For most of this century, Regional Sports Networks (or, “RSN” as used throughout) became a massive revenue generator for MLB teams, as they recognized that they could fetch tens of millions of dollars (or more) from their local cable providers to show games in their home market.
However, the last few years have seen a massive acceleration of “cord cutting,” as a new generation of TV consumers has eschewed conventional cable packages in favor of streaming options, thanks to the rise of smart TVs, fast internet, the reliability of tools like Roku, etc. This isn’t a groundbreaking statement (duh Captain Obvious), just putting it there to set the stage for what comes next.
This almost immediately led to some of the weaker RSN markets encountering financial difficulties, which in 2023 started to lead to major changes in the marketplace. And, in the last few weeks, we’ve seen an acceleration of these actions that now have nearly half the league without RSN deals. Here’s some of the salient inflection points over the past 3 years:
- Diamond Sports Group: was the first domino to fall in 2023, declaring Chapter 11 and failing to pay multiple teams its RSN fees, leading them to sever ties and have MLB pick them up. This included San Diego, Arizona at first in 2023, then Colorado, Cleveland, and Minnesota in 2024.
- In Late 2025, Seattle decided to exit the RSN market (they owned their own RSN) and joined up with MLB. That made them the 6th team to join MLB’s umbrella. As we will see, this turned out to be kind of a shocking issue in that Seattle was a 9-figure market AND owned the RSN, but they had what most call a pretty poorly-negotiated contract locally.
- Soon after, in Jan 2026 the MASN-Washington Nationals parting was announced, making the Nats the 7th team in the MLB portfolio.
- Main Street Sports: the Diamond group emerged from bankruptcy in early 2025, rebranded, and tried to continue its operations, then partnered with FanDuel Sports Network. However, in early 2026, they missed payments to a slew of teams, who all bailed and went to MLB. This included: Cincinnati, Kansas City, Miami, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Tampa. Now this makes for 13 teams in the MLB network.
- FanDuel Sports also had rights to Atlanta, Los Angeles Angels, and Detroit last year; they remain up in the air for 2026 as of this writing and could very well all join MLB as well, making it possibly 16 of the 30 teams for 2026.
- Interestingly, Texas Rangers were also embroiled in the Diamond Sports Group issue, but launched their own RSN in 2025 and are there for the time being.
(A quick Tangent: A side effect of the MASN termination, by the way, is bittersweet: Mark Zuckerman was let go. Here’s his MASN farewell post, This is not the first time he’s had to find new work, having been axed by the Washington Times in 2009 when they ended all their sports operations, then depending on donations and individual contributions to self-finance his 2010 spring training coverage. He initially covered the team at a Blogspot site, then fired up NatsInsider.com for a bit before landing at Comcast Sports Net for a few years, getting axed there and joining MASN for the last decade. He’s covered the Nats since Day 1 and I certainly hope he picks up with a media outlet that continues to allow him to cover the team, whether its MLB.tv, or as MLB’s beat reporter covering the team, or perhaps whatever local cable shop ends up buying the MLB.tv Nats stream (Monument?). Nonetheless, He’s too valuable a resource in the community to have this be it.)
So, now with nearly half the league with MLB, what does the landscape of RSNs look like? I’m going to order the list below roughly by the current or immediate previous RSN revenues to illustrate a specific point, which will become clear soon enough. I’ve also included a very-old 2012 overview of known RSN Deals at the time, some of which are still valid and a much more updated 2024 version at MLBtraderumors.com.
