Bobby and Alex react to Elon Musk’s unfortunate newfound association with the Oakland A’s, break down the likely reasons why Arte Moreno decided not to sell the Angels, and speculate about what the demise of Bally Sports could mean for the rest of the baseball landscape, then answer listener questions about attending a full season of games, potential pod sponsorships, and the simplest way to explain baseball’s broken economic system.
Elon Musk an A’s fan now?
Diamond Sports Group is headed for bankruptcy
Daniel R. Epstein on Sinclair’s convenient stock buybacks
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Mt. Joy — “Lemon Tree” • boygenius — “True Blue” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
[INTRO MUSIC]
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and, and, and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches. So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand, what Tipping Pitches it’s all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: You know, Alex, I don’t think of us as being much of a breaking news podcast, in the sense that we don’t break news. We don’t really often talk about breaking news. We’re not in your feeds right after the biggest news drops. But today, I want that to change a little bit, because I want to break some news to the listeners. Sources within the Oakland Athletics organization have led the Tipping Pitches Podcast believe that Elon Musk will be purchasing the Oakland Athletics imminently.
ALEX: Our long national nightmare is over.
BOBBY: First things first, I want you to let that sink in. Let that sink in. And second, I want to get your statement as the consigliere to former, soon to be former owner, John J. Fisher.
ALEX: Well as, as, as he has said to me, personally, he’s given his heart and soul to this organization and to the city of Oakland.
BOBBY: So that’s why he has no heart left?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Ding! Got him.
ALEX: And you know, he, he wants to thank the people of Oakland for giving him so much money over the last 20 years. It meant a lot.
BOBBY: Right. To his net worth and his Forbes position.
ALEX: Right, exactly. The amount of trees he was able to cut down.
BOBBY: I love that he’s the deforestation guy.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Somehow.
ALEX: Like it’s [2:01] under the radar. Like he’s the, he’s the–
BOBBY: The Gap guy.
ALEX: –Gap guy.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: But also made a huge profit in deforestation.
BOBBY: Do you think that because Elon Musk is now buying the Oakland Athletics, which we can confirm with our sources–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –within the Oakland Athletics organization.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: John J. Fisher himself. Do you think that he’s gonna get into the deforestation game? You know, I kind of pick up where JJF left off.
ALEX: JJF- it’s certainly possible, but he’s spending so much time courting Saudi wealth right now that I just don’t know that he has room in his schedule.
BOBBY: Elon is not JJF.
ALEX: Elon, yes.
BOBBY: Right. But do you think that he could kind of merge like do a merger between Twitter and the A’s?
ALEX: Right, two birds in one stone, just take them both out?
BOBBY: No, I mean, there’s so much potential there.
ALEX: The first social media baseball team.
BOBBY: Right the jersey patch sells itself.
ALEX: Right, exactly. He’s posting Twitter polls about which player to sign.
BOBBY: This takes a rising tide raises all boats to a new level.
ALEX: Yeah. Hey, man–
BOBBY: What is, what is the opposite of that phrase? A shrinking tide beaches all boats? I like it.
ALEX: I like it, too.
BOBBY: Thanks.
ALEX: Yeah. You know, I as speaking as hurting A’s fan right now. I think it’d be hilarious. Like, I, I think that–
BOBBY: Do you?
ALEX: –I mean, I think I might not if there was more to lose, you know?
BOBBY: What’s the maximum amount of time that it would be funny for like a day? That’s the worst part about the Elan experience is that–
ALEX: Right, [3:41]–
BOBBY: –he finds a way to make anything that is situationally funny, extremely unfunny.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Like as soon as he’s out there doing his stupid like, like robot dance moves–
BOBBY: He’s doing a good–
ALEX: –on the pitcher’s mound.
BOBBY: –I think meme about the Colosseum.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Beer all of a sudden costs $4.20. Like, we’re like, okay.
BOBBY: I could get behind that.
ALEX: Yeah, I could get behind that too. Has a chance to be a man of the people.
BOBBY: A Vox populi, vox Dei/
ALEX: That’s right, man. You know, again, I feel like there’s very little for him to ruin at, at this point. I just, you know, I really value diversity of thought and I think he wouldn’t, he would bring a different perspective to baseball, an outsider’s perspective. We need more people in baseball who don’t know, what around the horn means.
BOBBY: Do you think, do you think trading for every player who didn’t get the vaccine is a better or worse team building strategy than trading all your guys before they hit arbitration?
ALEX: That’s a, that’s a great team building strategy–
BOBBY: I think it’s a pretty good, yeah–
ALEX: –are you serious?
BOBBY: I think that–
ALEX: Have you seen that roster?
BOBBY: Exactly. That roster is elite.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s a World Series contender.
ALEX: I mean, it’s a little moot now, right? Because I feel like a lot of the guys who stake their claim early all of a sudden had playoff aspirations. And we’re like, well–
BOBBY: You mean like the anti-vax guys?
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Or they signed extensions with the Atlanta Braves.
ALEX: That–
BOBBY: Or Texas Rangers. I, I love it for you. I’m really happy, you know, your long national nightmare is over. Our long national nightmare is over and now we have unlimited content. Shout out to Batting Around who had it first. Elon Musk, owner of the Oakland Athletics. Last question, is the Kelly Green jersey not cool anymore?
ALEX: That really- you know, my hope is that, because there was a lot of speculation–
BOBBY: Seem you like if George W. Bush came into like a press conference ring a members only jacket. You be like, wait, where are we wrong the whole time?
ALEX: There was a lot of speculation about who was on the actual jersey?
BOBBY: Yeah, definitely no one.
ALEX: And–
BOBBY: Or it was a custom jersey.
ALEX: –my hope, honestly, is that it was a Cole Irvin jersey so that he immediately experiences what it’s like.
BOBBY: Can you buy a Cole Irvin jersey?
ALEX: I, I think you can get a, you can make a custom jersey.
BOBBY: So you think Elon is buying a custom Cole Irvin jersey? I feel like it’s probably like Matt Chapman, you know, like a guy who hasn’t been on the team for two years.
ALEX: Right, exa- like he got it at a 40%- percent discount on.
BOBBY: Do we know if Dallas Braden and Elon Musk follow each other on Twitter? Because there’s a possibility that it’s a Dallas Braden A’s jersey.
ALEX: It’ a hu- a nonzero chance that–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –they do follow each other.
BOBBY: That’s my theory, Dallas Braden, A’s jersey. Dallas Braden, conspicuously in our replies, when I tweeted the photo of Elon wearing that the A’s Jersey.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So it’s all, it’s all bubbling up.
ALEX: Yup, it’s all, it’s all coming up Tesla. The good thing is the A’s already blowing up so often, that like, nothing really changes.
