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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
Grilled by congressmen asking embarrassing questions about Major League Baseball's supposed business crisis, the commissioner switched sports and put on a Gale Sayers-like display of evasion.
Dec 14, 2001 | The best sports show on TV last week was on CNN, where Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig appeared before Congress in a desperate plea to retain baseball's exemption from antitrust laws, which, in effect, have allowed the owners to be their own self-governing body, moving teams around at will and imposing conditions on the players at bargaining time. The hearings are, of course, a side effect of MLB's threat to "contract" (i.e., eliminate) two of its small-market teams to alleviate what it calls losses of more than half a billion dollars in the 2001 season alone.
But to understand what was really going on and being said you need a scorecard, replete with background notes and a translation of Selig's ground-rule doublespeak, which I have provided in this crucial section of testimony.
Selig: "Since 1997, we have also provided the union with the results of the separate revenue-sharing audits that are done of each club's books each year by Price Waterhouse Coopers. The union has the right ... to conduct its own audit of any club's revenues. It has never done so!"
Translation: And it never will. The union doesn't need to "audit the revenues" -- anyone with a USA Today can see what the revenues are. Every baseball team's major sources of income, the local TV contracts, the national TV contracts, and local ticket sales, are available to anyone who seeks them out. It's the expenses, stupid, that need to be audited. Baseball expenses are like movie business expenses (which is logical since so many baseball executives spent time in the entertainment business; former commissioner Faye Vincent, for instance, was president of Columbia Pictures). You all know how the game works; we saw it best exemplified a few years ago by the Detroit Tigers, who became the Detroit Tigers Inc. and purchased Domino's Pizza; when Domino's Pizza goes through a severe slump it shows up as a loss for the Detroit Tigers. Selig claims the Los Angeles Dodgers "lost $59 million last season"; how much did they lose, or did they lose any money at all? Well, the Dodgers are owned by Rupert Murdock. Can you imagine how many different enterprises he could connect with "Los Angeles Dodgers, Inc"?
Rep. Conyers: " ... would you consider to provide this committee with some real records about each team, the breakouts, the salaries, consulting fees paid to team owners, the extent to which owners are earning interest on stadium loans they approved, and other related part transactions. And we'll give you a lot of time to get that together."
Selig: "If I may, our figures are audited three different ways. Players Association gets all the numbers, including all related party transactions ... The Blue Ribbon Panel of the four gentlemen got the audited statements ..."
Translation: Note that Selig just dodged the question, or rather, the request. Conyers is asking for a list of salaries for Major League Baseball executives -- nobody ever talks about these, just about the players' salaries -- and for a list of all other monies paid out to owners and execs through deals involving baseball, and Selig switches the topic to the entirely irrelevant three audits of their revenue books, which, he says, are sent out to the Players Association and to the owners' "Blue Ribbon Panel," a group, by the way, selected by the owners themselves.
Rep. Conyers: "Don't you know the union can't give these statements to anybody? You just sent a letter, your lawyers, that you'd sue [union executive director Don] Fehr if he released --"
Selig: "Congressman Conyers, you have the audited financial statement for six years; the only reason you don't have them for a seventh year, it's not over yet. You have all the information that Mesrs. Volcker, Will, and --"
Translation: Again, Selig dodges the question. Yes, the Players Association saw all the owners books during the 1994 negotiations, but they apparently signed an agreement not to reveal anything from them -- I say apparently because the union hasn't revealed anything and the owners have threatened them with lawsuits if they do. Selig's response says "Look, we sent you all the stuff we sent to the Blue Ribbon Panel," which is an entirely irrelevant point, and in any event, as we've just pointed out, the panel was hand-picked by the owners.
Rep. Conyers: "What about the stuff I just asked you for, sir? We don't have that -- we don't have any numbers. Staff keeps whispering in my ear, 'We don't have the numbers, we don't have the numbers.'"
Selig: "I'd like to know, since they've been audited three different ways, what information are you looking for?"
Conyers: "Didn't you hear me?"
Committee Chairman: "The time of the gentlemen has expired."
Translation: Who says there's no clock in baseball? By sitting on the ball, Selig ran out the time, refusing to answer a question or address a single issue concerning the owners' net losses, depreciations, salaries, et al. What's the name of the guy on first?