| Market DMA Rank | Revenue Rank | Team | RSN | Team Owned? | Est Revenues (2022 latest) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | Los Angeles Dodgers | Spectrum SportsNet LA | Yes | $196M |
| 1 | 2 | New York Yankees | YES Network | Yes | $143M |
| 4 | 3 | Philadelphia | NBC Sports Philadelphia | No | $125M |
| 2 | 4 | Los Angeles Angels | In Flux: was Fan Duel | No | Was $125M |
| 5 | 5 | Texas Rangers | Rangers Sports Network | Yes | was $111M |
| 10 | 6 | Atlanta Braves | In Flux: was Fan Duel | No | $100M |
| 7a | 7 | Toronto Blue Jays | SportsNet | Yes | Unreported |
| 13 | 8 | Seattle Mariners | MLB.tv | No | was $100M |
| 3 | 9 | Chicago Cubs | Marquee Sports Network | Yes | $99M |
| 9 | 10 | Boston Red Sox | New England Sports Network | Yes | $97M |
| 8 | 11 | San Francisco Giants | NBC Sports Bay Area | Yes | $92M |
| 1 | 12 | New York Mets | SportsNet New York | No? | $88M |
| 7 | 13 | Houston Astros | Space City Home Network | Yes | $73M but now ? |
| 21 | 14 | St. Louis | MLB.tv | No | was $73M |
| 8 | 15 | Nomad Athletics | None? | No | was $70m Believe nothing til move to LV |
| 12 | 16 | Arizona Diamondbacks | MLB.tv | No | was $68M |
| 6 | 17 | Washington Nationals | MLB.tv | No | Was $64M |
| 26 | 18 | Baltimore | MASN | Yes | $64M |
| 3 | 19 | Chicago White Sox | NBC Sports Chicago | No? | $60M |
| 14 | 20 | Detroit | In Flux: was Fan Duel | No | was $60M |
| 24 | 21 | Pittsburgh | SportsNet Pittsburgh | Yes | $55-$60M |
| 35 | 22 | Cincinnati | MLB.tv | No | was $60M |
| 17 | 23 | Denver | MLB.tv | No | was $57M |
| 11 | 24 | Tampa Bay Rays | MLB.tv | No | was $56M |
| 19 | 25 | Cleveland | MLB.tv | No | was $55M |
| 15 | 26 | Minnesota Twins | MLB.tv | No | was $54M |
| 16 | 27 | Miami-Ft. Lauderdale | MLB.tv | No | was $49M |
| 29 | 28 | San Diego | MLB.tv | No | was $47M |
| 32 | 29 | Kansas City | MLB.tv | No | was $45M |
| 36 | 30 | Milwaukee | MLB.tv | No | was $33M |
A couple of quick observations from this list:
- I think these links vastly under report the Dodgers’ actual revenues: they’re on an 25 year, $8.35B deal that averages $334M/year. Not sure why its only reported as $196M/year; maybe that’s after the 48% share?
- Same to a certain extent with especially the Yankees and Boston; there’s just no way Boston is “only” pulling $97M from NESN. They own 80% of the network and it had $574M in revenues last year.
- The two points above highlight the utter cynicism of MLB teams, at the same time, crying poor but then refusing to open their books. There’s only one “real” publicly traded team (Atlanta) and their finances are just fine: more than $600M in revenue last year with a payroll of $261M.
- That being said …
- Teams that own their own RSNs by and large are quite healthy, especially the Dodgers. The Dodgers have been taking every dollar of that massive amount of RSN revenue per year and throwing it at payroll, to the point of ridiculousness. Same for the Yankees and Mets famously. I’m not sure I really trust the revenue figures that these self-owned RSNs advertise (especially the $88M that the Mets supposedly get or the amount that the Cubs are pulling).
- I also have no idea how much Toronto gets, but I suspect its a massive figure as the sole Canadian team controlled by the group that has a monopoly of TV in that country.
- These healthy RSN revenue teams of course, also mostly benefit from being in the largest markets. NY, Chicago, LA, Philly. It remains to be seen what happens with Texas (in the 5th largest market) trying to make it a go with its own RSN.
However, the salient observation from above is easy to see: the smallest 10 teams in terms of historical RSN revenue have ALL seen their deals collapse in the last two years. They’re all now MLB.tv owned, joined by a smattering of slightly larger market teams. The only top-half market size team now in the MLB mix is Seattle, who interestingly decided to give up their own RSN because of some restrictive contracts with the local cable provider w/r/t local streaming options.
Tangent: DC is the 6th biggest DMA market, but was paid at the 17th highest rated team. I mean, I get it, these other markets have had decades to establish a fan and TV base for their teams … but this is one more illustration of how much the MASN deal screwed this franchise for decades.
So, what’s next? Well, first, we need to see what all these MLB.tv deals are going to pay. Something tells me that all these teams are going to take a massive haircut on the per-year revenue figures they were getting, even from failing RSNs. Do we really think the Nationals are gonna get $65M in shared fees and drip-drip streaming packages? Does anyone believe Seattle’s getting 9 figures? I don’t.