BOBBY: Exactly. I can’t wait for, that was gonna make a good joke, but I can’t name an A;s pitcher now. To catch on fire when he’s on the mound. Okay, time to, the rest of the podcast, we’re going to talk about, we’re going to talk about one team not selling- one team in the AL West, not changing hands as the Oakland A’s have. We’re going to talk about a very important company going bankrupt, allegedly. Then we’re gonna do some listener questions at the end. But before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[7:18]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex before we dive all the way in this week, a big shout out to our new patrons. Those new patrons this week are Louise and Josh. Speaking of the Patreon the, the support of the Patreon has allowed us to do something very fun. And that is purchased, purchase a neon sign to put in our studio as we record. I wonder if people can tell that the energy in here is up because of the neon light behind, Alex. Now we’re, now we’re real podcasters. The neon sign looks great. Please check our Twitter. And a quick shout out, quick thank you to the folks were @athletelogos who were great to work with in acquiring said neon sign. It’s not actually neon, it’s, it’s LED in plastic, but it looks damn good. Looks damn good. And you know what? If it falls, it won’t crack and poisoned my dog while she’s sleeping. Like a neon sign would.
ALEX: The bar is low, but it’s still there.
BOBBY: Well, the bar, the bar is low, but also there’s a, a nonzero chance that it could fall based on the fact that Alex and I took 30 minutes to hang the sign before recording this podcast.
ALEX: Because the, the holes were slightly off and so, at this point, none of the holes are, are exactly right, and that’s fine.
BOBBY: Do you- we don’t have carpentry skills, you know. You have a drill that’s about as far as it goes.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t even know anyone, so, okay. Alex, Arte Moreno.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: He’s just not doing it, he can’t go through with it.
ALEX: Gotta love him.
BOBBY: He can’t bring himself to give up his most prized possession, the Los Angeles- sorry, actually his most prized possession, the potential to buy the real estate surrounding, the Los Angeles Angels stadium and develop it. He’s not selling the Angels, after all this time. This is the second team that was rumored to say to be up for sale that will not sell after the Washington Nationals were taken off of the market by the Lerners just a couple of weeks ago. What happened? In your estimation, why isn’t Arte Moreno selling the Angels? Do you believe Rob Manfred when he says that Arte Moreno just loves the game too much.
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: He’s married to the game and he did not want to get a divorce.
ALEX: I, I want to, I want to give it the benefit of the doubt here. What they were going through was an exploratory process, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: To see if there were potential parties interested in purch- purchasing the Los Angeles Angels, a, a multi billion dollar sports franchise. It was an exploratory process, and what they found is that Arte Moreno was still the best owner for the Los Angeles Angels. There was no guarantee he was going to sell, right? He came back and said, no, I’m still the best guy for this.
BOBBY: He’s recommitting, they’re renewing their vows. You know, they were, they were on the rocks.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: And now they’re, they’re taking a little vacation to Hawaii.
ALEX: Yeah, he–
BOBBY: Do a little–
ALEX: –he’s back–
BOBBY: –waterfall, to stand by a waterfall and renew their vows together–
ALEX: Exactly, he’s–
BOBBY: –in private.
ALEX: –he’s–
BOBBY: Beautiful moment.
ALEX: He’s back in [10:35], it’s too Arte to Mareno, you know.
BOBBY: I, when this news came out, a lot of people were saying, you know, a lot of people were intimating that maybe this means that the sale prices for these teams was not quite exactly what people were expecting. Was not the overwhelming offers that you might have seen just a few years ago, for example. And that was quickly proven wrong by Sam Blum of The Athletic, who reported that there were at least five groups that had put in bids. I don’t know if they like formally put in bids, or they suggested that they would put in a bid of over two and a half billion dollars. Which would be the largest, the, which would be the highest price that a MLB franchise ever sold for. The current record is Steve Cohen purchasing the Mets for a valuation of 2.4 billion. He already owned part of the team. So we didn’t actually pay all of that in cash. But this, the va- the offers that the at least five groups were in on for the Angels was, was valuing the franchise at $2.5 billion. Obviously, the Angels are not the most valuable franchise. And so that take that oh, maybe the, the franchise value of baseball teams has cooled off a little bit in the last couple years, doesn’t really, doesn’t really hold up. Notably, the Phoenix Suns just sold a few weeks ago for a valuation of around $4 billion to, I believe, billionaire insurance man. Not sure on that last part, whether he’s an insurance man. Named, name is Mat Ishbia, probably didn’t make his money in a fun way for everybody else except for himself. So this, the value of franchises right now is not really the story here. The story is that Arte Moreno wants to hold on to the Angels. And it’s up to us and the other people who care about this sort of thing to figure out why? And so I wonder what you think about that? I mean, I know that they said that Arte just feels like he’s still the best man for the job, and he really wants to turn this around. And he wants to win a World Series. He bought the team just a couple years, or like the year after they won their World Series, which is really funny.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So, so what do you think? I have a couple theories, but I’m curious to hear what you have to say.
ALEX: I think the simple answer, which is, you know, only one aspect of this is that he recognizes that the line when it comes to team valuations goes up for every year, without fail, right? He could sell now, he could cash out. Or he could do so in five years, or 10 years and make even more money. And there may be some credibility to the fact that he’s not getting as much as he wanted, right? As much as he saw the franchise as being valued, which is not to say that they are undervalued in the terms of the, the market. But it’s possible, he may have said I can make another one $200 million off of this. I think it’s also worth noting, and we’re going to talk about this in, in a little bit. There’s a lot up in the air as it comes to MLB’s streams of revenue, especially regarding local TV broadcast rights. And if any investors are skittish around that, around certain streams of income, he may very well say, you know what, I’m gonna wait until the dust settles. And then I can come back to them and say, look, our streams of revenue are as strong as they’ve ever been, if not stronger, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And maybe that’s, you know, by that point, MLB has set up its own profitable, like, you know, blackout free streaming model or something like that. I, I, I’m wondering your perspective, because I do think it’s, it’s a combination of a lot of these factors, and probably things that we don’t even know about.
