Everyone who has read these rants for a while knows that I have long been in favor of a salary cap and salary floor for MLB. I believe it will make the seasons more interesting as it will force some of the “more penurious owners” to open up those wallets and field more competitive squads. I do not think the current model for MLB is disastrous or unfair or even harmful to the game of baseball; I just think a “cap-and-floor model” would be an improvement.
Based on reporting this week, here is the offer on the table by the MLB owners:
- Salary cap per team = $245.3M
- Salary floor per team = $171.2M
- Revenue split Players/Owners = 50/50
Let me pretend for a moment that the cap and the floor offered here had been in effect for Opening Day of the 2026 season. In that case according to Spotrac.com:
- Eight teams would have needed to cut salary to get under the cap – – Dodgers, Mets, Yankees, Blue Jays, Phillies, Red Sox, Padres and Braves
- Fifteen teams would have needed to add salary to get above the floor – – Mariners, Orioles, Royals, Brewers, Reds, Twins, Rockies, Rays, Pirates, White Sox, Nationals, A’s, Cardinals, Marlin and Guardians
- Half of the teams in MLB would have had to add salary to be in compliance with the terms now on the table.
I certainly do not know all the details associated with this proposal nor have I a clue about the status of all the other points that are still up in the air with these new CBA negotiations. Nonetheless, if I were one of the union officials who took seriously as part of the union mission to get fair wages for the majority of the union members, I would have to take this proposal very seriously.
Moving on … Steve Ballmer and the LA Clippers organization announced that they will accept the league’s decision to punish the franchise and its owner personally for whatever happened in the “Kawhi Leonard Salary Saga”. That means no lawsuits or protests or battling PR campaigns; that means the Clippers will be punished but the NBA regular season can start with a clean slate in just about 1 month from today. And just as I felt relief from the scandal and the “inside info” and the wondering what an owner worth about $150B might do to “get even” with the league, a new uncertainty presented itself.
NBCSports.com has a report with this headline:
“Justice Department opens federal investigation into Clippers’ dealings with Kawhi Leonard”
Say what? According to this report, the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the matter involving the Clippers’ attempts to set up “no-show work” deals for Kawhi Leonard. The matter is being run by the DoJ office in Brooklyn – – about 3000 miles away from where whatever happened happened – – because that is the office that traditionally handles investigations involving sports leagues or teams.
And even though this may seem like piling on, the SEC – – that’s the Securities and Exchange Commission and not the Southeastern Conference – – is also investigating the role that Daktronics may have played in this mess. Daktronics is a publicly traded corporation and is therefore under SEC jurisdiction. Evidently, Daktronics had never before had a “celebrity endorser” and although there seems to be evidence that Leonard was paid by Daktronics, he never did any “endorsing” or “promoting” for whatever he was paid.
I understand the SEC investigation/involvement here; their charter is to protect the shareholders and creditors of publicly traded companies. If Daktronics was spending its money and getting nothing in return for that expenditure, the SEC should be all over that set of events.
I do not, however, understand the DoJ investigation. Even if Steve Ballmer personally and the LA Clippers as an organization intentionally violated the salary cap rules contained in the NBA’s existing CBA, I don’t see how that is a federal crime. It may be sleazy; it may be underhanded; it may be worthy of a significant punishment by the league, but how is the American public damaged by the circumvention of those limitations?
Finally, this from George Wendt – – Norman Peterson on Cheers:
“I dream about ‘Cheers.’ Like when you go on a diet and you dream of pizza. I always think of those wonderful years. I loved working on it.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………