kick out of that line. 

Oh yeah, remember when MLB was seriously considering contracting.  They were attempting to contract Montreal and Minnesota and going back to 28 teams instead of 30.  Good thing that did not happen--especially for Nationals fans (looking at you 1995hoo).  Although I am a Yankees fan (since 1975), the Nationals are my favorite NL team.  And yes, I am a Redskins fan.

Contracting? Was the league really doing that badly?

Yes, post strike baseball was doing terrible.  Big market teams essentially were buying championships and a couple small market clubs came close to going away.  The Twins ended up having some really good teams right around then and managed to get a new stadium.  The Expos went on life support by the MLB and ended up in Washington.  The Expos had a really good thing going in Montreal for awhile but drove all their fans away with constant tanking. 

Like it or not what got people really interested in baseball again was all the home run record chases.  For as much as some of the steroid era players are vilified they did get people watching again.  Post 9/11 there was an all time classic World Series between the Diamondbacks and Yankees which also helped. 

There is still a big market/small market problem. Unlike the NFL, where the league owns and sells the rights to every game, and distributes the money evenly, in baseball the league only owns the rights to the postseason, Sunday night (ESPN) and Saturday afternoon/evening (FOX) games. The rights to the rest of the games are owned and sold by the individual teams. The big market teams make far, far more money in TV revenue than the small market teams. Yes, there are competitive balance draft picks and luxury tax redistributions, but under the current system the Rays are never going to be able to afford the payroll that the Yankees can. MLB needs to completely restructure to centralize the sale of and distribution of revenue from TV rights to all games. This wouldn't necessarily mean that your local team's broadcasts would change, just that the money would be distributed more equitably.

I agree, that's been probably one of the biggest reasons the NFL took off.  Every team regardless of market has a legitimate chance of fielding a top level team.  A salary cap would help too but it would never get approved by the MLB Players Union.

Does the MLB have full revenue sharing?

[SEWIGuy]

I have the 1992 Sports Illustrated Year in Review Book, which discussed the potential Giants re-location to the Tampa Bay area.  In the story, it was written that if the Giants did move there that "they would be playing in the God-awful Suncoast Dome" in St. Petersburg.  I still get a kick out of that line. 

Oh yeah, remember when MLB was seriously considering contracting.  They were attempting to contract Montreal and Minnesota and going back to 28 teams instead of 30.  Good thing that did not happen--especially for Nationals fans (looking at you 1995hoo).  Although I am a Yankees fan (since 1975), the Nationals are my favorite NL team.  And yes, I am a Redskins fan.

Contracting? Was the league really doing that badly?

Yes, post strike baseball was doing terrible.  Big market teams essentially were buying championships and a couple small market clubs came close to going away.  The Twins ended up having some really good teams right around then and managed to get a new stadium.  The Expos went on life support by the MLB and ended up in Washington.  The Expos had a really good thing going in Montreal for awhile but drove all their fans away with constant tanking. 

Like it or not what got people really interested in baseball again was all the home run record chases.  For as much as some of the steroid era players are vilified they did get people watching again.  Post 9/11 there was an all time classic World Series between the Diamondbacks and Yankees which also helped. 

There is still a big market/small market problem. Unlike the NFL, where the league owns and sells the rights to every game, and distributes the money evenly, in baseball the league only owns the rights to the postseason, Sunday night (ESPN) and Saturday afternoon/evening (FOX) games. The rights to the rest of the games are owned and sold by the individual teams. The big market teams make far, far more money in TV revenue than the small market teams. Yes, there are competitive balance draft picks and luxury tax redistributions, but under the current system the Rays are never going to be able to afford the payroll that the Yankees can. MLB needs to completely restructure to centralize the sale of and distribution of revenue from TV rights to all games. This wouldn't necessarily mean that your local team's broadcasts would change, just that the money would be distributed more equitably.

I agree, that's been probably one of the biggest reasons the NFL took off.  Every team regardless of market has a legitimate chance of fielding a top level team.  A salary cap would help too but it would never get approved by the MLB Players Union. 

With the increasing amount of club control and luxury tax, those are acting like salary caps in many ways.  Also owners are getting out of the habit of paying for past performance.  Look at the Nationals winning the WS after declining to sign Bryce Harper.

Every current AL team has played in the ALCS since 2000.  All NL teams except the Reds, Padres and Pirates have as well.  So 27/30 teams (90%) have reached the semifinals over the last 20 years.