BOBBY: The first thing that I thought of when I saw that Arte Moreno was not selling the Angels was that he was going to be able to make a deal to develop the area around Angel Stadium. The deal that was scuttledbutted by the fact that the mayor of Anaheim was wrapped up in an anti corruption investigation by the FBI. And so that undid the deal, which people had a lot of opposition to because it was sort of behind, done behind closed doors when it was supposed to be put up for a public bid to anybody who wanted to develop this area around Angels Stadium. My guess is, he feels with a level of certainty that he will still be involved in that somehow or the Angels will be able to benefit from that. Even if he doesn’t, even if he or the Angels or whatever, don’t actually end up owning this area around the Angels Stadium, he thinks that it will add to the franchise value of the Angels. That was the first thing. The second thing is, I kind of feel like MLB expansion is coming in the next five years. Because why would you sell your team, if in three years, they’re going to expand Major League Baseball and the expansion fee that those teams have to pay nets, each owner a $50 million check straight from the expansion group? And so you wait until after they expand, because then you cashed that check. And then you sell the team after that, or you start exploring, selling the team after that. Now, that’s like a little bit more hairy, that’s a little bit more of a risk, because you don’t know what expansion does to the value of each individual franchise. I mean, the laws of macro economics would tell you that the franchise value should drop for a few years. Because the league won’t be making significantly more revenue just from adding those two markets. But the scarcity of the product has now become a little less. You have two more franchises than how are these franchises quite as valuable as they were when there was only 30. Obviously, in a, in a rigged market, such as baseball, that is not necessarily going to hold true. Like there’s a chance that they expand and the franchise values of everybody go up still. Because it’s like, oh, now we’ve proven after one year that there are two more viable markets for Major League Baseball. And that means that it’s even more valuable to own a team because they might still be adding more markets and there might still be potential for exorbitant, exorbitant revenue growth, nationwide. I, I think you’re right, I think you’re smart to point out that we are at sort of like the end of something right now with how baseball teams make money. Because cable money, though still flowing in at the same rate that it was flowing in. I think MLB has started to rain any expectations for what cable money are going to make for people? Or are going to make for, for individual teams. I mean, all of these teams have relatively good cable deals. But there is like legitimate anxiety, seemingly from Rob and from the owners about what that looks like in the future. And so this blackout, free streaming, I mean, there’s a chance that that could be incredibly lucrative, in the same way that MLB advanced media, set up MLB TV and then sold that platform, as a, as being at the vanguard of what live streaming could be like or what a, what a digital streaming platform could be like the technology for that. If MLB is the first major sports league to figure out how to, how to set up a business model and a tech platform that streams their games, with no blackouts, And customers prove that they’re willing to pay more money for that, well, then all of the other leagues might want to get involved in that too. And they might want to buy a stake in that sort of technology. So that’s one element to it. And then also, what if these franchise values go through the roof because of sports betting, like more than they already have? That’s that’s like flush cash immediately. Because of all of the deals that Major League Baseball teams are doing with these sports books and online gambling companies and that sort of thing. But if it becomes a sort of thing where it’s like solidified as part of the regular year over year, revenue of Major League Baseball teams reliably, the way that TV streaming, the way that, the way that cable rights are, the way that streaming is, the way that advertising, and the way that ticket sales are if there’s like another head of that monster, and it’s sports betting, or if it’s a sports book being in the parking lot next to the stadium. If you’re Arte Moreno or if you’re the Lerners, you kind of want to wait to get a piece of that before you sell, you know. You don’t want to sell Apple before they invent the iPhone. So it’s like, to me it’s a combination of factors. None of those factors are the interest in baseball teams is going down for investors.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I can completely agree. I think that both owners and investors and Rob Manfred recognize that teams are a good investment now. And for the long term, as you mentioned, the floodgates are probably about to open when it comes to the money that sports betting is going to bring in. And I, I don’t know why every owner wouldn’t want to have a piece of that. The, the only, the only thing I could think of and, and maybe my small not billionaire brain simply can’t understand this.
BOBBY: Yeah, but you have the billionaire mindset.
ALEX: Right. I mean, like–
BOBBY: That’s what, that’s what attracts the person like JJF.
ALEX: Have instilled, is instilled in me, yeah. I remember when I was 76 years old. Like just cash out dude, you kind, you did what you needed to do.
BOBBY: Do you know if Arte Moreno has like a, like a, like a kids that he has like a positive relationship with that he would want to pass this franchise on to. Or do you think he just wants to like, get some extra cash before he dies?
ALEX: I think he just wants to cash. I think he has kids, but I’m not sure that they have interest in running a baseball team.
BOBBY: Do you think he would donate the Angels to the Republican National Convention?
ALEX: Well, what I was gonna say is he could tell the team and just started dark money fund, you know, and like–
BOBBY: Do you think he doesn’t have a dark money fund already?
ALEX: Yeah, but imagine what 2.4 billion would do that?
BOBBY: Speaking of dark money funds, there was a good story in Sports Illustrated this past week by Mark Daluki, who dove deeper into the Giants and their dark money. And Charles B. Johnson’s dark money campaigns and super PACs to fund far right Republican candidates. He donated almost $4 million of dark money in, in the 20- 2021 and 2022 election cycles. It’s a lot of money.
ALEX: It’s a lot of money, but it could be 40 million, you know, This is what I’m saying Arte, not that I’m in you know, encouraging you to wield your unearned influence over our, our political system.
BOBBY: But if it benefits the Angels fans then.
ALEX: Right hey, the influence is already there.
BOBBY: The last piece of this honestly, is that I kind of feel like everybody’s worried that we’re about to go into a five year long recession.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So what’s a better asset to hold secure your investment losses your financial losses into than a sports team?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: As we know from the ProPublica report last year or two years ago at this point, every sports owner, every billionaire- sports owner just pretends like their baseball team, loses a hundreds of millions of dollars every year to the IRS.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s great.
BOBBY: And it’s like, well, Arte Moreno like, well, if I can’t, if my money that’s tied up in the S&P 500 is going down. Then I’m just gonna sink that into the Los Angeles Angels.
ALEX: Yeah, who needs the Cayman Islands when you have a baseball team?
BOBBY: Exactly. Major League Baseball is just the Cayman Islands of sports leagues. I love it! I love it! Speaking of losses, to the tune of millions and millions and millions of dollars, Sinclair Broadcasting. The broadcasting conglomerate that owns Bally Sports, formerly Fox Sports regional. This obviously, we this, we talked about this a lot on the show when this happened. But Fox Sports local Fox Sports, was packaged together and sold to Sinclair Broadcasting, rebranded to Bally Sports, and all of the local cable channels that used to be Fox Sports South Florida, Fox Sports Ohio, Fox Sports wherever the fuck, are now Bally Sports. Bally Sports Florida, or Bally Sports Ohio, or whatever it might be. And that company, Sinclair Broadcasting is now headed for bankruptcy. I don’t believe that they have officially filed for bankruptcy yet. But it was reported in Bloomberg last, Bloomberg last week that they are having some money troubles. This is a big shit show, a really big shit show. And I don’t know where MLB goes from here. I don’t know what their move is, is it to say to Bally Sports, oh, if you go bankrupt, you have to sell all of these rights back somewhere else who wants to buy, you know, 10 local cable networks rights to stream Major League Baseball games. Because they’re not the marquee markets that–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –Bally Sports owns. Like they’re not, they don’t own the Mets or the Yankees or the Dodgers or any of these oth- the Phillies. Like they don’t, that those are not the, the channels that they purchased. And so, number one, this doesn’t mean that streaming baseball games lost Sinclair all of this money. I think that they had a lot of financial problems before they made this last ditch effort to rebrand Fox Sports regional into Bally Sports and try to save their company. But I kind of don’t know what happens from here and it, it’s a sort of shining example of the fact that the, the fact that like wider economic factors can have such a drastic impact on Major League Baseball. Because of how corporate all of these corporations are for lack of a better phrase. They don’t like these, these organizations like these teams don’t sustainably market the idea of baseball. They just take money wherever they can get it from financial solvency of the company giving them money be damned.
