Building Toward a Letdown

It is one of Bud Selig’s stump speeches. If your team needs help building a new stadium in your town, the commissioner comes in and says, “If there’s no new ballpark, baseball will not survive in (your town here).”

Selig has delivered much the same speech to civic groups, corporate leaders and politicians across North America, including his own town, Milwaukee, where next season the Brewers will be playing in the new Miller Park. From Miami to Seattle and Montreal to San Diego, the message is the same: Without a new ballpark, the team cannot generate enough money to remain competitive.

Now, seven months after San Diego voters approved spending close to $300 million on a new stadium, the Padres acknowledge an issue on which Selig would rather not campaign: Even with the new ballpark, the team may not generate enough money to remain competitive.

“Will our new ballpark put the Padres on par with the Los Angeles Dodgers? No. It can’t,” Padre President Larry Lucchino said. “It can narrow the gap. But other changes have to be made. There is no single factor that can solve all these problems.”

Without restraint in player salaries, most notably to the north at Dodger Stadium, General Manager Kevin Towers says that the Padres cannot expect to win more than two out of every five years, new stadium notwithstanding.

“I doubt you’ll ever see this organization, even with the new ballpark, with a payroll of $80 million,” Towers said.

The craze for new ballparks-- Seattle opens one in July, with Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee and San Francisco following next season, Pittsburgh in 2001 and Cincinnati and San Diego in 2002--obscures the reality that teams do not make all their money at the ballpark.

And, once most every team gets a new stadium, economic imbalance again becomes evident. Poor teams get richer, but so do rich teams. A rising tide may lift all boats, but the Atlanta Braves still travel in a yacht and the Milwaukee Brewers in a kayak.

Or does Selig, the founding owner of the Brewers, really believe Milwaukee can compete evenly against Atlanta when Miller Park opens next year?

Not really.

“The question of building a new stadium, while it improves the situation, whether it really resolves it has become, frankly, much more of a question with each passing year,” Selig said.

“The Padres are raising a significant issue. There’s no question things have changed the past four or five years.

“A new stadium is not a panacea. We are going to have to make some adjustments to the economic system.”

The issue for Selig, for the Padres, for all the teams promising brighter days in new ballparks, is this: Amid the dizzying salary escalation, every playoff club in the last three seasons has had a player payroll above the major league average. An above-average payroll doesn’t mean you will win, but a below-average payroll apparently means you won’t.

The lowest player payroll among the eight playoff teams last season was $48 million. The Pittsburgh Pirates opened this season at $22 million and talk bravely of inflating the payroll to $45 million upon moving into their new ballpark in 2001.

That’s nice, but what if the Dodgers jump from $85 million this spring to more than $100 million by then?

Even this year, Lucchino said, the Dodgers will spend $12-15 million more on major league salaries than the Padres will make. That doesn’t count, Lucchino said, the additional millions the Dodgers spend on their minor league and scouting operations, their administrative salaries, their marketing and promotions budget, and so on.

“Our operational revenues are probably $75 million,” Towers said. “I can’t see them exceeding $100 million, even with the new ballpark.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that, if you have player compensation of $80 million with $100 million in revenue, you’d be losing a ton of money.”

Suppose the Padres generated every dollar from their new ballpark that the Arizona Diamondbacks do from theirs. The Padres won’t, because sponsors pay more to teams that attract more fans, in person and on television. But, assuming they were even in ballpark revenue, they still would lose in media revenue.

In the smallest media market in the National League West, the Padres receive less money in broadcast revenue than any other team in the division, some $10 million less per year than the Diamondbacks and $15 million less than the Dodgers, according to Broadcasting and Cable magazine.

“We’re still the little guys on the totem pole. That’s not going to change,” Towers said. “I don’t think our revenues, even with the new ballpark, will even be close to those of the Dodgers, the Diamondbacks or the Rockies.”

The citizens of San Diego have pitched in, putting up tax money in a joint venture with the Padres for the new ballpark. Now the Padres want other teams to pitch in.

“The new ballpark will enable us to survive in San Diego and give us a head start on making the team financially stable,” Lucchino said. “It’s not a solution by itself.

“There’s got to be other macro changes in baseball to ensure that all teams are competitive and most teams are stable and prosperous. That means getting a more balanced player compensation system.”

Selig agrees, and he wants ideas. He assembled a task force this spring, with Lucchino and Angel President Tony Tavares among the members, to propose solutions.

Peace in our time? Not an easy task. Players will howl at any attempt to restrict their salaries. And, in the face of mounting evidence that small-market teams prefer to use shared revenues to balance their budgets rather than pay players, large-market teams might resist sharing even more revenue.

They may resist simply on principle. John Moores paid $85 million to buy the Padres; Fox paid nearly four times that much to buy the Dodgers. Larger purchase prices reflect larger markets and greater risks; should they not also warrant greater revenues?

Ironically, the Padres might get kicked out of the small-market caucus in a few years. The imaginative San Diego stadium plan calls for the Padres to pay 30% of the ballpark cost as well as help develop the surrounding area with hotels, restaurants, shops, offices and residences. If development succeeds, the city and the Padres could each make millions on their investment.

That, however, is an issue for the new millennium. In the meantime, the Padres--and their $48-million payroll--are 11 games out of first place. The Dodgers are 7 1/2 games out.

“We’re very realistic,” Towers said. “We knew the likelihood of us getting back to the World Series this year was very doubtful, even with a payroll of $48 million.

“Now, if you’re the Yankees, Baltimore or L.A., when you have payrolls exceeding $80 million, you better win. If you’re going to spend that kind of money, you need to get into the postseason.”

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San Diego at Dodgers

Tonight, 7

Wednesday 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, 7 p.m.

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Mondesi Won’t Rest on Laurels: Right fielder Raul Mondesi said he prefers to play every day because “taking days off won’t help the team.” However, Mondesi, in the midst of a severe batting slump after a hot two months, might benefit from a little break. Page 6