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Whispers turned to anonymous leaks, which became Dick Monfort and Rob Manfred publicly complaining/shaming, and then an “economic reform committee” was unveiled by MLB. All of this was predictable, and because of that, it’s not too difficulty to suss out what it all means.
MLB is using the recent issues of Diamond Sports Group — which runs the Bally regional sports networks that Sinclair purchased from FOX after Disney grabbed everything besides those RSNs and the fascist cable news network portion of the company in their quest to own every IP in existence — as an excuse for the existence of this economic reform committee, and I’m sure that’s true to a degree: the owners will all be in some uncharted waters soon, and rather than end up in a situation like Bud Selig arguing with George Steinbrenner about revenue-sharing for years, or any number of 1980s commissioners trying to explain how cable was good for the owners’ bank accounts, actually, Manfred and Co. are trying to get ahead of the discussions about this brave new world.
Continue reading “Thoughts on MLB’s economic reform committee”