ALEX: Yeah, there’s a lot to the story. and, you know, I think we should talk about it more with folks who have a better grasp of what it means when a company goes bankrupt. Because I, I read a sentence like the restructuring plan favored by many creditors in the company would see the largest lenders becoming owners turning much of its debt into equity through a Chapter 11 process, and my eyes glaze over, right? So like–
BOBBY: You’re wearing an Enron hat, bro, you’re supposed to know this stuff.
ALEX: Well, I, I pay attention when the company fails. Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: Isn’t Chapter 11, that’s bankruptcy.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Just like filing bankruptcy with the US government.
ALEX: Yes. Right. I mean, so basically what they’re saying, right, is the people who they’re in debt to would just become owners–
BOBBY: Of the company.
ALEX: –of the company. And as I understand it, they would then turn around and try and sell it. It, it’s worth noting that, so it’s not Sinclair itself that’s going bankrupt, it’s their subsidiary Diamond Sports Group, which is what operates Bally. Yes.
BOBBY: Sorry- I tried, I tried to let you get through that. But I just I couldn’t, I couldn’t.
ALEX: But like–
BOBBY: It’s not Tipping Pitches that’s going bankrupt. it’s Diamond Rodriguez investments.
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: Which is the subsidiary of Tipping Pitches that–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –purchases neon signs and hardware for recording the pod.
ALEX: Right, and operates our construction.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. It builds studios for various independent podcasters across Brooklyn.
ALEX: But you’re right that like the implications of this could be really wide reaching. Because we know how, frankly important This money is to baseball teams. It brings them, it brings the league more than $2 billion a, a year as Craig Edwards who use right for FanGraphs has done wonderful research on. And we also know that anytime a stream of revenue from Major League Baseball is interrupted, that gets brought up as it relates to payrolls as it relates to ticket prices. As it relates to the split of revenue sharing between ownership and players.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right now, right now they’re on the hook for about $2 billion. There’s a, there’s like a $600 million payment. That’s, that’s coming up next month, and then the rest of that to be paid out, I guess later this year.
BOBBY: This is diamond whatever?
ALEX: Correct. Yes.
BOBBY: I–
ALEX: [27:18]–
BOBBY: Lost all of those words.
ALEX: –Diamonds Industry Capital Fund.
BOBBY: DICF, right.
ALEX: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: All of those guys. I mean, presumably, like MLB will get their money one way or the other, right? Or they’ll tear up these contracts and sell them to somebody else.
ALEX: Right, so was, so that’s the other thing, right? It’s like, it could disrupt a revenue stream, or it could accelerate–
BOBBY: The all of the teams who wanted to–
ALEX: Right!
BOBBY: –renegotiate their labor cable deals a new way.
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: Goddamnit! Fucking Rob strikes again.
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: Did MLB makes more money out of this somehow, God.
ALEX: Yeah. But, but again, This is going to be a long kind of drawn out process. And I would be willing to go to the bank with the idea that some owners somewhere are going to use this as a reason why payrolls a little lower this year. Or why Minor League Baseball players actually can’t get as big of a cut as they thought they were gonna get, because now each team has 60 million fewer dollars each year. And, and Daniel Epstein over in baseball prospectus did a really good write up of just kind of the, the ripple effects that something like this would, would have. And he also has a, has a great point up top about how somewhat coincidentally over the last couple years. Sinclair has spent roughly, I think $2 billion on stock buybacks. Heard of those? You know those things that give executives big payouts right before a company goes under.
BOBBY: Oh, man! That’s dope.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: They stock buybacks, Major League Baseball.
ALEX: Literally Major League Baseball.
BOBBY: It’s better than fucking doing it to airline consumers!
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, yeah.
BOBBY: Right? Like it’s better than, I, I don’t know. I, I am sure that this is just Sinclair not wanting to be in the live sports streaming game anymore. And so they purposely tanked that arm of the company so that they could fold it file for bankruptcy for it. Pawn it off to the people who own the debt, and write it off as a loss for the rest of the company. Which is making fucking insane amounts of money on like local news channels. It’s like warp the minds of 57-year old men and women and–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –middle America. Not even middle America and like fucking Philadelphia.
ALEX: Yup, uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know, like Sinclair is also the company right that owns all of the regional–
ALEX: Hundreds of.
BOBBY: –hundreds of regional news channels as well not just regional sports channels.
ALEX: Right. They were the one a few years ago pre zombie Deadspin did a, did a great story about how, like a 100 news channels across the country had their anchors reading word for word, the same script about how they are committed to like fair and unbiased journalism. You know, that’s for the people not beholden to–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –corporations.
BOBBY: You know what that reminds me of? Big 1984 energy, great Orwellian.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, big brother.
ALEX: It reminds me of Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451.
BOBBY: Keep going, come on, we can do it. It reminds me of–
ALEX: Brave New World.
BOBBY: Great. Can you imagine 100 news anchors across the United States and they’re like, so we beat on boats against the current borne back ceaselessly into the 11pm news slot. Anything else to say on Sinclair Broadcasting?
ALEX: No, I mean–
BOBBY: Do you think the CEO will come onthis podcast and teach us how to file title 11 bankruptcy for Diamond Rodriguez investments?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Right, how to commit stock buybacks to, to–
BOBBY: How do we stock buyback the Patreon?
ALEX: I, I think we need to figure out where we’re pivoting first, right? Like–
BOBBY: Are we sure that Patreon is not gonna go out of business, by the way? I think they ran their CEO out because he was a clown.
ALEX: Oh, really?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I mean, that’s, that’s good, right? He- they ran him out because he’s a clown?
BOBBY: Yeah, it’s good. but also like, it’s how 100s of 1000s of people make a living now.
ALEX: That, that–
BOBBY: It’s like how people pay for health care ala carte.
ALEX: But, I think the last thing I want to say on the Sinclair thing is the, the claim here is that they woke up yesterday and realized, more people are cutting the cord than ever. And digital streaming is the future, and they just weren’t prepared, right? They just, their business model was just not set up to succeed in this environment. They weren’t ready for it. And it’s worth noting that’s bullshit, right? Like we’ve seen this coming for a decade. Sinclair, they, they made this purchase in 2019, just over three years ago. When we were–
BOBBY: Famously a time when no one was talking about cord cutting.
ALEX: Right. Famously, no one on this podcast even, no–
BOBBY: Here–
ALEX: –no guests that we’ve had on in the last few weeks.
BOBBY: Here’s what happened, the oral history of Sinclair Broadcasting, having one of their wings go bankrupt.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: On their subsidiaries go bankrupt. They’re gonna stay away from cable, you know, cord cutting, they were scared. They’re gonna, they were gonna stay out. They weren’t gonna make any big splashes in the sports world. And then the CEO of Sinclair, Sinclair Broadcasting, fill in name here. What’s his name? Google it. Come on, I’m vamping now, you’re Googling to the CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting,
ALEX: Chris Ripley.
BOBBY: Chris Rip- that’s [33:19], Chris Ripley. By the way, I remembered Alex, God damn it, yes! I just remembered what I was gonna called up in this podcast with that was not baseball related–
ALEX: Wow!