Next, we have the commissioner throwing a pretty major shot across the bow of the owners he supposedly represents by being on record saying he wants the broadcast rights for all 30 teams by 2028. But, what’s the incentive for these big market teams to do this? LA is in a deal that gives them an increasingly large amount of money until 2038. The Yankees are committed to their deal well into the 2030s. Toronto’s RSN has a monopoly in a country of 40M people; that’s twice the size of the NYC MSA. These wealthy teams aren’t just going to give up hundreds of millions of dollars so that Kansas City and Milwaukee can get more money. Oh, not for nothing, the 28th ranked media market out of the 30 teams? Frigging San Diego, who’s been running $200M payrolls for years … so something doesn’t add up when you have Miami and Minnesota and Cleveland crying poor.
Don’t get me wrong; I think in an ideal world where MLB could ‘start over” they’d nationalize TV deals, just as NFL/NBA/NHL have done. In a heartbeat. If MLB had what the NFL has, there’s be such a different competitive landscape. You can plunk a team in Green Bay or Podunk, Iowa and with a level playing field of TV revenue everyone can be competitive. But, I also recognize the current state of NY/LA/Chi markets and can’t quite come to terms with taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the pockets of some teams so as to hand it to the (multi-millionaire) owners of smaller market teams, many of whom literally havn’t “tried” to win in years.
The last time we had a really significant work stoppage was in 1994, and a major reason behind that strike was internal battles between big and small market owners related to TV revenue sharing. They eventually agreed to partial revenue sharing, which still exists today (each team puts 48% of its RSN money into a big pot and re-distributes it equally), which but there’s been significant grumbling when the $110M or so of shared revenue gets handed to teams like Miami ($72M payroll in 2025) or Cleveland ($76M payroll) or even to Washington ($91M payroll last year) and they don’t even spend it all.
Now, in 2026 with LA making a mockery of the luxury tax cap with a projected $403M 40-man 2026 salary, fully $159M over the tax threshold and a slew of small-market owners losing their minds … something tells me we’re to going to see a massive issue this coming off-season. You have the commissioner running around telling players they “need” a salary cap (and guys like Bryce Harper telling him to get the f*ck out of their clubhouse), so the MLBPA is already girded for a massive salary cap fight … but Manfred also has to get his owners in alignment to be able to negotiate a common stance.
It’s “collective bargaining,” not “collective demanding,” and if the Owners want a hard cap, they’re going to have to “give up” something the players want in return … the question is, are they willing to give up enough to satisfy the players union? And, what could that possibly be? We alluded to it in the last column with the Skubal arbitration issue: would owners give up arbitration altogether, or let players go after 4 years to free agency, in return for a salary cap? Maybe. Would they agree to a salary floor to go along with the cap? That kind of has to be in there else we’re right in the same boat we are now.
And, all of this happening the year when half the teams in the league potentially face a franchise-altering loss of RSN money?
Not good.
“But, what’s the incentive for these big market teams to do this?” – having other teams to play. I suppose the Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, Sox, Jays, and Mets could form a 6-team superleague if they wanted to, but if the other teams say “we’re not going to kick you out of the league unless you do this”, I think the big boys would grumble and accept it.
The mlb.tv-owned teams already have a majority. Use it. Demand all 30 tv streams go into one pot and split it 30 ways.
I know the simple answer is too easy to work, but the truth is that if the lower half of the league don’t play hardball, and instead go along hoping the Dodgers don’t alter the deal again, they’ll just sit there as 2nd-class citizens.
Anonymous
4 Feb 26 at 12:16 pm
OOPS DISREGARD – hit enter too soon.
“But, what’s the incentive for these big market teams to do this?” – having other teams to play. I suppose the Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, Sox, Jays, and Mets could form a 6-team superleague if they wanted to, but if the other teams say “we’re not going to play against you anymore unless you do this”, I think the big boys would grumble and accept it.
There are 16 teams in the MLB.tv umbrella; they already have a majority. Use it. Demand all 30 tv streams go into one pot and split it 30 ways.
I know the simple answer is too easy to work, but the truth is that if the lower half of the league don’t play hardball, and instead go along hoping the Dodgers don’t alter the deal again, they’ll just sit there as 2nd-class citizens, while the NYY and Dodgers media markets say “well, you know, the Dodgers lost half of the World Seriesse they’ve been in 10 out of the last 13 years, so there’s parity!” Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ payroll is more than the (Forbes-estimated) total gross revenue of something like 10 teams.
