Chicago Cubs: MLB owners’ myopia could destroy baseball

Chicago Cubs: Selfish interests are costing fans in a big way

Now, I don’t blame owners or anyone else for wanting to make money, but some of them care little for the game or furthering its appeal outside of how it can line their pockets better (although many of the ideas would actually coincide over time).

Ironically, that’s the point. The hardest decisions to make from a business standpoint are the ones you cannot see, feel, or touch in the present tense. Extrapolations and projections don’t pay the bills, as lofty and lucrative as they may be. However, planting seeds now-for success down the road-can reap unseen rewards that will eventually result in dollars with lots of commas.

According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the stalemate between the players and owners over the 2020 season boils down to about $10 million per team, although Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts has cautioned that teams aren’t flush with cash and don’t make as much money as everyone thinks (not that they’ll open their books to the fans or players to prove that point).

Regardless of who is right and where the middle ground is in this debate, it’s up to the owners and the head honchos at MLB itself to get together and make some concessions for the game going forward. What is going on is no longer about 2020 or 2021- it’s about 2030, and that impacts the owners a lot more than the current players (the vast majority of whom won’t even be in the game in a decade).