BOBBY: –at all. And it’s perfect for this segment. It’s perfect for this segment. I was going to open this podcast by asking people if they knew that Vin Diesel’s real name is Mark Sinclair. A fact that we discovered last night. While inexplicably talking for like 45 minutes about the Fast and Furious franchise-
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –with our friend group, and me being like Vin Diesel, that wasn’t his real name, right? That’s not his real name. I thought maybe that Vin Vincent was like his first name and Diesel was just like his last name start with a D and he was like to be cooler if it was diesel.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But his name is Mark Sinclair.
ALEX: Mark Sinclair.
BOBBY: Mark Sinclair.
ALEX: Fucking financial analysts, motherfuckers.
BOBBY: Fucking CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting–
ALEX: Yeah!
BOBBY: –motherfucker. That’s what I’m saying. Like that’s, that’s what reminded me of it. God, I feel so much, a weight has been lifted off–
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: –my shoulder. For hours I’ve been trying to think–
ALEX: [34:19] just pacing.
BOBBY: I’ve been trying to think what I wanted to open this podcast talking about that wasn’t baseball related. Because it’s deep, deep into the offseason. Okay, back to Chris Ripley?
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Chris Ripley.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: The CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting, Chris Ripley. You know what he was doing, 2019? He was firing up the old Tipping Pitches 2019 State of Labor In Baseball. And he heard a man wiser than anyone in the world named Michael Baumann say, that streaming is bullshit. And that cord cutting is a myth. And we should go back to cable. And, you know, he thought, in the same way that Rasputin was whispering in the year of the SARS, in Russia? Chris Ripley thought that Michael Baumann was a voice for the people. And he thought that everybody was going to cycle all the way back to cable. And so you know what he did? He bought Fox Sports regional.
ALEX: That’s, who among us, right?
BOBBY: Who among us has not listened to the wise counsel of Michael Baumann and spent billions of dollars to create Bally Sports? Okay? So we are intimately threaded into this story. And I would like to say, to Chris Ripley, who clearly as I’ve demonstrated listens to this podcast, if you would like to come on, and discuss the stock buybacks, or any other element of the story, he is more than welcome the Zoom is open. Or he can come into the studio here, we can get him a third little chair over there.
ALEX: Yeah,
BOBBY: He can observe the beauty of our, our new sign. I don’t know how we got here. That being said, let’s take a quick break and do some listener questions when we get back.
[36:06]
[Music Transition]
BOBBY: All Right, Alex, we have time for three listener questions. These three are all from Slack, that is a perk of being in Slack is that it’s much more likely that we will see your listener questions that we will respond to your listener questions. As a reminder, you can be added to the Slack by signing up for any of the tiers of our Patreon, patreon.com/tippingpitches. First question comes from Alexis. Would y’all ever go watch your favorite team? The Elon Musk owned Oakland Athletics, for you. The hedge fund king owned New York Mets for me, play all 162 games. Alexis says, I only know one person who has attended all 162 games. First of all, who is that person?
ALEX: What?! You say only like that’s a low number of people to know.
BOBBY: Are they, a manager in Major League Baseball? Like GMs don’t even watch 162 games–
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: –you know? What say you? Would you watch the A’s play 162 games?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Would you watch the A’s play like 50 games in person? Because the, the question is go and watch–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –the teams.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So your with the team?
ALEX: In [37:34], yes.
BOBBY: For every game.
ALEX: I mean, so the premise of this question, I’m assuming that I’m, I don’t being paid to, to do this that I have no work obligations or–
BOBBY: And your work obligations is this podcast.
ALEX: Well, right, exactly. So there’s, this podcast is paying me to go to 162 A’s games.
BOBBY: Well, right now it’s paying you but you’re not going to any A’s games.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: So, what’s the difference?
ALEX: Like I’m not trying to get hung up on–
BOBBY: Are you trying to say that you can’t live off your $500,000 salary that you get from this podcast? Is that what you’re saying? Some leftist you are.
ALEX: Yes, exactly. That’s why I’m advocating for the stock buybacks.
BOBBY: Any update on whether or not you won the Alex Rodriguez contest?
ALEX: No update!
BOBBY: No?
ALEX: The contest is over.
BOBBY: As in a winner has been announced? Some shady dealings going on there. Nasty stuff.
ALEX: All right, I’m, I’m going to investigate and, and I’ll get back to you.
BOBBY: Okay, next week.
ALEX: If, if one was going to do this.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Because I think that like there’s a world in which, yeah, that’s pretty fun. Hey, you take the summer off, go travel with your favorite baseball team/ Sure. It sounds exhausting, and I personally wouldn’t do it. But I could do like half, like half, half the year, you know?
BOBBY: Like every home game or like half the home games and half the away games.
ALEX: All, all the away games.
BOBBY: I feel like, an element of this question is that I feel like not enough people are acknowledging that half the games are not at home.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So like you’re–
ALEX: That you have to travel.
BOBBY: Yeah, and you’re not gonna get on the comp- you’re not gonna get on the team plane.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Well you’re flying fucking coach!
ALEX: This is what I’m saying, like is Tipping Pitches is buying my plane tickets, buying my meal tick- Am I, do I get to–
BOBBY: How much money do you need, dawg?
ALEX: Do I have to like–
BOBBY: You can’t buy a plane ticket with the 500k that you make from this podcast?
ALEX: Is this like a supersize me thing where I also have to like eat all my meals at the ballpark too? Like that’s going to be so many garlic fries.
BOBBY: It could make a really good documentary if we did this.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just your mounting delusion of having a [39:35] 162 A’s games.
ALEX: One man’s descent into madness.
BOBBY: Bro, you could use Elon’s jet to get from game to game.
ALEX: That’s true. I do know where it is this very second.
BOBBY: Don’t say that we’re gonna get this podcast is gonna be banned from Twitter if you say that. The answer to this question is, no way, dawg! No way! No way.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If you said, if the question was, could you watch 162 Mets games on TV in one year? The answer is yesm but like barely.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, like, we are crazy about baseball. I would say we’re 93rd percentile of real life baseball, like we watch the games and enjoy the games. But I still like, go to dinner. Or, like, I still go see my parents, you know.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I don’t watch the Mets while we’re doing other things.
ALEX: Right. You’re like you’re missing weddings at this point.
BOBBY: Yes. You’re missing births.
ALEX: Like–
BOBBY: You’re like missing work. You know, you’re, you’d have to take like a full on sabbatical.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I mean, you wouldn’t, because you’re getting half a million dollars a year from salary.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: And meanwhile, I’m over here just working on a humble
ALEX: I know, your we’ve met you add like an 850 minimum, minimum wage.
BOBBY: But I log it as 200 hours to edit the podcasts, so I make it all back and fake hours. Yeah, no, I could not do this, nor what I want to nor what I think it’s fun. I, there’s very few places on earth. I enjoy more, I enjoy being at more than a baseball stadium. But 162 times in such a compressed timeframe is too many times.