Anonymous
4 Feb 26 at 12:19 pm
Shared TV revenue accompanied by a salary cap/floor would almost certainly increase parity in MLB like the NFL experiences, but do the owners actually want that? Obviously you’d assume the LAD/NYY/CHC big spenders would not, but I’m not convinced that the OAK/MIA/MIN/CLE small markets, even the Nats, would be willing to trade the ability to operate on the cheap for a better chance of winning year-to-year. If that’s the case, then there’s probably less than half of the owners that are willing to strong arm their counterparts in to doing what’s best for the league instead of their individual desires. What’s MLB’s rallying cry akin the the NFL’s “protect the shield”?
MG
4 Feb 26 at 1:01 pm
@Anonymous: so, the only problem i have with your claim is this: they’ve been saying that for 100+ years! Mostly with the Yankees up until now, but its the same argument that’s been made for a long time.
Parity? You want to talk Parity? Yes the Dodgers won the last two series: before that we didn’t have a repeat winner in MLB since 1999-00. MLB has had 15 different winners in its last 25 World Series, and 22 of the league’s 30 teams have made the WS in the same time period. The 8 that haven’t made a series in the last 25 years? Baltimore, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Oakland, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Seattle.
That’s more parity than the NFL in the same time period (13 distinct winners this century, 21 distinct teams in SB out of 32 in league). And far more parity than NBA (12 winners this century).
Baltimore has zero excuse except ineptitude; in the late 90s they led the league in payroll. Seattle is a major market. San Diego is running $200M payrolls. The other 5 teams are, yes, smaller markets, but they’re all also known cheapskate teams who don’t spend on their team or their system.
Anyway.
Todd Boss
4 Feb 26 at 2:55 pm
Mostly the rallying cry would be “look how well that has worked for the NFL.” And with real revenue sharing and a salary floor, I think the players would lunge at that opportunity.
Kevin R
4 Feb 26 at 2:55 pm
Well, yes, the key part of this would be a corresponding floor to their ceiling. And, both the floor and ceiling has to be tied to revenue. You know, that “revenue” figure than 29 of the 30 teams purposely hide. So, in order for this to work all 30 teams have to open up their books and publish revenues. Never gonna happen.
Next problem: The other three major leagues all have a 50/50 split (or really close to it), with annual adjustments AND the floors set at a very high percentage of the ceiling .. .like 90% of it. So, if you froze the luxury tax right now as your cap, it’d be $244M, so 90% of that is $219M. Well, obviously you can’t put the floor at $219M; less than half the league is spending that right now. The bottom 5 teams are spending $114M or less. So what is a realistic floor? $150M? 1/3 of the league isn’t there right now.
Honestly, I can’t believe they haven’t already implemented a mandatory floor of the $110M or so that all 30 teams get for revenue sharing … I mean, come on.
Then, what do you do if a team fails to spend? Fine them? Withold their money? Baseball now has proven the “tank for 3 years to get picks” process works … so when Houston (5th largest market?) tanked for 3 years, sold off every FA contract and bottomed out .. but then made the playoffs for 15 straight years … how do you account for that?
Todd Boss
4 Feb 26 at 4:32 pm
@KevinR: I don’t think the players will lunge at revenue sharing/cap/floor plan unless it can be set up so as not to cut into the overall percentage of revenue that goes to player salaries. To do THAT, the owners would have to open their books and a real discussion over what constitutes “revenue” would have to happen. Only by doing that can you set a cap/floor that would maintain the current allocation. I’m fine with changing rules to see that players are far less underpaid in their early years and also less overpaid in their later years. That would be hard to do if the owners were trustworthy.
Color me skeptical.
More likely is that the owners try to set up a system where they restrict player compensation and hang onto more money.
John C.
4 Feb 26 at 4:37 pm
(JohnC and I are basically the same cynics in this situation)
Todd Boss
4 Feb 26 at 5:26 pm
Great conversation guys. I share both John and Todd’s concerns about what “should” be done vs. what “can” be done.
However, I just wanted to pick on a point Todd raised about tanking. I don’t believe that tanking is a viable strategy any longer, especially for a large-market team. Yes, the Nats exploited this masterfully in 2009-2011, and the Astros in 2012-2015. But that path of tanking to quickly rebuild is not possible anymore. With the rules today, the Nats would’ve never been allowed to draft Harper (or rather, taking Crowe in 2008 would’ve prevent us from drafting Strasburg and Rendon). The Astros would’ve never been able to draft all of Correa/Appel/Bregman/Tucker, just 2 of those 4. The anti-tanking draft rules for large market teams have nuked this strategy. Instead of getting Seaver King at #10, the Nats should’ve had their choice of Travis Bazzana, Chase Burns or AL ROY, Nick Kurtz at 1-1, when they were drawn first in the draft order. It’s these generational talents, like Strasburg and Harper, or Correa and Bregman, that go in the top couple picks, that made the tanking model a viable strategy. But if you’re a big market team, you can no longer just stink, and ride the wave of elite draft talent back to the top.
