THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Friday, January 25, 2008

More Phony Outrage

Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite?

—Mr. Blond to Mr. White

There’s an issue, you are mildly perturbed—a feeling that will soon pass like indigestion—yet our new information world in the meantime transforms this issue into an explosion before the feeling will go away.  Phony Outrage.  Repeat something loud enough and it’s the truth.  Some people have built their lives around this: Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, and Plankton.  No less an expert than Stephen Colbert said so to Papa Bear himself.

Today, it’s advertisements on baseball uniforms, as they play in Japan.

Here’s my summary opinion:

Everything is for sale, even the person reading this post. If the Sox offered you free season tickets in exchange for not complaining about logos, you’d put your name on the wait list, no questions asked. There’s no line to be drawn. It’s business pure and simple, just as it would be for you, to exchange phony outrage for free season tickets. The problem is that you as the fan aren’t getting anything for this plastering of commercials. If plastering of the commercials meant that the money would go toward trading for Santana without giving up a prospect, you’d be all for it. 

As someone said: “To place the baseline starting point on either side is just to assert your preference”.  This is all about opportunity cost. I was at the Game 5 Stanley Cup game when the Canadiens beat the Kings. After the game was over, some random guy came up to our group and offered us 20$ for our tickets. A couple of us (including me) said yes, and a couple said no. One who said no asserted that he keeps all of his event tickets, and will not sell it “for any price” (though I’m sure that was hyperbole). However, what if at the point of sale, he was asked: “30$ for entrance, 50$ for entrance with ticket as memento”? What would he do? I can’t believe that he would choose the 50$ option. I know I wouldn’t. However, it’s the exact same thing. He paid 50$ at the point of sale, and was offered 20$ back after the game. But, he said no.

It’s the same thing here with the “right to no advertising”.  Is the name and goodwill of the Fenway name an intangible, or simply non-existant? I’ll put up the name of Fenway, MSG, and Yankee Stadium against the Montreal Forum, and Maple Leaf Gardens. Those two names are gone, and it don’t matter one bit. It helped that new buildings took their place (and new names), but that’s just an easy pretext. What if everyone gets a surcharge of 10$ per ticket to not have Fenway Park renamed to EMC Park? Would you do it? There’s a point where you won’t accept the surcharge, and will accept a rename of the park, or advertising on uniform, or even a cobweb on a base.

Saying that you are not for sale on this issue at any price is basically not true. We are all part of the oldest profession in the world. Now, we are just negotiating a price.

There is only one thing that the fans will not stand for, and will doom MLB (or NFL, NHL, NBA): if it becomes like the WWE, that is, the outcome of events is known or manipulated.  Anything else is negotiable, tolerable, or willing to turn a blind eye. Murder, torture, abuse, drugs, even strikes, lockouts, and price gouging… all the vices outside of gambling that have happened, are happening, and will continue to happen will not doom a major sport. Gambling will. Italy punished its most prized team by kicking them out of their premier league because of gambling.

The line is gambling, and nothing else. Any other line you draw you will eventually be erased and redrawn.

The outrage I hear is more akin to a father realizing that his daughter has hit puberty, and he’s got to do alot more barking.