ALEX: Yeah. I, see, I think following a team on the road could be cool.
BOBBY: Yeah, for like a month.
ALEX: Well, because you have built in breaks, right? Like you, you’re off when they play homestand, you get to see all the stadiums around baseball. So you’re also not eating the same food, you’re not going back to the same sausage stand every time you go to Citi Field or whatever. Which is usually what you and I end up doing when we go to Citi Field. So like, I feel like, I would need to rope a handful of friends in to do it with me. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be very enjoyable. But again, if the stars align, right, so I’m being paid copious amounts of money to do this. I don’t have any obligations for work. I have friends.
BOBBY: You sounds so certain about that.
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Do you have friends? Prove it.
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: Name five friends that you have.
ALEX: I mean, this would be that what I’m staking that friendship on.
BOBBY: I like, I like your idea that it would be more fun to just do 81 games, all of their road games. And then the next year, then, then you could go to cover me.
ALEX: Right, you’re free, you’re free.
BOBBY: You’re free to do whatever you want. The, the real trouble is that you would have to fly every time.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because teams do not, team, team scheduling no longer has any bearing on actually the distance between places. Like obviously, if you’re an East Coast team, oftentimes they’ll do like your whole California away stand at the same time, or you’ll do like all of Texas at the same time. But those are big ass places. Like you can’t really drive. If the A’s, if the Mets are playing the Angels on Tuesday and the A’s on Thursday. That’s kind of annoying.
ALEX: That’s really annoying.
BOBBY: I’s actually really annoying. And then they’re like going back and playing the Padres on Friday night, like that sucks. Like, I’m not doing that, I’m not driving that. So you’d have to fly. So I, I don’t really I’m not, I’m not built for it, I’m not built for it. I think it would make for interesting podcasting.
ALEX: I mean, it’ll be great content.
BOBBY: Yeah, but I don’t think we can do it.
ALEX: Right. Like I’m sorry to my body, but this is incredible content, you know.
BOBBY: Okay, next question, Sam, who claims to be the chair of the Lars Nootbaar defense committee.
ALEX: I’ve yet to see paperwork on that.
BOBBY: I don’t feel like Lars Nootbaar needs that much defense. I feel like people are relatively high on him. What former players harebrained entrepreneurial scheme real or y’all can create? Would you accept as Tipping Pitches sponsors?
ALEX: I want to say I, I read this first and my brain processed about 40% of the words. So I got what players hair scheme could sponsor the pod. That was like longtime listeners know–
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: –open invite to Blind Barber which has a Bryce Harper line of hair product.
BOBBY: Do we know for sure that they still sell that?
ALEX: I don’t know.
BOBBY: I used it. It was good, it was a good product.
ALEX: Wow! Wow! How much are they paying you?
BOBBY: $500,000.
ALEX: That’s how you’re surviving on that $8.50 mini- minimum wage.
BOBBY: Something that we have never done that we should have done is go to Blind Barber, together.
ALEX: Yes, it’s true. I did go there once, it sucked, don’t go.
BOBBY: Did you get your hair cut there?
ALEX: No, no, I went to like ba–
BOBBY: Oh, you went to the–
ALEX: –I went to like the bar part of the barber.
BOBBY: How did it suck? Say more. Like bad things–
ALEX: It was–
BOBBY: –overpriced?
ALEX: –like sweaty 19-year olds
BOBBY: With fake IDs?
ALEX: With fake IDs, like–
BOBBY: Wow, Blind Barber exposed. Serious allegations from Alex Bazeley on the Tipping Pitches Podcast, that Blind Barber accepts fake IDs. This is all parody. Alex never went to Blind Barber, nor–
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: –can he confirm nor deny the age of the sweaty plank year olds.
ALEX: However, I will say if you go to blindbarber.com right now, whose face is on the homepage? Whose face?!
BOBBY: Three ti- two-time? Two-time? Three-time NL MVP? Two-time NL MVP, Bryce Harper.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: Not two.
ALEX: Still got that collection, man.
BOBBY: Can you buy me that?
ALEX: Yeah, I’ll get you the, the 90 Proof Pomade.
BOBBY: What?! 90 Proof like–
ALEX: What?!
BOBBY: –it has alcohol on it? How much these things run you for? Like how much is a bottle of shampoo?
ALEX: Looks like it’s about 18 bucks for 12 ounces.
BOBBY: It’s kind of a lot.
ALEX: It’s kind of steep.
BOBBY: Yeah. But if it makes me look like Bryce Harper.
ALEX: Which is the guarantee, that is the Blind Barber guarantee.
BOBBY: And that they’ll serve you if you’re under 21, I guess. It’s so funny that you went there to buy alcohol. Not to get your hair cut. Aren’t the haircuts like 80 bucks?
ALEX: Probably, looking at the products here on the website? Yes, probably.
BOBBY: Can we talk about hair cut costs now?
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: Inflation’s getting me.
ALEX: Yeah, I feel like as guys, we don’t have a lot of room to complain about haircut costs.
BOBBY: I’m doing it for, I’m doing it for–
ALEX: Our haircuts, like up from $23 to $27.
BOBBY: My haircuts up from 30 to 40.
ALEX: Wow! Wow!
BOBBY: But the thing is, I have too much anxiety to try a new place. I need to go back to my same people.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Because these are routines and I base my life around these routines.
ALEX: That, the Eastern, the European men who blast house music and serve hard liquor when you walk in the door?
BOBBY: Right, that’s exactly the people that I want cutting my hair.
ALEX: Yeah, absolutely.
BOBBY: I trust them with my fucking life.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Every time I go in there, they’re complaining about New York city traffic cops, every time. The guys like, every time I come in here, I have to run back outside in yellow traffic cop and say I park here every day.
ALEX: Welcome, brother!
BOBBY: They, they are down with the [47:21].
ALEX: Okay. All right. So we would, we would let Blind Barber wants to the pod, but to answer what the actual question was.
BOBBY: Right, what former players harebrained entrepreneurial scheme would you accept as Tipping Pitches sponsors? I mean, A-Rod Corp, obviously. We would let A. Rod. take us public with a spec.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know what we would do, what we provide, I don’t know. We can be a podcast consulting company. A public, publicly traded podcast consulting company.
ALEX: Now we’re coming up with our own Harebrained schemes?
BOBBY: Well, the harebrained entrepreneurial scheme is A-Rod Corp.
ALEX: Is A. Rod’s, right, yeah.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: What we do with it from there is up top.
BOBBY: I’m not, I don’t know that I’m familiar enough with former players harebrained entrepreneurial schemes.
ALEX: I know, I mean, I was having to, to come up with my my own for this.
BOBBY: I would let Hunter Pence’s music cat cafe sponsor the podcast or whatever it was like a video game.
ALEX: I think it’s a video game cafe.
BOBBY: Yeah, I would let that sponsor the pod.
ALEX: I don’t know if any of you follow Joey Votto on Instagram, but, but he, he got, he has a chess club that he goes to. So Joey Votto launched like a chess instruction app, right? The Queen’s Gambit with Joey Votto.
