January 2020 was an eventful for a lot of bad reasons. Let me attempt to break it down:
+ I grew up a Monty Python fan, and it's one of the few things I've enjoyed that I've carried into adulthood. (I even wrote about the second series as one of the seasons of any TV show ever.) I was saddened to hear that Terry Jones had been diagnosed with a rare form of dementia in 2015, and even more so that he succumbed to it last week. It wasn't that long ago we lost Python-adjacent singer-songwriter Neil Innes, who appeared on Python and co-created the underappreciated Rutland Weekend Television. Rest easy, you wacky Britons.
+ Speaking of blog subjects, I always found the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case rather suspicious. Now the two main conspirators of the case, Bryant and then-NBA commissioner David Stern, are both gone, 25 days apart. There was an intense debate on social media about Bryant's culpability in the wake of the helicopter crash. In the era of #MeToo I'm marginally more willing to forgive someone who tried to rectify and learn from his misdeeds. Kobe became a mentor and philanthropist, but what transpired in Summer 2003 leaves his legacy more of a mixed bag than most people will admit.
+ A distant third on my RIP list: academic and "disruptive innovation" theorist Clayton Christensen.
+ The impeachment trial has been such a mess that I'm both exasperated and still collecting my thoughts. Expect me to elaborate on a future post.
+ On a positive note, I was legitimately looking forward to this Sunday's Super Bowl. It's not just the history: the Chiefs haven't been (or won) in 50 years, the Niners are making only their second appearance since 1994. It was a good game with a spectacular fourth quarter. Congrats again to Kansas City, my ancestral homeland, the one and true Emerald City.
(640)
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Monday, February 3, 2020
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Take Me Out of the Ballgame
WARNING: yet another sports post
As a regular attendee of minor league baseball games, I am observing with curiosity and trepidation how MLB and MiLB devise a plan for mass contraction. The proposal of folding 42 teams is drastic, but sadly necessary. Baseball is a sport at a crossroads, and shaving a little off the bottom is just one problem it needs to address.
Let's begin with the obvious: Minor League Baseball is massive to the point of unwieldy. All 30 Major League Baseball teams have at least six minor league affiliates. Teams in the four highest levels (Triple-A, Double-A, High-A, Single-A) are practically mandatory are development reasons, but some teams forgo or choose between the lower levels (Low/Short Season A, Rookie League). There's about 200 teams in all, spread all across the United States and Vancouver, BC, with each league mostly confined to a particular region. The higher you go in a team's farm system, the incremental likelihood that you'll make it to the Majors.
One pattern I've noticed is that the higher the MiLB affiliate, the larger the city. Just about major American city you can think of that doesn't have a major league team (Las Vegas, Nashville, Buffalo, etc.) has a Double- or Triple-A team. Going into 2020, New Orleans and Portland, OR will be largest without any affiliated baseball at all --there are teams in nearby cities-- but that might change soon. That also means the low minors are typically in small towns and more rural areas; I doubt people are going out of their way to see the brightest young prospects in, say, Johnson City, TN or Bluefield, VA.
Even though the low minors offer some cost-effective summer entertainment with minimal travel, they work on a flawed business model. The stadiums they play in are often small, decrepit, or both and there's just enough money from local government to make small renovations. For instance, the Beloit Snappers (the Oakland A's Single-A team) play in rusty, outmoded Pohlman Field. The park is in the middle of a subdivision, which prohibits any expansion. Attempts to build a new stadium in downtown Beloit have failed repeatedly. Despite the team's proximity to Madison, WI the ballpark is the second-smallest in the league (allegedly 3,500 capacity) and frequently in the bottom five for attendance. Even when the Snappers fielded a competitive team, late season tickets and concession items were often offered for 50% off. I openly wondered how this whole thing turns a profit.
I have made the 90-minute drive to Pohlman Field on three occasions. On my first trip, I was astonished by how the basic the stadium felt compared to others in the Midwest League. Pohlman looks and feels like a run-down YMCA. Over 80% of the seats are aluminum bleachers, and players and coaches are obligated to cross the concourse to go to the barn-like clubhouse. The upgrades that other minor league ballparks have received, including clubhouses under the stands, in have been glossed over in Beloit largely for financial reasons. Unfortunately, there is reason to speculate that the Snappers and their similarly woebegone rival the Burlington Bees (Angels' Single-A) will be among the 42 contracted.
