Buoyant Baseball Teetering on the Brink

On the field and in the stadiums, it was a good year for major league baseball. Attendance boomed everywhere from the expansion cities in Denver and Miami to Philadelphia and Baltimore, where its 2-year-old stadium might someday be viewed historically as one of the game’s great turning points, to Atlanta and San Francisco, where fans agonized through the best pennant race in a decade.

A dynamic new generation of stars has evolved--Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., John Olerud, Juan Gonzalez, Frank Thomas, Mike Piazza, Randy Johnson, Lenny Dykstra, Fred McGriff, Greg Maddux, Carlos Baerga and so many others. Overall, depth might be thin, but the individual talent abounds comparably to any era.

But although the game itself is buoyant, the game’s world of business teeters on the brink with potentially disastrous brush fires starting to crackle throughout its vast landscape:

Nearly a year and a half after forcing Fay Vincent to resign as commissioner, there has been no obvious rush to replace him. The game basically continues to be run by assorted committees overseen by Bud Selig, the Milwaukee Brewers owner who has been an untitled interim commissioner.

A search committee has ostensibly been winnowing down the list of candidates with various names--Dick Ebersol, Tom Butters, Paul Kirk, Lynn Martin, Sen. George Mitchell, et al.--having been floated publicly. However, a large group of owners has been delaying the process by urging Selig to accept the permanent job on at least a short-term basis.

Both league presidents, Bobby Brown in the American and Bill White in the National, have expressed a desire to step down. However, there has been little movement toward finding replacements, and each reluctantly continues in his position.

The recent bankruptcy-court auction of the Baltimore Orioles resulted in a whopping $175 million price tag for the franchise. However, analysts view that as an aberration, a theory that could soon be tested because nearly a dozen franchises or shares of franchises have been rumored for sale in the past year.

Although new stadiums open this spring in Cleveland and Texas, stadium problems could threaten the long-term viability of both New York franchises as well as the Brewers, Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants.

The Senate Judiciary Committee delayed the introduction of legislation aimed at removing baseball’s antitrust exemption. However, several senators are said to be extremely frustrated by baseball’s lack of movement toward naming a commissioner and may press for the legislation after the first of the year.

Discussions to formulate a plan for revenue sharing among the owners have sputtered for months. Richard Ravitch, the president of the Player Relations Committee, whose ability to negotiate a new labor agreement with the players’ union is tied to a revenue-sharing plan among the owners, is becoming increasingly frustrated to the point that his resignation would not be a surprise.

The Basic Agreement between the clubs and players, which the owners reopened last year in what proved to be a meaningless strategical move, expires this month. However, since the owners bogged down in their own negotiations concerning revenue sharing, there has been virtually no effort to open talks between the owners and the players’ union on a new labor agreement.

After announcing amid great fanfare a plan to realign the American and National leagues into three divisions each and add an accompanying extra round of playoffs, the whole concept remains mired in stalled discussions with the Major League Players Assn., whose approval is needed for such structural changes. The players are seeking to share revenue from all five potential games in each of the added playoff rounds. Historically, players have shared revenue on the first three games of a best-of-five series (or the first four games in a best-of-seven format).

After CBS lost an estimated half a billion dollars on its TV deal with baseball, the owners shunned the traditional rights-fee approach to network television after the best up-front network offer represented a 50% drop in revenue. Instead, baseball formed The Baseball Network, a shared venture with ABC and NBC in which there are no financial guarantees. Conjecture is the clubs likely will receive $7 million to $10 million less per team each year from their network telecasts.

Ratings for this season’s exciting World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Toronto Blue Jays were the second-lowest in history.

All these various problems have created an overwhelming sense of uncertainty over the game. Interviews with baseball people at all levels, including players, general managers, agents, union officials, owners and TV executives, reveal such cautiousness that few are willing to talk for attribution about any of the issues.

However, it is clear there are significant ripple effects connected with all these issues.

Start with the commissioner’s job. Selig remains publicly adamant about not wanting the job on a permanent basis.

That hasn’t stopped the lobbying from other owners. And there has been speculation among many baseball people that Selig may end up accepting the job because of the difficulty he is having in building a needed new stadium in Milwaukee. So, the speculation goes, Selig would sell his franchise before taking the commissioner’s job. And without his local ties, new owners would presumably move the franchise elsewhere.

Selig has hotly denied such speculation in the past. And at the same time, there was much consternation among congressional sources when recent reports suggested Selig might accept the owners’ draft. “When some of the senators heard that, they hit the roof and were talking about getting the antitrust stuff on the floor immediately,” one senatorial staff member says.

Should the owners feel congressional pressure for a commissioner chosen from outside the ranks, the most logical and highly regarded choice would likely be Kirk, a respected Boston//Washington attorney who had a widely praised term as chairman of the Democratic National Committee and is a fervent baseball aficionado.

What would happen, meanwhile, if baseball loses its antitrust exemption? The impact on the majors likely would be negligible, though one clear effect would be that owners could move franchises without approval of their peers. For example, without the antitrust exemption, last fall’s shift of the San Francisco Giants to St. Petersburg, Fla., would not have been subjected to the scrutiny of other owners and San Francisco pressure.

However, the loss of the antitrust exemption could have a far-reaching impact on the minor leagues. Legal experts say territorial claims and major league affiliate arrangements could largely be negated with a resulting dilution in the number of minor league franchises.

There also has been ongoing speculation that Selig or a new commissioner might desire to move the commissioner’s office from New York to Chicago. That has placed in limbo many baseball employees who are now uncertain whether their jobs will remain in New York. At the same time, marketing and TV executives have been privately critical of baseball’s even considering such a move of its central operation.

Then there is Ravitch’s situation. There seems little question that should his frustrations with revenue sharing reach the point where he leaves his position, the entire labor situation could be thrown into chaos. As a union official put it, “It’s not that we necessarily like or dislike Dick Ravitch, but if he should leave, the whole process would be at square one, and it would be a really tough situation.”

Ravitch pledged months ago that the clubs would not lock out players or change any working conditions. However, should he resign, the owners conceivably might tilt to hard-line tactics that could interrupt or curtail the upcoming season.

The success or failure to negotiate revenue sharing will have a ripple effect on many franchises. Because some form of revenue sharing is vital to the stated long-range interests of many franchises in small- and medium-sized markets, the collapse of talks would likely force the sale or even transfer of some franchises.

Baseball’s unique TV venture is just getting off the ground. And no one can predict at this point its success or failure.