BOBBY: I would let them sponsor the pod.
ALEX: They can sponsor the pod or Ross Stripling’s stock market investment app. What do you think? Find a little too close to the sun?
BOBBY: That one is going to be a no funny, dawg.
ALEX: So yes, A. Rod.
BOBBY: What?! A. Rod. already fucking does sponsor the podcast? Where do you- his voice is in the outro of the pod. So like, I don’t know what your don’t, don’t get all high and mighty with A. Rod. on me now. But what I’m not convinced of is that Ross can really give me the ROI that Tipping Pitches listeners deserve. And so when I see proof of that, when I see proof that Fintech turns it around, I’ll be okay with that. But now, Fintech is in the tank. What are you doing now, Ross? What are you buying low now on to pull yourself out of this nosedive that the market is in? Okay.
ALEX: Buying Sinclair stock.
BOBBY: What if, okay, wait, okay. Hang with me. What if the richest player in Major League Baseball, I don’t know who that is right now. I guess, Max Scherzer maybe? Like highest career earnings. Whoever has the most money. What if they bought Bally Sports? Okay, wait, stay with me here. Or what is the MLBPA bought Bally Sports? Is there anything illegal about that? I feel like no. And then they would own the main source of revenue for the owners and then have them over a barrel.
ALEX: Right. They’re–
BOBBY: How much–
ALEX: –they’re seizing the means of–
BOBBY: Of production.
ALEX: –of content production.
BOBBY: How much money do you really need to buy a bankrupt company? Like they, it wouldn’t be a Shell company because they would never sell–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –to the MLB Players Association, or to like Max Scherzer LLC. But like, I feel like they could pull their money together and get a couple billion. And the players could buy back the cable rights to Major League Baseball. We just, we figured it out. We just nationalized baseball on the podcast.
ALEX: Right. So I think they need probably close to 9 billion.
BOBBY: Shit!
ALEX: I mean, that’s, that’s.
BOBBY: A. Rod. can get that, A. Rod. can get that.
ALEX: A. Rod. could get that, we do know.
BOBBY: No he can’t, he can’t even get 250 million to make his payments for the Timberwolves. He’s not even the money guy there.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: 9 billion. You know, Ohtani is gonna sign a $500 million contract that’s we’re like, one ninth of the way there.
ALEX: Right, exactly. But–
BOBBY: Sorry, one 18th of the way there.
ALEX: –but once he leaves the Angels, he’ll no longer be playing on a Bally Sports Network.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Will he, will he want to do that at that point?
BOBBY: Are you reporting that he’s leaving the Angels?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I mean, Arte owns the team again.
BOBBY: And he’s gonna go sign with the A’s because of Elon?
ALEX: Elon.
BOBBY: Right. Would Ohtani being a huge Musk head, be the most painful baseball player that you could discover that fact about? Him as if he was just like, I love Tesla. [51:45] Shohei Ohtani was in the commercial for the, the Tesla truck.
ALEX: Well, I mean, like, we already kind of got a preview of that, right? Because he was one of the players who–
BOBBY: Yeah, but he didn’t–
ALEX: –again, banded topic for 2022.
BOBBY: He didn’t know what that is.
ALEX: Yeah, you’re Right.
BOBBY: He didn’t know that.
ALEX: You’re right, you’re right.
BOBBY: This is like when Kylian Mbappe took a photo with Eric Trump or whatever. Everyone was like Kylian Mbappe doesn’t know who that is.
ALEX: You know, I actually don’t think he’d be the most disappointing person.
BOBBY: Who had to be? Spencer Strider?
ALEX: Spencer Strider would be tough.
BOBBY: You imagine he was like he’s actually the woke socialist billionaire, Elon Musk.
ALEX: Right, exactly. No, hear me out, guys. He’s the one.
BOBBY: He’s the one. Yeah. He’s the prince who was promised. We’re off track, we’re off track. Back to the harebrained entrepreneurial scheme. So we would allow to sponsor the podcast. Is that all of them?
ALEX: Right, so we’ve got the A-Rob’s back. We’ve got the Joey Votto chess app.
BOBBY: The Blind Barber.
ALEX: We need to see- Blind Barber, we need to see Ross’ financials before moving forward.
BOBBY: Right. We’re not like MLB, we don’t just blindly go into deals.
ALEX: No. I think that’s a good start. But we are accepting applications.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: If there are foreign players listening to this here podcast right now.
BOBBY: Would you allow Derek Jeter to sponsor the pod? Like whatever, whatever his little seal is, his little production company or, or like when he’s still on The Players’ Tribune- Tribune. Would you allow that harebrained entrepreneurial scheme to sponsor the podcast?
ALEX: You make no money to burn, apparently.
BOBBY: My next chapter, Tipping Pitches. How about, how about if we go to other sports would you allow Kevin Durant’s media venture to sponsor the podcast? Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Steakhouse. This, this episode of Tipping Pitches is brought to you by Steph Curry the, the Curry 4s–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –by Under Armour.
ALEX: Right, Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –I do feel like the, the basketball- they’re just more innovators in basketball.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, baseball players don’t think big enough. As you definitely pointed out before we started recording, Steph Curry is out there advocating for nimbyism right now, ’cause he cares about his community.
BOBBY: Yes or no answer. Would you allow Aubrey Huff school board candidacy to sponsor the podcast? Vote yes on Huff for your local school district. Okay, final question. This final question comes from Steven. Steven says that he is involved in his University’s debate team. And they, in the format that they compete in, they get 20 minutes to prep for the assigned topic. At a recent tournament, they had a topic phrased as America’s professional sports have sacrificed their competitive traditions for economic vitality. And they were assigned affirmative. So they had to prove that that is true. First of all, they could just play 20 minutes from the Tipping Pitches Podcast. But Steven wants to know, how you can make, how you can make that argument in an accessible way for people who don’t already think about this sort of thing? And I think it’s a good question for the, for, for us, but also, you know, for people who listen to the podcast, or who think in like-minded ways about these sorts of things. Because never has it been more necessary for the average fan to have to explain to the other- other average fan, why the team is doing what the team is doing, you know? Like we, we have more conversations about these things, but simultaneously, we have more knowledge about these things. And it’s being spoken more plainly than it was in previous eras of baseball, where it was just like, well, they’re just they’re not very good, but it’s tough. And it’s a shame that the greedy players want more money. So if you were tasked with making a clear-eyed, concise argument, that proves that teams don’t care about winning as much as they care about making money, where would you start?
ALEX: It is a really good question, and one that feels kind of hard to, to boil down. You know, I mean, we get so in the weeds here on this–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –on this podcast, right?
BOBBY: And that’s one of the things that Steven mentioned is like, how do you do that without getting in?
ALEX: Right, right, exactly.
