Citibank has a plate full of worry right now: limited bonuses, no corporate jet deal, and a $20M/year naming rights agreement with the Mets. No matter what, I think this one ends badly for the fans, and that’s where MLB should draw the line and start enforcing some sanity around player contracts, the stadiums that house the players with those contracts, and the cost to go to a ballgame in the current economy.
Normally I’d just scoff at large contracts and consider it fodder for some summer time, post-hockey season blogging. But my Devils ticket partner of the past six seasons decided not to invest in playoff tickets this year: of the eight of us in the group, nobody wants to shell out the money up front for the seats (it’s a sizeable commitment the Devils are asking for, in February, no less). The economy is going to take a bite out of everything, including the $12 sausage and pepper sandwich you’d normally wolf down when the Mets went to their bullpen in the 4th inning.
If the Mets lose $20M in stadium funding, you can bet that comes out of someone else’s pocket – if they draw 3 million fans this year, that means each fan will have to contribute $7 per game to make up the difference. So parking goes up $2, beer goes up another buck, the Premios cost another deuce, CrackerJack will cost the same as an equivalent volume of silver jewelry, and you extract another few dollars from the fan. There are only three problems with this scenario:
1. Fewer fans are likely to come to games, especially if the average cost per game goes up. New stadium or not, a large percentage of the “regulars” who live in Manhattan are looking for work, not foul balls.
2. It assumes infinite elasticity of demand for stadium concessions. More and more people are going to forgo that extra beer if each one costs as much as a six pack of something imported from the Czech Republic.
3. It sends the wrong message to fans: the players are important, the field is important, so if you want a team, suck it up and pay for it.
Here’s how I’d solve the problem – and realize that I’m not a labor lawyer, I’m not a contracts person, and I’m not running a ball club. But I do know what it’s like to spend $300 to see supposed superstars fall apart at clutch times, knowing that your exhorbitant ticket, food and parking charges are paying for them. All I ask is that the players with the largest stacks of chips contribute to the naming rights contracts.
I said it. If you’re making over, say, $3 million a year, then you get hit with a 5% tax that goes into a league-wide fund to pay off these insane stadium naming contracts. Otherwise, the taxpayers end up indirectly footing the bill, either through TARP funds that go to the bank that pay for “marketing expenses” (like naming rights) or through paying through the nose, wallet and teeth at the gate. So do a double good deed, relieve the taxpayers of an additional burden, and rename the stadiums for people and things — local color, local celebration, local heros. I miss Veterans Stadium, Three Rivers Stadium, the Boston Garden and yes, even the Brendan Byrne Arena. Isn’t it obscene that there isn’t a Jackie Robinson Stadium in New York? How about a Freedom Field, in honor of the victims of 9/11?
Unless you think that Mark Teixeira needs every dollar of the $17.5 million he’s going to make this year ($12.5M in contract, $5M in signing bonus). If we’re going to get upset about outrageous bonuses and cost structures that are out of control, then we should do it across the board: executives and athletes. More kids will idolize sports figures than the people who are trying to fix the economy. Why not get the athletes to demonstrate a little leadership in the only kind of “fixing” that belongs in sports — fixing the hearts and minds of the fans.
