Baseball’s revenue sharing

The question of “Tanking” has arisen. “Tanking” is the practice of a team intentionally taking steps that almost guarantee a losing season, under the premise that he owners are actually saving up cash or acquiring higher draft picks for the future. CBS Sports, in a 2018 analysis, noted that “It’s time to reassess the practice of tanking… and recognize it for what it is: cover for profit-hungry owners to line their pockets, at the expense of their own fans’ entertainment.” Those owners don’t have to worry about depriving their fanbase of a competitive team, discouraging them from attending games; revenue sharing dollars will come in anyway.

How bad was tanking in 2018? Last August, Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser reported: “ How bad can a tank job get in 2018? The answer, apparently, is historically bad. After an offseason where “tanking” was the word on everyone’s mind, Major League Baseball is on track to see a nearly unprecedented amount of losing. Since adopting a 162-game schedule in 1961, MLB has never had more than two 110-loss teams in a season. It is currently on pace to tie that record. In that same time, MLB has never had more than four 100-loss teams in a season. It is currently on pace to tie that record as well.”

2018 wasn’t the first time revenue sharing was sharply questioned. In 2010, The New York Times’s J.C. Bradbury reported: “Despite the good intentions behind revenue sharing, doling out money to baseball’s have-nots has the unintended consequence of creating a disincentive to win. Though the correlation is not perfect, winning tends to attract fans, which increases local revenue. But a healthier bottom line means drawing less from the revenue-sharing pool. The quandary faced by poor-and-losing teams is that using the added wealth to improve their clubs increases local earnings, but these gains may be offset by reducing revenue-sharing payments.

“In my book on valuing baseball players, I estimated the relationship between winning and revenue for M.L.B. teams. The revenue function shows disparate responses to winning at various levels of success, which support the notion that revenue sharing discourages improvement. The function shows that improving from a mid-60s-win team to a mid-70s-win team generates financial losses. The observed revenue bump from losing is consistent with the hypothesized disincentive to win when teams face a cut in revenue sharing. I refer to this region as the loss trap, because improving your team over this range of wins can cost you money.

Kamagra eases and smoothens the erection of buy levitra viagra the man and makes him feel like dying again and again. It is defined as lack of pregnancy after one year of unprotected intercourse, then the couple is labeled as infertile, this simply means that they have been unable to conceive cialis prices http://djpaulkom.tv/photos-fans-capture-pics-dj-paul-da-mafia-6ix-and-insane-clown-posse-on-the-shockfest-tour/ a child. The investigation points out that Shilajit contains mineral and other herbs that form main active viagra 100 mg ingredients of various brain supplements. What is need to do at that situation to know prix viagra pfizer the full healing potential of chiropractic.

“Also, strong returns to winning do not kick in until a team hits the mid-80s in wins. Losing teams might improve their financial standing somewhat if they improved drastically, but transforming a loser to a winner does not happen overnight and cannot be willed into existence. Thus, the safety net offered by revenue sharing encourages teams to remain perpetually bad.”

There are lessons far beyond the sports world in why the equal outcomes idea, and other socialism and “socialism light” ideas fail.

Mark J. Perry, writing for the American Enterprise Institute explains:

“Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives. In a capitalist economy, incentives are of the utmost importance. Market prices, the profit-and-loss system of accounting, and private property rights provide an efficient, interrelated system of incentives to guide and direct economic behavior. Capitalism is based on the theory that incentives matter! Under socialism, incentives either play a minimal role or are ignored totally…By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the theory that incentives don’t matter!”

Photo: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Russia Expanding Aggression

President Putin is using more than one pathway to enter Europe and undermine the West. While most of the world watches the conflict he initiated in Ukraine, the Russian government is actively pursuing a second front in a little noticed campaign in Cyprus. Although the corrupt Cypriot government ended its issuance of “golden passports” in 2020, Russian intelligence is functioning quietly there to transform this EU country into a Russian beachhead of illicit economic activity aimed at penetrating the capitalist West, according to Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation. Cyprus is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nor does it receive as much attention as those countries who are member states. That adds to its allure as a prime location for Russia to attempt to gain a European foothold. Last week a NATO report, cited in the European Daily Monitor, noted that Russian intelligence agents have been plotting to destroy European infrastructure across the continent to disrupt states supporting Ukraine. It further suggests that Putin’s immediate goal is to lay the framework for a future move against the security organization’s members. Hungary, in particular, is another country garnering Moscow’s attention as it opposes the Western response to Russian aggression. Russia is focusing its intelligence efforts on other European, non-NATO member countries in addition to Cyprus, including Austria, Malta, and Ireland. The NATO report suggests that Moscow has had success in disseminating the Russian political narrative in these states to advance its campaign against the West. The island of Cyprus is proving to be a good target for Moscow as it is an ethnically divided island that is part of the EU since 2004. Northern Cyprus, officially called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that is only recognized by Turkey. The division precludes it from joining NATO. As Goble suggests, “it offers Russia troubled waters in which to fish.” Over the last 20 years, he points out, Cyprus’ challenges have opened it to a massive influx of Russian citizens, who now comprise approximately 10 percent of the island state’s population. Over 2,900 residents are Russians who entered until the “golden passport” program that allowed wealthy or well-connected Russians to move to Cyprus. It also provided them with documentation to travel freely throughout Europe! Although less visible on the world’s radar than the war in Ukraine, Moscow is also being helped by Cyprus’ banks opposition to seizing Russian assets and its support in evading Western sanctions. Russia has placed tens of billions of US Dollars there for money laundering. It has been more than two years since a single Russian “diplomat” has been deported and, in fact, the Embassy has grown to over 300 staffers on this tiny island state of only 1.2 million people. The Russian embassy in Nicosia has advanced communications antennae on its roof and opened a consulate on the northern end of the island. Moscow’s Ambassador, Mura Zyazikov, is a lieutenant general in the FSB with no diplomatic experience. The FSB, SVR (Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service), and GRU are actively using the island as a base of operations against NATO Member states, Israel, and other Western allies. Moscow backs pro-Russian political parties who in turn influence Cypriot decisions on education, language, and other issues. “Dmitry Khmelnitsky of the Dossier Center says that its findings should be of concern not only to Cyprus but to the West as a whole. Those who ignore what Moscow is doing because Cyprus does not follow the EU sanctions regime are missing something critical,” says Goble. “Cyprus does not seek to get rid of Russian agents and does not interfere with their work,” Khmelnitsky concludes, “despite the fact that what the Kremlin is doing is so clearly visible.” This has an impact not only on the small island but on the EU, NATO, and the West in general. Earlier this year the Moscow Times reported that when the FBI became more interested in Russian business and oligarchs in Cyprus, at least 10 of the major Russian businesses operating there left. Despite the government of Cyprus’ vow to implement plans for new sanctions against Russia, it continues to ignore Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine and to shield the wealth of the 50,000 wealthy Russian citizens and oligarchs residing there. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay