As many have pointed out, it would just give the owners more revenue. More revenue sharing would be good with me. The Yankees shouldn’t be able to keep all the revenue from their TV network when they only provide half of the show.

I doubt there would ever be a salary cap in MLB, really do. I wish they could make a price ceiling for teams in terms of per year spending, but who would agree with that? Certainly not the player’s association who’d like their big names to get 8 year $180M contracts.

Salary Cap/Price Ceiling = Never Ever Forever Never

How would it not help the Brewers? Just because they still can’t reach $100 million for instance isn’t the issue. It is that nobody else could EXCEED $100 million. That helps teams like the Brewers, at least somewhat.

I am typcially a player’s guy…they are the show, give them the money. However, to be honest, I really don’t care where the money goes. If the owners get richer, so be it, as long as the product on the field is fairer than it currently is.

Fact of the matter is a salary cap won’t help. The Yankees revenue comes from being the biggest investor in the largest cable channel in the New York Area. Give us a Brewers Cable Channel (or just buy the FSN North network), and you’ll at least have a revenue stream to be competitive.

… in other professional sports, I do think it would help eventually. The disparity in income is so huge right now that the cap would probably have to be set at a team salary level that’s unattainable for most of the teams (say 100 million or more). But if the cap is set there and left at that level until 75% of the teams come within 10% of the cap, it would likely remain at the original level for a decade or so. By simple inflation and escalation of the national TV contracts, over time a stagnant cap would slowly make the playing field more level.

About 10 years ago when MLB abandoned the cap as a goal of their CBA negotiations, the larger market teams, including the Yankees, had agreed to more extensive revenue sharing IF a cap were put into effect through the CBA and if there was a salary floor to prevent teams from running a 20 million dollar roster out onto the field and pocketing the rest of the shared revenue. While that agreement was only hypothetical and some of the parties who agreed to it are gone, more extensive revenue sharing working in combination with a cap/floor can be a long term solution to MLB’s competition problem.

The notion that Attanasio and the Brewers can create a Brewers network and compete with the revenue streams generated by YES is laughable. The Yankees aren’t out-earning the competition by being better businessmen (at least not only for that reason). They have access to markets and assets that no other team has and never will have.

2010 Salary Cap – $140 million
2010 Salary Floor – $25 million

2012 Salary cap – $140 million
2012 Salary floor – $50million

2015 Salary cap – $150 million
2015 salary floor – $75 million

If a team goes over the cap they pay dollar for dollar match into revenue sharing. If a team does not pay to the floor, they contribute the balance to revenue sharing,

Having all that revenue mostly means (to me, anyway) that you can buy your way out of your mistakes. As the Yankees have shown, having all that cash has advantages, but hardly guarantees a championship.

To me, it makes sense for sports with little in the way of player development to have a salary cap. I’m thinking mostly about the NFL, which has no minor leagues save a “practice squad,” and contracts are not guaranteed (Jeff Suppan should thank his lucky stars that he’s in baseball). It’s all about spending money on free agents. My Dolphins have a 1-win season last year? No problem - you get yourself a Joey Porter, a Chad Pennington, and [poof] you’re a 10-win team vying for the AFC East. The NBA seems to be the same way: other than the somewhat rare trade, the only way to really improve your team is by spending money (i.e., on free agents), so a salary cap would help.

In baseball, though, you have minor leagues, and windows of control, so no matter how much Prince Fielder may want to leave Milwaukee, he’s stuck here unless we trade him for the next few years (neener neener neener). There are avenues you can take to build a competitive team, kind of like what we’re doing now. A smart organization that can avoid bad signings (cough Jeff Suppan cough) can create a playoff-worthy team; the ones that can’t, like Montreal, tend to go to a city that can. Heck, the Marlins, of all teams, have 2 World Series wins.

I dunno - I guess I like the idea of revenue sharing more than salary caps. If a team can generate the money, putting an artificial limit on how much they can spend seems wrong. And why shouldn’t an organization that signs a bad deal with FSN be penalized for that deal? (Rambling Al, I know you agree with this.) Through luxury taxes and revenue sharing (wait, Rambling Al, where did you go? Come back!), everyone else can stay competitive - maybe we could tweak the system some. I dunno, maybe lower the rate at which the luxury tax hits, or extend the window before players become free agents. Personally, I like the idea of combining 70% of all TV/radio revenue from each into one pot and distributing it back evenly to all the teams: it gives an incentive to spend money without leaving the other franchises in the dust.

OK, I’m done now. :)

It is getting a little crazy the kind of contract that the yanks are give players this season. If it keeps on going the Yanks will have a 2 billion payroll for the players on the team this season.

because 1) I’ve got the holidays to distract me; and 2) I’ll have time to chill out about before pitchers and catchers report.