From: zuhars@madrone.eecs.ucdavis.edu (Gary Didi Seven Huckabay)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Inevitable changes
Summary: Hmmm... How about this?
Date: 30 Sep 92 19:13:21 GMT
Organization: Lance Blankenship Appreciation Society (BB Division)

Ken "They don't call me overnight for nothin'" Emery writes:
>I think if anything major is going to be done on the restructuring 
>of baseball the national and american leagues should be junked and 
>and 4 regional leagues should be set up.  They should have 8 teams 
>each and play 154 game schedules.

Sounds reasonable, but I would like to see at least SOME crossover in
terms of scheduling...and a league consisting entirely of western
teams is eventually going to suffer in terms of revenue.

How about this:

	West          Midwest         South          East
      California      Chicago         Atlanta      New York
      Oakland         St. Louis       Tampa        New York
      San Diego       Kansas City     Miami        Boston
      Seattle         Minnesota       New Orleans  Pittsburgh
      Portland        Cincinnati      Charlotte    Philadelphia
      Chicago (AL)    Cleveland       Houston      Toronto
      Los Angeles     Detroit         Texas        Montreal
      Bay Area II     Milwaukee       Phoenix      Baltimore

Geographically, it's not perfect, but it could be worse.  For a
schedule, each team plays four teams from each other division 6 times,
for 72 games, and each team in its own division 12 times, for 84
games, giving a total of 156 games.

National TV revenue is shared equally among all teams, and all local
TV deals shall be divided as such: 40% is kept by the local team, 50%
is put into a common till, which is divided equally among the 32
teams.  The remaining 10% is put into a post season purse, of which
the champion gets 5%, the runner up gets 3%, and the two LCS losers
get 1% each.

Financial example:  The Knights, under the current system, receive
$13M per year under the national TV deal, $8M from their local TV
deal, $2.5M from radio rights, $24M from attendance, $11M from
concessions, $2M from parking, and $9M from licensing, for a total
of... $58.5 Million, I think.  The Knights are a middling, small
market team, with local TV revenue which is 67% of average.

Under the new system, they would keep only $3.2M of their local TV
deal, but would be paid $6M from the common TV revenue, for a $1.2
million increase.  It doesn't COMPLETELY make up for the difference
between the Knights and the average team, but it's better than the
current system.  And if the Knights win the world series, the club
pulls down $9.6 Million in cash.  I LIKE that sort of incentive, on
the ball club level.

Of course, this would require a COMMISIONER, rather than a lcakey.
I'm pretty much just dreaming.  But they way to handle the economic
ills of baseball (if you believe they're even real) is through revenue
sharing, and NOT through a player salary cap.


-- 
* Gary Huckabay * "We need MORE people in the league.  8 isn't going to *
* "Gurgle. Eep."*  cut it.  It's a blast.  Why would someone NOT want   *
* "Acck.  Unh." *  to play?" "Perhaps because you and Chu always pull   *
* "Jose. Igg."  * rabbits out of your hat at the draft." "Ha.  Fear."   *