If you are unwilling to spend money, you must be better than all other clubs at scouting and development. This is the only way to succeed. It’s how the Dodgers, who haven’t had a pick before 23rd in the past decade, are currently a top 5 farm system. It’s how the Brewers, who last had a top 10 pick in 2017, are widely regarded as having the best system in baseball. There’s no longer a negative correlation between winning percentage and farm quality. 5 of the top 7 farm systems according to ESPN’s 2026 rankings were playoff teams in 2025! It’s also how the Nationals and Rockies, the two worst teams in baseball in the 2020s, do not have great farm systems.
This is a really big problem for the Nats (and many other teams), because being bad for a few years won’t make them good in the future. Finally getting rid of Rizzo and his stale methods is a crucial first step, but this self-imposed poverty approach under Toboni’s leadership will only work if his team is able to quickly become one of the best at player development, but even then we won’t see the results for years.
The other way out, the model proven by the Yankees, Phillies or Rangers, in recent years, is that you can also spend your way to success if your player development game isn’t elite. And the Dodgers have shown that this isn’t a binary choice. You can have both: spend a lot and develop players, though their revenue streams make this all way easier. But I digress…
All that to say, you could quite easily impose a “soft” payroll floor in the same way they’ve imposed a “soft” salary cap via the Competitive Balance Tax. Let’s say the payroll floor is $125m, but the Pirates only spend $75m. Tax each dollar underspent with a 50% tax. The Pirates then get hit with a $25m fee for underspending. I think they’d soon realize that it was better that $25m goes to a free agent to modestly improve their line up than to MLB’s coffers.
Will
5 Feb 26 at 6:04 am
@Will: Yes, to some extent the anti-tanking runs for large market teams try to mitigate this. But the Nats are going to suck in 2026 and they’re likely to get a top 2-3 pick in 2027 because it was just a one-year penalty. Picking 11th-1st-10th-2nd isn’t as good as what they should have been picking (2nd-1st-1st-2nd or something close to it) but it’s still two top of the draft picks and two top 10 picks. But, even though the Nats get pushed down 10 spots in the 1st, they’re still in their original spot for subsequent rounds. That matters too.
but you’ve touched on something really important: Why are the Dodgers routinely churning out talent, routinely top 5 farm system? The best scouting and player Dev squad in the business. They invest like no o ther team, and there’s no limitations on this kind of investment except the cheapness/ineptitude of the ownership group. I just laugh that teams like Colorado and the Angels are CONSTANTLY bottom 5 of farm systems despite being in major markets … they’re incompetent! Even after years and years of discussion about analytics and the value of human intelligence, they continue to not invest.
A decade of drafting incompetence caught up to the Nats, and even with an amazing return for all their 2019-2020 stars, they couldn’t put it together thanks to it. Instead of having a 2022 1st rounder now producing in the majors we have Elijah Greene wiffing in low-A or perhaps our 2018 1st rounder as a mid-rotation starter instead of a MLFA who never got to High-A or perhaps our 2017 1st rounder producing instead of driving a truck in Texas or with some luck our 2020 1st rounder not just getting his MLB career started …. if all of that had worked out in our favor we’d be having a different conversation about the team right now.
Todd Boss
5 Feb 26 at 11:04 am
So I share your general cynicism, but I just think that 4 months into the 2027 lockout, someone’s going to start getting worried and a few of the “untouchable” ideas are going to wind up on the table.
One of things about scouting and player development that the new gang has me very worried about – scouts. The Houston GM tree scoffs at scouting, but a few years ago I was able to find a table of how many scouts are employed by each organization, and there’s a linear relationship between how many scouts you have and how good your farm system is ranked. An Astros Bro will tell you “oh all the talent is in those prep schools, don’t bother looking”, but if you find just one Lane Thomas, whose peak open-market value was $15M/yr (3 war @ $5M per), that pays for a lot of scouts. Similarly, you can build a better book on who you’ll be trading for, etc. If they ever get a salary floor, you’ll be looking at some of the wacky things like needing to burn $20M on a LOOGY, and optimizing the back end of your roster can become a really valuable thing.
