Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 6, 1994 TAG: 9408090022
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In 1981, a strike canceled a third of the games and forced major-league baseball into an absurd split-season schedule. The prospective '94 strike, some predict, will be every bit as disruptive, if not more so. It is timed for maximum impact - just as the pennant races are heating up, and could continue into the postseason schedule, depriving the owners of a prime revenue source.
The players, of course, also lose money when they don't play, very big money for some. The game's salary escalation has led many fans to blame primarily the players for baseball's periodic labor strife. At the least, there's a tendency to assign equal blame to both sides.
In this instance, however, blame the owners. Working without a contract since March, the players basically want to continue the existing system; it's the owners who want significant changes that could reduce the players' earning power.
The owners claim that clubs in smaller markets are losing money, but they refuse to open their books so this can be confirmed. Other professional sports have revenue-sharing arrangements between big-market and small-market operations; baseball's lack of one is the owners' failure, not the players'.
Meanwhile, baseball is favored with special tax treatment, public subsidies of stadiums in many cities, and exemption from antitrust laws. Indeed, the dominant theme in baseball's history of labor-management relations has been labor's seeking a freer market and management's seeking to keep it closed.
Baseball players and other professional athletes don't simply produce a product; for the most part, they are the product. A premium player is a hot commodity as an entertainer, much like a pop-music star or top-draw movie actor. That's why baseball owners bid up player salaries to astronomical levels (though then use collective bargaining to try to restrain themselves).
The owners don't seem to comprehend the nature of their own business. Or if they do, they aren't willing to admit it. After all, baseball without owners is conceivable; baseball without baseball players is not.
by CNB