The politics of glory
People often want to trace the origin of things. It may just be the full extent of my personal timeline, but I vividly remember the 1980s. Lifestyles of the rich and famous was always lingering in the background. Lotteries started popping up around the country. The Ronald Reagan revolution was in full force. It’s difficult to fully appreciate all the impact that it had on society. So, I’ll try one little corner of the world.
Baseball players have one of the more vibrant unions in professional sports. The first work stoppages actually began in the early 1970s with some minor skirmishes here and there before then. Everyone knows the Curt Flood story and the story of his sacrifice is told and retold to the point of folklore.
Somehow, in the intervening decade, athletes and the union went from being the little guy fighting for their rights to being greedy cry babies that weren’t satisfied with all they have. People started siding with ownership. People would exclaim that they’d be willing to do anything for a million dollars. Those players are just too greedy.
No one bothered to question how or why our outlook on these things changed so dramatically. Players are well compensated and there is no getting around that, but they are employees. One of the things we used to believe as a country is that when businesses make money then everyone should grow with that business. Yes, the business owner (or stock holders) should benefit, but so should the people that did the work to help the business grow.
Between World War II and 1980 we saw a virtual renaissance for the middle class. The GI Bill helped millions go to college. You heard all kinds of tales about people being the first in the family to graduate from high school and go to college. A progressive income tax helped build perhaps the most vibrant middle class in the entire world.
That was then. The Reagan years and in the intervening decades have taken that all back. Just remember, 2020 is the same distance from 1980 as 1940. A look at baseball salaries is an interesting place to start. In 2015, the average big leaguer was making 4.25 million per season. In 2021, the average big leaguer was making 4.17 million per season.
More than 60 percent of players at the big league level were making under a million dollars last season. Fans somehow see Mike Trout, Alex Rodriguez, and Albert Pujols and assume they represent the union. They represent the union about as much as the typical owner represents society at large. No one begrudges them their right to earn huge dollars. I’m sure the union members just wish a few dollars would trickle down to them at some point.
Obviously, MLB is big business and their big business operates about like all big businesses operate. The biggest problem in every single labor negotiation is in how to share revenues. The devil is in how they couch it. They want large market teams to curtail their spending so smaller market teams can compete.
Owners have never opened their books to the public. Yet, in a sport where revenues are exploding (with the obvious exception of 2020) and have been exploding fairly regularly for the past 30 years, baseball owners want you to believe they are somehow hurting financially. This is supposed to be true while average salaries have actually declined since 2015. They are losing money and the players want to bleed them dry.
It’s a bunch of bullshit. Yet, while they are shoveling this nonsense, fans are usually siding with the owners. Remember, more than 60 percent of players are earning a million dollars and that’s just in the big leagues. The tale of what happens to minor leaguers is much more stark. Yet, most owners today are worth north of a billion dollars. Franchises grow in value by more than 500 percent annually. If you stop and think about it, none of this adds up.
I know it gets hard to force yourself to care about millionaires fighting with billionaires over huge profits. That’s especially true if you aren’t a fan. Yet, this battle is essentially the same battle as the battle over minimum wage and wages in other industries. The rhetoric is the same. If they raised wages then the costs would swallow them whole or make the cost of a burger outrageous. Neither is true. That’s just what they want you to believe.
Back in the day, I was a Phillies Phan. When they won the World Series in 1980, I figured they’d never do that again in my lifetime, so I stopped following baseball.
I recall a quote attributed to the then owner, Ruly Carpenter:
I’m going to write a book, “How to Make a Small Fortune in Baseball.” You start with a large fortune.
Those were the days. 😉
1I hate to bust out the math, but 2019 is the last season where we have firm numbers on both sides of the ledger. MLB drew in a collective 10.7 billion. Naturally, there is a lot of inequity built in there. Tom Verducci reported that the Dodgers made more money off the parking lot at Dodger Stadium than the Pirates made off of their television contract. I don’t know how true that is, but obviously revenues aren’t exactly flowing to every team equally.
All that being said, teams spent a combined 4.16 billion on salaries in 2019. I’d point out that they spent even less last season in 2021. That 4.16 billion amounts to 38.9 percent of overall revenues. Both the NBA and NFL have collective bargaining agreements that guarantee players about 50 percent of overall revenues. They have caps that more or less guarantee each team gets an equal share of the pie. Obviously, there is wiggle room here and there, but that’s the general idea.
So, as a fan of the sport in general it is hard not to see the problem here. It ain’t the players. It all comes back to how you can guarantee each team remains competitive through revenue sharing. The question from the players has always been how you mandate teams spend the money they get through revenue sharing. After all, if we all acknowledge that revenue is on the rise and inflation is on the rise then they need to credibly explain how salaries can be going down.
2@Nick – I was just recalling a nugget I remember from the days I was a fan. NOT siding with the owners. I got no skin in that game anymore.
3Of course not Malarkey. I guess the overall arching point is that this is just one tiny example of how the narrative has changed in this country. We used to fight for the little guy and root for the little guy. Propaganda and other means have twisted that until we find ourselves rooting against the little guy. We (collectively and not individually) root against unions and root for big business. It becomes a story of how workers are greedy and aren’t just happy to earn the wage they are earning. The big business owners are the ones taking on the risks, so they deserve the lion share of the profits.
While baseball is big business, it is a very tiny part of that entire picture. Most people can’t really relate to a person making a 600,000 minimum salary. Yet, when you trace the changing narrative it follows the same line as the changing narrative between business owners and workers. Growing up there were similar stories about how lazy and bloated union workers were. They were not so subtle rhetorical attempts to bust unions and serve the interest of business owners.
4Meanwhile, Ukraine, climate change, nukes, Covid, starvation.
Beisbol talk is a safe refuge.
5Better example that average workers might relate to would be the auto workers in the 70s. When a union wage was a living wage with benefits, corporations blamed the workers for the price of vehicles, began the union busting and fragmenting of plants into non-union states. A nice vehicle at the time was ~$10,000. Now with wages stagnant and benefits nearly non-existent the low end vehicle cost is $40,000 and up. Screwing workers has saved us how much on the cost of vehicles?
6A common error is these discussions is to compare prices without adjusting for inflation or utility. Inflation from 1970 to present is roughly 600+%, so a $10,000 car in 1970 becomes a $60,000 car in 2022.
7Now consider reliability, safety, efficiency over 1970.
My wages at IBM with excellent benefits in 1962 were $2.45/hr, non-union. My wages in 2005 were $30/hr.
Ormond,
Your observation about inflation is a valid one. However, one needs to account for other factors. Defined pension plans were also a large part of the compensation many received back in the 60’s and 70’s. Contributions were made entirely by the employer. With declining unionization has come a marked decrease in pension plan participation, supplanted by self-directed and mostly self funded 401K plans. Sure, most employers contribute some money, but it is no where near the amount they had for the pension plans. And let’s face it, most people investing their own money are not as good as the professionals that run pension funds. A lot of people are not able to retire because they made poor investment decisions during their working career.
Another thing to consider is that employees have been taking on an increasing cost burden of healthcare over the past few decades as unions have declined. Increasing premiums, higher deductibles and copays are costs borne by the individual consumer. And let’s not forget medical inflation is much greater than the overall inflation rate.
Unions have been vilified to the point that a lot of people do not respect the heavy lifting they did to help create a middle class that is now in danger of disappearing. What a lot of people who never belonged to a union don’t realize is the rights the unions fought for had a spillover effect, benefitting them in the form of increased wages, pensions, medical care, better working conditions, paid sick leave, and vacation time. These people reaped the rewards without having to pay the dues.
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