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Before last weekend’s series between the Phillies and Dodgers, Philadelphia’s Bryce Harper made a perfect little statement. When asked about the Dodgers’ spending habits and all the complaining that’s been going on regarding said habits, he said, “I don’t know if people will like this, but I feel like only losers complain about what they’re doing. I think they’re a great team. They’re a great organization.” He’s right, in that this is some loser mentality stuff at work, but the thing is, we need more of that energy out there from players and the media to hammer home just how big that loser energy is.
Alanna Rizzo, formerly part of the Dodgers’ broadcast team but now back at MLB Network, apparently agrees. While speaking to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post about the Rockies, she did not mince words when it came to owner Dick Monfort and his thoughts on the Dodgers and spending:
“What I cannot tolerate is an owner who comes out and says that the Dodgers are the poster child of what’s wrong with Major League Baseball,” Rizzo said. “Every single owner has the ability to spend money or choose not to spend money.”
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Rizzo said she doesn’t believe Monfort reinvests enough in the product on the field, singling out the Rockies’ decision to spend $10 million to build The Rooftop — the so-called Party Deck — that opened in 2014.
“You can choose to turn your outfield (seats) into an entertainment area, which is fine, but you too, Mr. Monfort, can spend money on the team, just as every other owner can,” she said. “Yes, the Dodgers have money, but they reinvest it in their team, just as the Cubs do, just as the Mets do, just as the Yankees do.
“So I don’t want to hear it. Start spending money and put a better product on the field. Or sell the team. Period.”
Genuinely, you love to see it. Owners get away far too often with saying that they don’t have the money, or that they can’t keep up with the biggest spenders, but the thing is, it’s not like they even attempt to move closer to their level. The Rockies essentially rake in the cash from the area around Coors Field that they’ve set up — non-baseball revenue, of course, you’ve got to love an accounting trick — and they have a huge gate every year since, against all odds, fans keep showing up to see them in droves. And what do they do with that money? Well, the 2025 Rockies ranked 21st in Opening Day payroll, after two years at 16.
Monfort gained full control of the team 20 years ago and he and his brother had been minority owners in the franchise since before they even took the field for a game, so it’s not like he’s stuck paying off debt from a recent purchase of an expensive ball club. The expansion Rockies, in total, cost $95 million for the ownership group over three decades ago. Forbes valued the franchise at $1.475 billion in 2025. If Monfort is hurting for money, he could always cash in on his investment and let someone else try to topple the Dodgers.
As Rob Mains has detailed in the past (most recently last month), even without turning around and selling a team, owners of them make better money on owning a team than they would if they had invested the same money in the stock market. Dividends exist! They can be reinvested! And the reason owners don’t end up spending more on players when they could is because they’d rather take that money and invest it for themselves instead of the team. Which is to say, Rizzo is correct. The Rockies have the money. They just don’t care to invest it, because the team makes Dick Monfort money as is, and that’s about all he cares about. The Dodgers spend money to make money, while the Rockies are satisfied with the way things are, because it works for the guy at the top. They’re both investments, sure, but at least one of the teams is also attempting to win a trophy while they reap the financial rewards.
March Madness is now over, with UConn’s women’s team crowned the women’s champ, and Florida the men’s. Outside of the games themselves, there was some business of the sport discussed over the weekend that seems worth pointing out. UConn’s coach Geno Auriemma and South Carolina’s coach Dawn Staley both discussed, prior to Sunday’s final, that the women’s tournament needed its own television deal, in order for the sport to be able to gauge just what is it the tournament is worth.
As things stand, the women’s tourney is bundled together with a number of other properties. As Awful Announcing stated:
Currently, the women’s tournament finds itself as part of an eight-year, $920 million media rights contract with ESPN that also includes every other NCAA championship event other than the men’s basketball tournament and the College Football Playoff. That deal, which was signed last year and went into effect this year, valued the women’s basketball tournament at about $65 million of the $115 million that ESPN pays the NCAA annually.
A third-party study, however, showed that the women’s tourney could pull in more like $81 million to $112 million on its own, which is substantial, of course, but especially when you realize that hey, that $112 million estimate is nearly the entirety of the package deal ESPN currently has for various NCAA properties.
This sort of thing is going to matter even more in an era of NIL payments and salary caps: the more revenue there is, in theory, the more players can end up receiving at some point. Bringing the women’s game into a more equitable place with the men’s game — which again, has its own television deal for its half of the national championship tournament — is one way to do that.
Another is having a single site for the Final Four rather than two separate ones. Big East commissioner Val Ackerman explained to the Associated Press the issues with the current model:
With different sites, many commissioners, athletic directors and school officials find themselves having to choose which tournament to attend, Ackerman said. And because more ancillary events and sponsorship activations happen at the men’s site, those officials often end up at that one instead of the women’s tournament.
“There’s a symbolism there that shouldn’t be overlooked,” Ackerman said, “which is, we’re trying to build women’s basketball. We need everybody on board to do that. We need the athletic directors here (at the women’s tournament). … We’re losing that sort of spiritual support, if you will, for women’s basketball because it’s head to head with the men’s Final Four, which is a magnet for all the networking and business activity.”
Ackerman isn’t alone in thinking this, either, as the full piece gets into. What’s clear at this point is that the NCAA is in the midst of a serious time of change, between NIL’s and the coming settlement for antitrust suits that’ll reshape collegiate sports. What better time to also rethink the disparities between the men’s and women’s games than now, when everything is already primed to be different than it was?
The Blue Jays and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. agreed to a 14-year, $500 million contract extension that’ll keep him from reaching free agency. I’m mostly bringing this up here to remind you that, less than two months ago when Guerrero Jr.’s deadline for a deal came and went, that my angle was that the Jays messed up and should just work toward giving him what he is looking for now, because of what happens to the value of players like him as time goes on. Which is to say, guys in their mid-20s who hit free agency, a la Bryce Harper and Manny Machado and Juan Soto and so on.
Guerrero Jr. isn’t quite as good as Soto, of course, but this kind of player, who is as good as Guerrero is when he’s on his game and as young as he is, sees their price shoot up in a hurry in a way that makes the guys who signed a deal in their position years before look like relative bargains. Guerrero Jr. for half-a-billion might seem pricey today, but in five years, will it still seem that way? Probably not, if history is any indication, which means the Jays, in the long run, probably made a prudent financial decision by giving out the biggest deal they ever have. Sounds weird, sure, but consider, again, that Harper’s average annual value on his 13-year deal is just over $25 million, on a contract that seemed hefty not all that long ago. Such is the way with this kind of rare player.
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