BOBBY: You can’t really say like, revenue sharing, you can’t use those terms.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Because then, then people you’ve like, lost, what is it the pathos, the emotional element, people just check out.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You start talking about that stuff.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I mean, I love a good graph. I love a good chart. I think you can look at some simple numbers, like the valuation of a baseball team versus its payroll, versus its ticket prices, over the course of whatever you want. You know, like I check, and, and the A’s payroll has, has doubled between 2002 and 2021. And their value grew seven times, right? So clearly, there’s a lot more money in there, that’s not going to the field. Despite the fact that these teams are financially successful, right? And it feels like, somewhat similar to the argument about productivity versus wages in the US, right? And where we really started to see that split in the 70s, where all of a sudden, productivity rose, and wages stayed the exact same, right? So that like this is, this is a starting point. And it’s also like, very numbers heavy, right, which I think is the, is the hard part and what we’ve talked about, right? It’s like a lot of the economic conditions that take place in Major League Baseball mirror the same dynamics that take place in your workplace or, or broadly, kind of in the US economic system.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think that framing can be sort of useful, because it brings it a little bit closer to home.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And actually asked the person to do a little self reflection.
BOBBY: I guess, though, the element of his question is that we’re not addressing in that by using that is, are they doing that? Are they financially growing their share of the pie at the expense of competitiveness? And so how do you prove that teams are not as competitive as they used to be without like a, an in depth study of like winning percentages based on payroll or playoff probability at the beginning of the season? Which is like maybe a better indication of how hard you tried in the offseason and how competitive you wanted to be than what your actual record turns out to be. And I, I honestly, like I don’t know.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, like I, there is the element of teams that don’t have a top 10 payroll, almost never win the World Series. And that is an argument that I have employed often on the podcast, when talking about someone like the team like to Rays, for example, or Cleveland, or whoever. And I’ve been played that on Twitter. And people get very mad about that idea. Because they point to examples where like, oh, well, the team got close. And I’m like, well, that’s not really what I’m talking about. I’m talking about, did they actually win the World Series? Did they have what it took to be the team that was willing to spend, was willing [59:25]–
ALEX: [59:25] life forever.
BOBBY: Right, like, the ultimate example is, is the Dodgers versus the Rays World Series, where it’s like,hey, man, if the Rays had a couple more of those Dodgers players, or a couple more of the players who that the Dodgers were willing to spend money on, I kind of think that they win that series pretty easily. But there’s no need to reopen that can of worms. I, I think that an interesting element of this would be just to quote owners themselves, saying that they don’t try to compete anymore. And to, to cite the notion of tanking. Or site, the tear down rebuilds of, of some of these, like the, to site the idea of tearing down your team and prove that it doesn’t, that the main motivation is not to actually get good at the end of it, it’s to get cheap at the end of it. And if you’re good that that’s just an added bonus. Because there’s like a whole handful of teams that tried to follow the model that the Astros and Cubs sort of made popular. And they’re all kind of still spinning their wheels in that rebuild. Like what’s going on with the Tigers right now. What’s going on with before the Phillies actually started spending money in free agency and hired Dave Dombrowski, what was going on with the Phillies, what’s going on with the Pirates? Like, I think that is a pretty compelling argument, what’s going on with the Reds? Because like, you hear directly from the owner saying, we’re taking a step back in competitiveness. So that is satisfied, the proof that they are giving up competitiveness for something, and then what is that something? Then you show that their payroll went down, while their valuation is still increasing like the rest of the league. And that’s like a pretty straight line to prove that they just sacrificed a couple of years of competitiveness, because they didn’t want to spend the money to remain competitive. And so I feel like that is maybe where like your best argument lies, in pointing to some of these teams that claim perpetual rebuilds are necessary. And the A’s are among those teams. The Pirates are among those teams. Now you have teams like the Reds. And in doing that, you don’t need to, you don’t need to talk necessarily about luxury tax, or revenue sharing, or league wide revenue, really. Because it’s basically coming straight from the horse’s mouth.
ALEX: Right, I think you can look at the fact that this offseason notwithstanding player salaries have flattened in the last few years.
BOBBY: Yeah. Or they went backwards.
ALEX: Right or, or gone backwards, right? Which, which flies in the face of how baseball is generally operated over the course of its lifetime, right? Which is that the more money you bring in, and the bigger your market is, the more money you can invest in that baseball team, right? And over the last two decades, that has really changed, right? All of a sudden, when the success of your team was decoupled from the money, you bring in kind of back in the 70s, and 80s, with the rise of money in baseball on TV, all of a sudden, it didn’t become profitable to primarily when it, it brings you some money, but you still make money without it, right? And so you saw owners not being interested in necessarily reinvesting that money. Some teams do, right? But a, a good share of the league pockets that money. Which if you’re interested in winning, like you wouldn’t do, right? Like if I was an owner, and I made more money than I expected to this year. I want to spend that on next year’s baseball team to make an even better team. right? And that just I mean, that doesn’t happen.
BOBBY: Yeah. I mean, the easiest way would be to have the numbers for each individual team. Like to have the, the revenue for individual teams. And show the disparity between how much they make, how much they spend on payroll, and how good the team is like those three factors could pretty easily make this argument for you.
ALEX: I mean, road trip to Baltimore? John Ange- Angelos has an open invite for anyone who wants to see the financials.
BOBBY: I mean, didn’t that deadline pass already? I feel like, i feel like, maybe we could do that as part of our seeing the Mets for 162 games when they play the Orioles, we could just go–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –down to, to big, big J.A., big John Angelos’ office and just get the deets there. All Right. I think that does it for this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Thank you to everybody who is signing up, continuing to sign up for the Patreon. You know, to the folks who have had to drop off the Patreon, I would just like to say that we understand, you know, and we appreciate your support, no matter how long you’re able to stick around for. As a reminder, there are three tiers of that Patreon, $5, $7, and $12 that get you various things. Anything else?
ALEX: You know, I think the last thing that I’ll say, on all of this ,on everything that we’ve talked about on this podcast, is that John Henry went to the, the Red Sox fan fest this past week. And said ticket prices are high because payroll has to be high. Ticket prices, drive player payroll.
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: And the chorus of boos he received from the crowd could be interpreted as raising the question, why is Mookie Betts not on the Red Sox now? And that’s kind of it.
BOBBY: Man. I feel bad for our guy, John Henry.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It just, he just means so well, you know, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. No, it couldn’t happen to a guy who’s more dedicated to the Boston Red Sox.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He definitely doesn’t have his attention drawn anywhere else in the sports world or otherwise right now. And so I just, my heart goes out to John, who I know loves to listen to podcast.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So John, if you’re listening, you can come on here and, and we can talk about ticket prices and, and payroll. And you can maybe give us some of the financial information for the Red Sox ahead of time so that we can come into it with an open heart and an open mind and all of the context that you’re, you’re coming to this discussion.
ALEX: As, as one John exits the picture, sayonara, JJF another one enters.
BOBBY: Okay, thanks, everybody. We’ll be back next week.
[1:06:14]
[Music]
[1:06:24]
[Outro]
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello everybody, I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches, Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most, Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya!
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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