Dan Rosenheck writes about his idea to “fix” revenue sharing in light of some of the leaked financials this week.  He suggests rather than have the money paid to revenue sharing be based on the payroll of the team, have it be based on market size, so the teams with access to more fans, higher television ratings, and more corporate sponsors pay money to a team with less access to all those things that allow them to make money.  Sounds reasonable.  Since, as Andrew Zimbalist has pointed out in a number of his works, New York would have four teams before Milwaukee ever got one, if the free market* were to enter into baseball, it seems reasonable that the Yankees should have to be handicapped for their natural competitive advantage.

But here is the thing about this idea.  Once you move out of New York and Chicago that competitive advantage goes away dramatically.  Think about Houston.  Houston is the 4th largest market in terms of population and media ratings.  Yet, the Astros are one of the worst teams in baseball.  Their payroll has hovered around the the bottom of the top third in baseball, which seems about right for the market.  But they don’t know how to spend that money.  And as a result they are pretty awful.  What if they now had to pay an extra amount of money into the revenue sharing fund?  They aren’t making extra money with their lousy team, they are actually losing more money.  So, now you are telling them that they not only have to cut payroll for next year based on revenues for this year, but they also have to find money to pay to the central fund.   So, their payroll is forced to get smaller but outside forces rather than by design- while the Yankees, Mets, and Cubs still can afford to spend roughly the same amount.  How does that help the Astros become more competitive?

Its honestly very simple what should happen.  It is what happened last week.  Teams that receive money from revenue sharing derived from the payroll tax should have to produce a public accounting of how that money will be used.   Sure, that still makes it possible for a team making money to use its profits to make the owner richer, but if a team can sustain the public debate that comes with such disclosure it can only serve to build trust with the fans.

I know MLB doesn’t want anyone sharing anything with the public.  It has an anti-trust exemption, and it wants to exercise that again and again.  But, think about public politicians that have to make an accounting of their campaign income if they want matching funds.  Its the same idea. And teams like the Marlins, the Pirates sure could benefit from being just a little bit more open and honest with such things.

*Because MLB controls where a team can reside, the free market is not in play here.)