Will professional sports salaries be affected by the bailout

I don't know, but supposedly, part of the spending plan is going to the Brooklyn Arena project for the Nets.

 

Sure seems like there's a bigger list of free agents in MLB than there usually is at this point...with names you wouldn't expect to be unsigned. I saw that Ray Durham indicated he hadn't had ONE offer all offseason.

Will be interesting to see what happens to NFL season tickets...because they come up for renewal soon. That's the first sport to be caught in the renewal deadline since consumers started really cutting back.

 

yes it's no more immune than any other sector of the economy.

 

actually, i took it as that originally...and then read it again after i posted and thought I screwed up.

 

I was really confused before you said this.

They will certainly will be effected. Between a cutback in advertising, stadium deals could be effected by companies going bankrupt, and owners certianly have taken a beating on their investments. I do think some people are using the recession as an excuse to cut costs, rather than an actual need to.

http://news.bostonherald.com/sports...lt_of_tough_economy/srvc=home&position=recent

 

Who cares? There will never be shortage of people wanting to be pro athletes at any price.

 

I think it will definitely make things interesting. I could see MLB trying to capitalize on it to straighten out their situation. And even though franchisees are now stadium owners, (something that wasn't as wide-scale during the last two recessions) they're going to have rely less on naming rights deals and corporate boxes than, y'know, actually booking events.

 

The big three, MLB, NFL, NBA...they won't be going down too much. Maybe the NBA. And that's a big maybe...I don't see there being a shortage of sponsorship money for the MLB and the NFL.

Fringe sports are going to suffer very badly. It's very possible that leagues like the WNBA will completely shut down and that the MLS and the NHL will be hit pretty hard.

 

I think Stern pegged the WNBA for the cross-gender NBA advertising, quasi-community relations expense and offseason local vendors boon it was a long time ago. If push comes to shove, the league office will take over and finance just enough teams to make a quorum; and any dame who wants to play ball stateside will take NBA dancer wages.

 

MLB salaries have already been affected. I think the NBA is fairly safe from a decrease because of the salary cap, and max salaries. The NFL won't see a big change, but I think we may not see major raises for draft picks this year, and veterans that are fringe starters/backups may be cut and replaced by young players with minimum salaries.

 

I've always wondered why athlete's salaries got so inflated anyway.
You could stock an NBA tea with 12 6'9" players who can shoot 40% by roaming the recreational gyms of the US and offering them $100,000. Heck , they play 3 mights a week now for nothing. You get 64 pretty competitive teams in the NCAA's.

You could find 10 guys who can throw 87 mph who would all do it for less than Andy Pettite's one contract.

Hitting a baseball and NFL quality QB's are pretty rare skills. Pass rushing DE's are rare athletes and the LOT's that have to block them.

The Florida Marlins are the example to me that professional teams don't have to play the celebrity/agent hype game. A lot of it seems like the same deal as the overpaid CEO's. Bob gets a million so Bill says he deserves a million too; and when Bob's contract comes up again he says Bill get's a million so I should get 1.5. The level of pay is set against an ever rising system wide standard that probably isn't justified by performance.

(then again, they can't sell out a playoff game, but if they had Manny, they probably would, even though they win without him)

To illustrate: Jamarcus Russell's rookie contract
Nothing he did or projects to do justifies $61 million bucks, but since that's what #1 picks get, that's what he got. Somebody was going to get that much because that's what the system dictates. There is no reality in it.

Welcome to the new age of reality.

 

Ask the last, I dunno, 15 people who probably ran programming at one of major networks in the last 5 years. Pro sports is the most consistently profitable thing to air on broadcast television, even crappily-rated but well-demographed golf; and therefore worth the obscene amounts of money the networks pay to them over multiple years. The athletes are the product; so they get the money.

 

There would be millions of NBA League Pass cancellations. The cable networks would let their contracts expire. Merchandising sales would drop, as nobody would want a Billy Bob jersey. Sponsors would pull out. Chinese sponsors first, since Yao and Yi are back in China.

 

ask TNT about ratings when barkley left and gary payton replaced him. That's why Charles is coming back soon, they forgave the mishap bc people do watch certain things for a reason. Would Is it home and watch The rice owls bball team hoop? God no, but will I gladly spend a night glued to a set watching lebron and kobe duel? Absolutely