Anyway, back to my day job.
kevin r
5 Feb 26 at 11:21 am
The Dodgers do great on prospect lists, but I’m not sure they’re actually above average at producing quality major leaguers.
Lat year, by FG, the dodgers had a full 21 players contribute more than 0.5 WAR. Of those, the 12 who were signed as major league free agents contributed 34 WAR vs 18 WAR from the other 9 players.
If you take the Nats’ best 9 players who were still on their rookie contracts, they produced 16 WAR last year. That’s one of the worst teams in the league, with a pipeline so depleted that almost all our leadership got fired, with all the pundits saying we’re years away of even trying to compete and that’s the smart play because there’s not enough talent – and yet that resulted in only 2 WAR less than the dreamteam Dodgers.
The difference between the Nats and Dodgers is not those 2 WAR. It’s the 30 WAR between their FAs and ours.
And this isn’t meant to tear the Dodgers down. They’re not the problem. It’s meant to argue against the idea that teams like the Nats are right to not spend any money. It’s complete bullshit.
SMS
5 Feb 26 at 11:53 am
I got curious if last year was a fluke, and it’s not.
Here are the similar numbers for 2026 projections (by FG depth charts, which averages Zips and Steamer for rate stats and assigns playing time by roster resource estimates).
The Dodgers have an incredible 23 players projected for more than 0.5 WAR. 9 are on their rookie contracts (including Sasaki, who deserves an asterisk in my opinion). Those 7 are projected to produce 15.5 WAR.
The other 16 players, who were signed as free agents, are projected to produce 39.6 WAR.
The Nats best 9 non-FAs are projected for 17.3 WAR next season. And that’s after trading our best reliever and our best starter for players that don’t feature in that top 9. (Though Ford only misses because of expected playing time.)
The story of the Nats failure is that our ownership group got spooked by a few unlucky draws in a row and decided to stop spending. Everything else is on the margins.
SMS
5 Feb 26 at 1:36 pm
SMS, you’re missing a big chunk of the equation: trades. Check out the WAR contributions by players acquired via trade. 5 of the 23 players with >0.5 WAR were acquired via trade, another 4 players acquired via trade provided positive value <0.5 WAR, totaling around 11 WAR last season in total. How were these players acquired? By trading away prospects. The Dodgers quite astutely sell high on many of their prospects, knowing that even among high-end prospects, there's still a solid bust rate. See: Keibert Ruiz and Josiah Gray. They turned Ruiz and Gray (combined 1.0 career WAR) into Scherzer and Turner (12 WAR combined just with the Dodgers). Or Betts for Verdugo/Downs/Wong, Glasnow for Pepiot, etc.
Maybe there's an element of Dodgers prospects getting overhyped (personally, I think it's absurd that River Ryan has gotten the hype he has), but in that case it seems the Dodgers have already recognized this by trading away quite a few of the ones that proved to be overrated, like Ruiz, Gray, Verdugo, Downs, etc. Though they seem to have missed the boat with extracting value from guys like B. Miller, Lux and Ryan.
Will
5 Feb 26 at 3:15 pm
With the caveat that I absolutely may have mischaracterized a name or two as I was quickly ticking through them, my analysis was trying to label anyone acquired by trade as a “non-FA” provided they were still playing on the contract that was traded to the Dodgers.
But my point isn’t even that the Dodgers’ farm is overhyped, though maybe it is a little, it’s that all prospects in aggregate are overhyped and the reason is that so much of the discourse revolves around surplus value and not simply quality of play.
And as an example of that, here we have the best run franchise in the sport, the preseason favorite to win the WS every year, and a quasi-laughingstock long term cellar dweller whose development disaster has been a national news story, and they’re basically getting the same production out of their pipeline.
Now I agree that the Dodgers can pay FAs at a level no other team can. And if the Nats were running a $200M payroll, I could see myself getting worked up about that. But, as things are, my first, second and third problem with baseball is that the Nats refuse to spend and I’m not going to carry any water for them and say that it’s a smart play or the best strategy or whatever. It’s not. If they spent more, we’d win more.
And I don’t care one bit about the purported revenue or profit numbers. When an owner sells a team for less profit than they would have gotten from investing their purchase price in SPY, we can talk. Until then, the appreciation of the underlying asset is providing plenty of value and the insistence of taking a profit on top of that is perverse.
SMS
5 Feb 26 at 4:45 pm