You do understand why this statement makes it seem like you don’t know anything about baseball right?
The Royals have not made the playoffs in twenty-seven years; they have fielded one winning team in the last 18 seasons. Boston has had sixteen straight winning seasons, including two championships.
Moreover, under the economics of baseball, a team like Kansas City has less than half as much money to spend on players as a team like Boston, meaning that their chances of ever closing the gap are seriously hampered.
The Sox might miss the playoffs? Oh noes! Cry the rest of us a fucking river.
Yes, and the Twins used to plead poverty every year even though they were owned by a guy who was much richer than George Steinbrenner. Be careful about letting these guys say would like to spend the money and just can’t afford it. What they mean is that they could spend the money but don’t think it’s worth their while financially (but they might change their minds if taxpayers give them a stadium).
It’s got fuckall to do with how much the owner personally has; no owner in any city is gonna use his own personal cash to run the team as a money-losing proposition year after year. It has to do with revenue, not assets, and teams in larger markets are always going to have far greater revenue potential than the small ones.
None of which makes a difference w/r/t the fans: for whatever reason, in every sport there are some franchises that are successful far more often than not, while others go through year after year of mediocrity, but whose fans stick by them anyway.
A Red Sox fan complaining about a .500 record gets no more sympathy than a Lakers fan whining about how it’s been a whole three years since they won a championship or the fans of Texas/USC/Alabama when those teams have their once-a-decade losing season.
Right: it’s about how much they’re willing to spend, not how much they can spend. Most of these guys are extremely rich from their other businesses and could afford to take a little bit of a loss on the baseball team if they wanted. I’m not saying they are under some kind of obligation to do so - just that it should be acknowledged that it is their decision not to do it.
For years some of these teams have taken their revenue sharing and “luxury tax” money and put it in their pockets. That has nothing to do with the Yankees or the Red Sox. And a lot of the Yankees profits have nothing to do with being in New York. It had to do with how they built the YES Network. Something other teams are trying to copy. So being smart and willing to spend money. Got to have both to win. The Yankees spent a lot of money on some shitty teams when they weren’t being smart about it.
Not a Red Sox fan but I believe complaining about their .500 record is not just about being in last place. It’s that they are an old team and the future isn’t looking great unless they make some drastic changes. I don’t think you can lecture a Red Sox fan about suffering. They made it into an art form. They just forgot about it the last few years.
Well, it should be acknowledged that the huge profits the Yankees make from the YES Network are, at least in part, driven by the fact that YES is centered in the country’s biggest media market (and is carried in several neighboring media markets, most of which are also pretty big markets). The Royals could build an exact clone of YES in Kansas City, and not see anywhere close to the same level of income.
The fact that the New York metro area has 20 million people – bigger than say, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Baltimore, Denver, Cinncinnati, Minneapolis, San Diego, St. Louis, and Milwaukee combined – has a juuust a little bit to do with making that network viable.
They’re not old-old. Pedroia, Ellsbury and Lester are 28. Middlebrooks and Doubront are only 24. They have some young talent in AAA; not a lot, but some. They don’t have any really bad contracts tying them down for the future, so they can rebuild.
Compare them with, say, the Phillies: in last place, not a single regular under 29, essentially nothing in AAA, their best pitcher possibly leaving in free agency, and huge contracts committed to guys who are 34 and injured.
Which would be a reasonable comparison, were it not for this little thing called the “wild card.” Boston is currently 2.5 games out, as someone noted, in that contest, in a logjam of a bunch of teams sitting just off the pace–hardly an insurmountable hole. Kansas City? They’re 7.5 games out, about three series sweeps from being anywhere near the thick of things.
ESPN has the Red Sox’s playoff chances at 32%. The Royals’ chances are 2%. Thanks, I’ll take the 32% if it’s all the same with you.
It’s the attitude of entitlement among Red Sox and Yankee fans that I object to–the notion that their team should be in the playoffs, and by a comfortable margin, every year, and that a season in which they struggle at all is a season best forgotten. Try being a Cubs fan. Or an Indians fan. Or, these days, a Pirates fan. (For the record, I am none of the above.)
As an SF Giants fan, I can say to the Cubs and Indians fans to hang in there and don’t give up hope. It was a long wait for me, but after 2010 I can die a happy man, and my life is complete. So hang in there, it can happen!
Admittedly, I say this with little knowledge of their organizations, farm teams and front offices.
Well, the Sharks haven’t won yet, :smack: so my life could be more complete.
Well, I hate to follow the previous post with this one, but if any team I supported showed the complete lack of common decency that Penn State Football has shown, they would instantly lose my support and respect.
I grew up in Wisconsin and have been a lifetime fan of the Brewers, Bucks, and Packers. If Wisconsin had had a professional Hockey team in my youth, I would be a fan of them also.
If any of these teams moved, my fanship would cease.