That's a higher percentage than the NFL and NBA.

[ET21]

Despite the Cubs having a larger fan-base, the White Sox have a pretty huge following.  And weren't they the more popular team prior to the Cubs being owned by the Tribune and having all of their games broadcast on WGN?

The White Sox played a few home games in Milwaukee in the 60s to both show that Milwaukee was still a viable alternative as a baseball city, and because they drew pretty large crowds. 

Historically, the popularity of both teams ebbed and flowed. In 1982, the Sox moved a good chunk of their schedule to a pay TV sports station. By 1984, the Cubs were the more popular team and never looked back.

CWS became the popular team from the 05 WS to about 2010 when we finally tanked hardcore into the cellar. The Cubs took over as the more popular team probably about 2013-14ish when you started seeing signs of what they were building. So I'd say from 2013 on it's been a majority Cubs town but you could argue about 2010-12 as well.

But now the fans are getting restless after only one title in 5 years with that core. And as the Sox begin bringing up their own young core, you may see a slight shift or a renewed City Series as both teams compete for the postseason. I miss the late 2000s because the rivalry between north and south was heated as both teams were contending for playoff spots.

[NWI_Irish96]

Despite the Cubs having a larger fan-base, the White Sox have a pretty huge following.  And weren't they the more popular team prior to the Cubs being owned by the Tribune and having all of their games broadcast on WGN?

The White Sox played a few home games in Milwaukee in the 60s to both show that Milwaukee was still a viable alternative as a baseball city, and because they drew pretty large crowds. 

Historically, the popularity of both teams ebbed and flowed. In 1982, the Sox moved a good chunk of their schedule to a pay TV sports station. By 1984, the Cubs were the more popular team and never looked back.

CWS became the popular team from the 05 WS to about 2010 when we finally tanked hardcore into the cellar. The Cubs took over as the more popular team probably about 2013-14ish when you started seeing signs of what they were building. So I'd say from 2013 on it's been a majority Cubs town but you could argue about 2010-12 as well.

But now the fans are getting restless after only one title in 5 years with that core. And as the Sox begin bringing up their own young core, you may see a slight shift or a renewed City Series as both teams compete for the postseason. I miss the late 2000s because the rivalry between north and south was heated as both teams were contending for playoff spots.

This may be one of those hindsight is 20/20 things, but it was a huge mistake to build the new park in 1991 in the same location. Plenty of people were noting that the South Loop was an area where land was still fairly cheap but was likely to take off soon (which it did).

[SEWIGuy]

Despite the Cubs having a larger fan-base, the White Sox have a pretty huge following.  And weren't they the more popular team prior to the Cubs being owned by the Tribune and having all of their games broadcast on WGN?

The White Sox played a few home games in Milwaukee in the 60s to both show that Milwaukee was still a viable alternative as a baseball city, and because they drew pretty large crowds. 

Historically, the popularity of both teams ebbed and flowed. In 1982, the Sox moved a good chunk of their schedule to a pay TV sports station. By 1984, the Cubs were the more popular team and never looked back.

CWS became the popular team from the 05 WS to about 2010 when we finally tanked hardcore into the cellar. The Cubs took over as the more popular team probably about 2013-14ish when you started seeing signs of what they were building. So I'd say from 2013 on it's been a majority Cubs town but you could argue about 2010-12 as well.

But now the fans are getting restless after only one title in 5 years with that core. And as the Sox begin bringing up their own young core, you may see a slight shift or a renewed City Series as both teams compete for the postseason. I miss the late 2000s because the rivalry between north and south was heated as both teams were contending for playoff spots.

Really?  I never once thought in the late 2000s that Chicago was turning into a Sox town.  The Cubs still outdrew the Sox attendance wise throughout that entire time, and my guess is that the TV and radio numbers were similar.

[SEWIGuy]

MLB owners proposal provides an overall cut from the pro-rata salaries that the Union already agreed to, but in a clear attempt to dividde the players, is giving percentage-wise the largest cuts to those players who make the most.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29224973/sources-mlb-proposal-includes-pay-cuts-highest-paid-players

No chance I would agree to this if I were a player.  And if I'm one of the higher paid ones, I'd skip the season if this is approved.

[Henry]

Here's another sign that we won't have any minor-league baseball this year:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/report-hundreds-of-minor-leaguers-released-season-in-peril/ar-BB14JiBU?ocid=msedgntp

As much as it hurts having to hear about MLB's ongoing labor war, this is even worse.