CHECKBOOK BASEBALL
BUELL, JOHN
Checkbook baseball Pete Rose isn't the only one cleaning up John Buell Listening to the lamentations of the sports commentators, you might suspect that dollar-hungry baseball players were...
...The contrived drama of exchanges between commentators and interviews with star players becomes more central than the game itself...
...Nor can there be any doubt about who the biggest losers are...
...Large as they may seem, the salary and pension costs of all the players amount to less than one-third of the revenue of the major league clubs, leaving the owners with a tidy surplus for other expenses...
...Yet Concepcion, who has considerably less media appeal, received only about half of what Cincinnati paid Pete Rose...
...But that is only the beginning...
...This allows the owner to show paper losses in the operation of the franchise — losses that can be written off against profits from other business ventures...
...When an owner figures out his income tax each year, he is able to deduct from his profits an amount representing depreciation on the value of his players...
...The commercialization of baseball also contributes to its trivialization...
...Take the case of Pete Rose...
...Clearly, both the owners and the superstars are getting richer, but what about the rest of the players...
...A $21,000 a year starting salary and $60,000 a year average salary for the major league player may sound like big money — until you remember that the average player lucky enough to make the major leagues will stay there only for about four years...
...Behind the Chicago Cubs are the chewing-gum millions of the Wrigley family...
...The superstar system feeds a profit-centered appetite for buyers of the products that baseball can sell...
...This may help explain why ball clubs often are part of large conglomerates: Anheuser-Busch owns the St...
...The poorest members of this rich man's club count their personal fortunes in seven figures...
...Indeed, much as they may complain in public about the astronomical amounts they must pay the superstars, the owners have a vested interest in their creation...
...As in other regions of the corporate world, the wealth of the superstar stands in marked contrast to that of other players...
...When franchises are purchased, the buyer tries to allocate as much of the purchase price as possible to player contracts...
...Louis Cardinals...
...In any case, even Pete Rose did not spring fully developed from the brow of Leo Durocher...
...Tax advantages aside, a multimillion-dollar player contract can often bring quick profits to an owner...
...Is he really worth ten times more than the average player...
...Owners, broadcasters, and advertisers are increasingly in the business of merchandising not the sport itself but the stars and the melodrama that goes with them...
...The cost of a ballplayer is not always as high as those million-dollar headlines suggest...
...Add to that an increase of $600,000 in local television revenue, and you can see that the club stands to recoup more than half of Rose's four-year salary in the first year alone...
...Before shedding too many tears for the owners and for others who share a proprietary interest in the sport, consider some of the facts of life in the baseball business: To begin with, the owners themselves are not exactly starving...
...And for every major leaguer there are about three minor leaguers who earn substantially less...
...In broadening the audience, the stars help broaden the market...
...They are the average baseball player, the baseball fan, and baseball itself...
...As in our political life, a preoccupation with celebrities obscures the process itself...
...Behind the New York Yankees stand the coffers of George John Buell is an associate editor of The Progressive Steinbrenner's American Shipbuilding Corporation...
...Anyone who has played the game must marvel at the skills of even those major leaguers known only to the winners of baseball trivia contests...
...the Montreal Expos belong to Seagrams...
...Some would point out that other good hitters in the Cincinnati line-up gave Rose more times at bat and made it hard for the opposition to pitch around him...
...Employment prospects are meager for most former players, many of whom have paid dearly — in forfeited education and sometimes serious injuries — for their crack at the big leagues...
...Some would argue, for example, that Dave Concepcion, a slick fielding, good hitting shortstop, has been as valuable to the Reds as has Pete Rose, whose excellent hitting and "hustle" conceal only slightly better than average skills in the field...
...The answer is that it will be a very long time...
...Checkbook baseball Pete Rose isn't the only one cleaning up John Buell Listening to the lamentations of the sports commentators, you might suspect that dollar-hungry baseball players were rapidly killing off the national pastime...
...And the Pittsburgh Pirates will have to pay $5 million over the next five years for the services of Dave Parker, whose strong arm and big bat have made him one of baseball's finest, as well as its most expensive...
...But they are not the biggest winners...
...Many players active at the major league level have spent five years or more in the minor leagues, and at least half of the players in the minors will never make the major leagues...
...As in other parts of the corporate world that ball clubs inhabit, a company's possessions can bring tax advantages...
...This is because such stars are highly marketable: The brighter the star, the bigger the take for those who have the biggest financial stake in the baseball market...
...Despite what you may have heard from owners and columnists about exorbitant demands put forward by the players' association, the fact is that most players make no more than any moderately successful professional...
...Thus, if World Series baseball is not sufficient to attract and hold the required audience, help is enlisted from some star commentator or some budding media personality selected by the television networks as much for appearance and "style" as for knowledge of the game...
...The Phillies estimate that Rose will increase season ticket sales this year by about 4,000, which means additional gate receipts of at least $1.2 million...
...How long will it be, some have asked, before every player is a millionaire and every club owner is in the poorhouse...
...He can be depreciated...
...There's the recent spectacle of Pete Rose, the Cincinnati superstar who became a free agent last winter, dickered with four other clubs, and wound up pocketing a Philadelphia Phillies contract that will pay him $3.2 million over the next four years...
...Knowledgeable fans realize how difficult it is to make judgments about the relative skills of players...
...Post-career jobs as scouts, coaches, or managers are scarce even for those fortunate enough to make the major leagues...
...His talents were tempered by the skills of many poorly rewarded coaches at all levels and by competition and support from less celebrated teammates...
...To be sure, the superstars are cashing in on the corruption of the national pastime...
...Equitability in the payroll is not a matter that concerns the owners...
...For tax purposes, a player is a capital asset — like a machine...
...Rod Carew, the perennial American League batting champion, has pried a $4 million four-year contract out of his new employers, the California Angels...
...When Rose signed on for $3.2 million, he remarked quite candidly that he doubted any baseball player was worth that much, but if anyone was it was himself...
Vol. 43 • April 1979 • No. 4
