My topic for this year is about "small market teams."
I see a lot of people complaining about how their poor, pitiful small market team can't compete and it makes me crazy because BS. The really small market teams are receiving revenue sharing monies, which a fair number of them are pocketing as profit. Also, please think of the poor billionaire owners who won't eat if they don't rake in huge bucks from their team.
Ugh.
The other thing I see posted a lot is it's the high salaries these players are getting that's making it so expensive to go to games. Um, no, it's not. They're charging what the market will bear. They have algorithms to figure out what they can charge for a Saturday night game as opposed to a Wednesday afternoon game. When the Orioles cut their payroll down to the bone, did they lower ticket prices? Yeah, it has nothing to do with what the players are paid.
And the third thing is where I'm going to end. Poor, poor pitiful me. I have no choice except to be a small market fan, so there should be a salary cap.
You totally have a choice on who to pick as your team. It's not as simple as this is where I was born and/or this is where I live, I have no choice.
I was born and lived most of my life in Minnesota. I grew up a Minnesota Twins fan (and I still root for them), but when I was in school, the Chicago Cubs were on WGN every day. So I'd get home in the afternoon and I'd turn on the games. I became a Cubs fan.
Later, when I moved into my house in Minnesota, I paid for the MLB.TV package so I could watch out of market games. (The Cubs had moved off of WGN and the Braves had left TBS.) I'd start with the east coast, but later in the afternoon, everything east of the Mississippi would be over with. If you saw my note above about writing with a game on, you'll know that I had to find a west coast team.
So I'd flip around the package. And there was this one announcer that was really, really good. I started watching that team's games whenever I needed a later game. The announcer? Vin Scully. The team? The Los Angeles Dodgers.
This was before their current ownership group. Before their current front office. This was when they had an owner that was not awesome. The team did okay, but it wasn't winning the division every year. This was during the time Matt Kemp should have won the MVP Award, and Dee Gordon-Strange was still Dee Gordon and James Loney was the first baseman.
I became a Dodgers fan before they were a powerhouse, and now that they are a powerhouse? I'm all in, baby!
So when someone says they have no choice about being a fan of a small market team, I know this isn't correct because I learned to love the Cubs and Dodgers by watching their games all the time.
Yes, I still root for the Twins and want them to win, but I don't watch them often. I do watch the Dodgers games, and with my baseball package, I can watch the archived game the next day because there is no way I can watch a game that begins at 10pm in my time zone. :-/
I know it's not as easy if you don't have the baseball package because no one except your local team is available, and if you've cut the cord from cable, it's even tougher. But I'm thinking the (mostly) men I see complaining online probably do have the money to buy the MLB package. Maybe they should try it and be happier.
