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Baseball and Billions: A Probing Look Inside the Business of Our National Pastimeby Andrew Zimbalist Paperback:Click the button below to . . . (which will add the book to your Amazon U.S.A. "Shopping Cart") |
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Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in BaseballEditorial description(s):
Product Description
"A savvy analysis of the game's financial problems" (Los Angeles Times), now updated throughout and featuring a new chapter on recent controversies and upheavals in the game. Selected as one of the best books of the year by Business Week.
Reader description(s):
Insight into business of professional baseball (5/8 votes)Very interesting insight into the economics that drive the business side of baseball. I recommend this to anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes business of baseball.
Baseball and Billions Book Review (3/11 votes)Baseball and Billions by Andrew Zimbalist is an okay book. In my opinion it is not an outstanding book because it just gave too many numbers and charts that quite didn't make sense to me, even though I do like the sport. While reading this book by Andrew Zimbalist I did learn some interesting facts about baseball that I never knew of before reading this book. Even though it might start off interesting, later in the book, in my opinion,it just gets a bit boring. Out of 5 stars I give this book 3 stars.
Updated to cover recent events (2/7 votes)Updated to cover events such as Fay Vincent's dismissal as baseball commissioner, and the lawsuit over the Seattle Mariners and San Francisco Giants' decisions not to move to Tampa
Excellent Look at What's Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It (0/0 votes)In "Baseball and Billions," economics professor Andrew Zimbalist addresses problems that plague Major League Baseball and alienate many young people who would otherwise be fans. Zimbalist, who has consulted for the players' union, focuses on strategic behavior by owners including artificially limiting creation of new teams, concealing profits while demanding taxpayer subsidies, and moving television broadcasts from the public airwaves to pay television services. These problems damage Major League Baseball's credibility among younger fans and lead many of them to watch football and basketball instead. Throughout the book, Zimbalist examines how owners' decisions harm small market teams. Doing so is vitally important because the sport's distorted economic landscape prevents teams in smaller cities from competing for playoff spots. Confronting these problems will be necessary for baseball to regain the top position among America's sports enthusiasts.
The book's fundamental theme is that baseball is harmed greatly by the lack of separation between management and ownership. Managers of publicly-traded companies face powerful incentives to report their profits in order to raise capital and appease shareholders. Major League Baseball's individual owners, in contrast, focus more on reducing their tax liabilities, shifting revenues around in order to conceal them, and exaggerating their financial problems. Under the antitrust exemption, they can limit the availability of expansion teams for cities seeking to attract a franchise. As a result, the owners can make credible threats to leave for greener pastures while demanding greater and greater taxpayer subsidies for stadiums as well as larger shares of concession, parking, and luxury box revenues.
Zimbalist explains that immediately before 1994, competitive balance remained strong, with 12 different teams winning the World Series over the prior 15 seasons. He credits the institution of the amateur draft, the salary arbitration system, and the advent of free agency for offering small market teams access to the talent necessary to compete. However, Zimbalist acknowledges that steady revenue is necessary to sign top draft picks, sign free agents, and win arbitration cases. This is why revenue sharing is vital to baseball's success.
Unfortunately, Major League Baseball's revenue sharing system was deeply flawed at the time. Although ticket revenues were shared, parking, concession, and personal seat licenses for premium seats were not. As rapid price increases for the latter three became stronger income sources for large city teams, a shrinking overall portion of total gate receipts was shared with small market teams. This problem was compounded by the migration of television broadcasts from the public airwaves to cable television. National television broadcast revenues were shared among the teams, but local cable broadcast revenues were not. As more and more games were moved to cable, small market teams were further marginalized.
Zimbalist explains that the owners' television revenue is maximized when the large cities' teams rise to the top of the standings. The owners of large cities' teams attempt to justify baseball's economic landscape by saying that because they paid more for their teams, they deserve to make more money. Their behavior has undercut the small market teams' ability to retain their best players, and in the long run, Major League Baseball's appeal to much of its fan base.
To restore fundamental fairness to the equation, Zimbalist recommends that revenue sharing be increased by offering greater percentages of new revenue streams developed over time to small market clubs. He would move more games back to broadcast television and make up the reduction in larger teams' revenues by allowing fans who live outside of their favorite team's geographical media market to purchase that team's games via pay per view. Finally, he would expand the league to include teams in every media market that could support one to end the owners' bilking of taxpayers. These proposals represent strong opportunities for owners to rebuild public confidence in the sport.
"Baseball and Billions" paints an accurate portrait of how owners' greed alienated fans and contributed to the strike of 1994, an event from which many say the game's popularity has not yet recovered. Zimbalist does not let the players entirely off the hook. He accuses them of supporting an arbitration system that offers incentives to pad individual stats at the expense of doing the little things necessary to win every game. But overall, the book offers a concise summary of why many younger fans became frustrated with baseball and began to follow other sports instead. Will the owners ever learn their lesson? Only time will tell.
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