# So what happens to the season if a baseball team (or two) goes broke?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 11, 2002, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503 "2002-07-11T21:20:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2002, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/1 "2002-07-11T21:20:16Z")
Like [this](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020711/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbo_labor_3&printer=1)
> [@](#):
>
> NEW YORK (AP) - On the eve of resumption of baseball’s labor talks, commissioner Bud Selig said a major league team might not be able to meet its next payroll.
>
> ASelig did not identify the team, whose payroll is Monday. In an interview Wednesday in Milwaukee with the Houston Chronicle and other papers, Selig also said a second unidentified team had so much debt it might not finish the season.
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> There was no way to corroborate his remarks. Reached at his home Wednesday night, Selig refused to discuss the subject.
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> “I’m done. Major league baseball’s credit lines are at the maximum,” Selig said in the Chronicle on Thursday. "We’ve done everything we can to help people by arranging credit lines. Frankly, at this point in time, we don’t have that luxury anymore.
>
> “If a club can’t make it, I have to let 'em go. I’m a traditionalist, and I hate all that. It pains me to do it. I just don’t have any more alternatives.”
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### Author:  [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2002, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/2 "2002-07-11T21:27:58Z")
No one knows. There hasn’t been a time when a team didn’t finish the season since the National Association in the 1870s.
I would imagine that MLB would have to carry the team for the rest of the year. Not because they would be legally required to (they aren’t). It would, however, be far too disruptive to the schedule (not to mention to the validity of the standings) if a team were to just disappear in mid-season.
Any other suggestions?
Zev Steinhardt
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### Author:  [@jacksen9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacksen9)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2002, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/3 "2002-07-11T21:46:06Z")
Do you believe it? I don’t. What teams are for sale? Wouldn’t an owner put the team up for sale before letting it dissolve?
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### Author:  [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2002, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/4 "2002-07-11T21:48:59Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by jacksen9 \*
> \*\*Do you believe it? I don’t. What teams are for sale? Wouldn’t an owner put the team up for sale before letting it dissolve? \*\*
If the business was _that_ bad, there wouldn’t be any buyers. Putting a close-to-bankrupt team up for sale might just be a waste of time.
Zev Steinhardt
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2002, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/5 "2002-07-11T21:50:51Z")
That would have to be the Expos. They’re the only team whose money source is tied directly to Major League baseball.
If any other team’s owner discovers that the team revenue doesn’t cover his expenses, he (or they, since it’s usually multiple investors who own a team jointly) will just have to take the money out of his own pocket (boo hoo).
Why the heck they don’t just hand over money-losing teams to people who actually _want to own one_ (like, say, that Watkins fellow from Alabama) I have no idea…except, of course, to try to get public sympathy (it hasn’t worked yet, you morons) or some sort of leverage with the Player’s Union (ditto).
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2002, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/6 "2002-07-11T23:29:38Z")
Selig wants contraction, so he’s saying all this to help strengthen the pro-contraction case. Personally, I think he’s just scare-mongering.
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### Author:  [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2002, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/7 "2002-07-11T23:52:40Z")
According to something I just read on [MSN.com](http://MSN.com), the Detroit Tigers and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays might be the two teams that Selig was referring to. I don’t know about the 'Rays, but the Tigers have sucked for years, so it’s easy to imagine them being in major financial trouble.
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2002, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/8 "2002-07-12T00:16:35Z")
Teams have gone out of business in the middle of a season in other sports, even in baseball. They are usually in newer, competing leagues.
What happens? There tends to be a big hole in the schedule. Look at the standings of the one year of Union Association, 1884. Teams came and went all year long. It was a mess. And it’s recognized as a major league.
[http://www.baseballreference.com/leagues/UA\_1884.shtml](http://www.baseballreference.com/leagues/UA_1884.shtml)
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2002, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/9 "2002-07-12T00:40:42Z")
Yes – most likely the league would just leave the holes in the schedule.
But the whole issue is bogus. If the team is losing money, the owner can sell, and shouldn’t have any trouble at all finding a buyer. Hell, Selig was willing to pay a boatload of money to the teams being contracted; you could bid millions and then take his contraction payment and make a nice profit.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2002, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/10 "2002-07-12T00:49:50Z")
It is unlikely to be the Expos since MLB is carrying them and their payroll was limited by MLB. If a team folds, there is a hole in the schedules, but MLB decides division races by percentages so that is not a real problem. What is a problem is that any team that went bust would have to open its books and MLB would go to extremes before they allowed that to happen.
Contract Bud Selig!
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### Author:  [@jacksen9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacksen9)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2002, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/11 "2002-07-12T01:04:47Z")
**Selig wants contraction, so he’s saying all this to help strengthen the pro-contraction case. Personally, I think he’s just scare-mongering.**
I agree. If it is so “top secret”, why did he even mention it? Why would he tell only half of the story? It’s all distorted. I am starting to like this guy less and less.
\*\*If the business was _that_ bad, there wouldn’t be any buyers. Putting a close-to-bankrupt team up for sale might just be a waste of time. \*\*
What are the other options? Is there no screening process the owners have to go thru? They don’t have to show a degree of “financial fitness” periodically? They can enter into multi-million dollar contracts when they have no money?
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2002, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-to-the-season-if-a-baseball-team-or-two-goes-broke/118503/12 "2002-07-12T01:22:24Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by zev\_steinhardt \*
> \*\*
>
> If the business was _that_ bad, there wouldn’t be any buyers. Putting a close-to-bankrupt team up for sale might just be a waste of time.
>
> \*\*
There might not be anyone in Tampa Bay who wants the Devil Rays, but there sure as hell is a group in Washington, DC that will take them. Columbus, Buffalo and Nashville have also been talked about as potential sites for MLB teams, but baseball doesn’t want to move franchises and doesn’t want to expand.
If MLB let a team collapse instead of selling to a qualified buyer, the Players’ Association would file a raft of lawsuits within 5 minutes.