Recently, Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Rob Manfred urged Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, both of whom have co-sponsored a Senate Resolution supporting Minor League Baseball (MiLB), to “encourage the Minor League operators in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to tell their representatives to cease their unproductive campaign of misinformation.”
As the owner/operator of the Commonwealth’s only affiliated minor league team, I suspect he is referencing me.
Unfortunately for MLB, as the great Bostonian, President John Adams, famously said, “Facts are stubborn things.” Perhaps the most stubborn fact for the Commissioner is his plan to eliminate 42 affiliated minor league franchises and replace them with unaffiliated teams in a so-called “Dream League” that will destroy those teams.
I’m proud to own one of those 42, the Lowell Spinners. We play in LeLacheur Park, a gorgeous brick ballpark nestled along the scenic Merrimack River.
Over the past five years, as a Red Sox affiliate, we’ve averaged more than 3,500 fans a game, spent millions with local vendors, attracted millions more in related spending (hotels, restaurants, shops, gas stations and convenience stores, etc.), generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue, donated more than $1,000,000 to area charities, and repeatedly improved our ballpark.
We were the nation’s first short-season team to install new, energy-efficient LED lights. We renovated the batting cages. Replaced and extended our netting. And we ripped up our field and its underlying irrigation system and replaced both with a state-of-the-art field that ranks among the league’s best. All of which had zero Return on Investment. All done because we sought to be good partners with the Sox and MLB. Other MiLB teams have made similar improvements.
Now MLB proposes to show its gratitude by terminating our affiliation with the Red Sox and relegating us to the “Dream League.” What’s the difference between affiliated baseball and the Dream League? In a nutshell, life and death.
Currently, MLB teams pay their minor league players, coaches, trainers and medical staff, as well as workers’ compensation, housing, hotel rooms, and other costs. However, under MLB’s Dream League proposal, those costs, totaling over $350,000 per team, would be shifted to the Spinners and the 41 other clubs Marked for Death.
Understand, $350,000 is far more than the Spinners (and nearly every club on MLB’s Hit List) currently make. To us, $350,000 is the difference between squeezing out a small profit and losing significant dollars.
What’s $350,000 to a MLB club? Well, last year, the Yankees grossed $700 million. So $350,000 represents .0005 of their total revenue. One-half of one-tenth of 1%.
Do you know what the Spinners buy with one-half of one-tenth of 1% of our revenue? Toilet paper.
Moreover, even if we could assume $350,000 more in expenses, losing our MLB affiliation would devastate revenues. People buy tickets to see the next generation of Red Sox stars. Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Jackie Bradley Jr. … they all played for the Spinners. Families come to see future Red Sox for as little as $4/ticket. Take away the Red Sox and the Spinners die a slow, steady death.
In Lowell, we know, because we’ve seen this movie before. We had a minor league hockey team, the AHL Lock Monsters, for a dozen years, but absent any link to the Boston Bruins, they died. Sold for spare parts and relocated to Albany. We don’t want that to happen again.
Another stubborn fact: The logistics of MLB’s Dream League don’t work. The 42 targeted teams include clubs in Vermont, Idaho, California, Iowa, Colorado, Tennessee and Florida. At a time when MLB is complaining about travel, how can they with a straight face propose a league stretching from southern California to Vermont? Or from Idaho to central Florida? That’s not a Dream League; it’s a Pipe Dream League.
Lest anyone think this is mere rhetoric, consider another stubborn fact. Since 1993, there have been 16 independent baseball leagues hosting 202 teams. The average lifespan of those teams was six years; half were gone within three years and one in five lasted only one season. The Spinners and the other 41 teams simply wouldn’t make it.
By pretending the Dream League will keep contracted teams alive, MLB is perpetuating the very “misinformation” Commissioner Manfred decries. In fact, its proposal would stick taxpayers in dozens of cities, including Lowell, with millions in unpaid bonds secured to finance MiLB-approved ballparks while also depriving them of fun, affordable, family-friendly entertainment.
Contraction would also make it harder for the remaining teams to persuade legislators to invest in ballparks, or for team owners to borrow money. After all, what legislator would appropriate public funds for a ballpark when MLB could contract its tenant so capriciously? What banker would loan an ownership group money when MLB could arbitrarily eliminate their club with no notice?
At a time when MiLB’s attendance is growing and MLB’s isn’t, MLB should acknowledge the most stubborn fact of all: Minor League Baseball helps grow our great game. It should listen to Senators Warren and Markey and abandon its ill-conceived plan to eliminate the Spinners and 41 other teams.
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February 09, 2020 at 05:20AM
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MLB ‘Dream League’ would be nightmare for teams like the Spinners - Boston Herald
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