A saturation of pro baseball is an emerging problem. MLB attendance is both decreasing and getting older. Tickets are too expensive for the average fan --blame all those ridiculous contracts-- and a lot of people prefer minor league games because they're way more cost-effective (myself included). However, the price doesn't increase much as you climb through the system. For instance, box seats for the Single-A Kane County Cougars cost two dollars less than similar seats at a Triple-A Indianapolis Indians game. Both can be purchased for under $20. Considering an average Indians player is a lot closer to Major League ready than that Cougars player, the economics are bit wonky. It doesn't help that the average MiLB player makes a paltry income; only a select few top prospects get plump contract bonuses.
What becomes of independent and non-affiliated professional baseball? That aspect is oddly feast or famine. Like their minor league brethren, pro teams without an MiLB designation are faring better in larger metropolitan areas than in more rural, isolated areas. Indie ball is also more serendipitous, with teams folding, merging, and moving almost annually. Without that MLB parent money, the indie teams pay for their own players, and tend to lose money almost on travel alone. It's possible that some soon-to-be former MiLB teams will go the indie route, but at their own risk.
I support contraction, but with some reservations. The 42 teams that are speculated to be thinned out mostly play in towns and regions where the team is a reasonable, but flawed source of revenue. Creating a more satisfactory stadium experience, regardless of how necessary or extraneous it might be, could be too much for some teams and prove to be the X factor. It will also potentially alienate more fans from what some still consider the national pastime.
(634)
As a regular attendee of minor league baseball games, I am observing with curiosity and trepidation how MLB and MiLB devise a plan for mass contraction. The proposal of folding 42 teams is drastic, but sadly necessary. Baseball is a sport at a crossroads, and shaving a little off the bottom is just one problem it needs to address.
Let's begin with the obvious: Minor League Baseball is massive to the point of unwieldy. All 30 Major League Baseball teams have at least six minor league affiliates. Teams in the four highest levels (Triple-A, Double-A, High-A, Single-A) are practically mandatory are development reasons, but some teams forgo or choose between the lower levels (Low/Short Season A, Rookie League). There's about 200 teams in all, spread all across the United States and Vancouver, BC, with each league mostly confined to a particular region. The higher you go in a team's farm system, the incremental likelihood that you'll make it to the Majors.
One pattern I've noticed is that the higher the MiLB affiliate, the larger the city. Just about major American city you can think of that doesn't have a major league team (Las Vegas, Nashville, Buffalo, etc.) has a Double- or Triple-A team. Going into 2020, New Orleans and Portland, OR will be largest without any affiliated baseball at all --there are teams in nearby cities-- but that might change soon. That also means the low minors are typically in small towns and more rural areas; I doubt people are going out of their way to see the brightest young prospects in, say, Johnson City, TN or Bluefield, VA.
Even though the low minors offer some cost-effective summer entertainment with minimal travel, they work on a flawed business model. The stadiums they play in are often small, decrepit, or both and there's just enough money from local government to make small renovations. For instance, the Beloit Snappers (the Oakland A's Single-A team) play in rusty, outmoded Pohlman Field. The park is in the middle of a subdivision, which prohibits any expansion. Attempts to build a new stadium in downtown Beloit have failed repeatedly. Despite the team's proximity to Madison, WI the ballpark is the second-smallest in the league (allegedly 3,500 capacity) and frequently in the bottom five for attendance. Even when the Snappers fielded a competitive team, late season tickets and concession items were often offered for 50% off. I openly wondered how this whole thing turns a profit.
I have made the 90-minute drive to Pohlman Field on three occasions. On my first trip, I was astonished by how the basic the stadium felt compared to others in the Midwest League. Pohlman looks and feels like a run-down YMCA. Over 80% of the seats are aluminum bleachers, and players and coaches are obligated to cross the concourse to go to the barn-like clubhouse. The upgrades that other minor league ballparks have received, including clubhouses under the stands, in have been glossed over in Beloit largely for financial reasons. Unfortunately, there is reason to speculate that the Snappers and their similarly woebegone rival the Burlington Bees (Angels' Single-A) will be among the 42 contracted.
A saturation of pro baseball is an emerging problem. MLB attendance is both decreasing and getting older. Tickets are too expensive for the average fan --blame all those ridiculous contracts-- and a lot of people prefer minor league games because they're way more cost-effective (myself included). However, the price doesn't increase much as you climb through the system. For instance, box seats for the Single-A Kane County Cougars cost two dollars less than similar seats at a Triple-A Indianapolis Indians game. Both can be purchased for under $20. Considering an average Indians player is a lot closer to Major League ready than that Cougars player, the economics are bit wonky. It doesn't help that the average MiLB player makes a paltry income; only a select few top prospects get plump contract bonuses.
What becomes of independent and non-affiliated professional baseball? That aspect is oddly feast or famine. Like their minor league brethren, pro teams without an MiLB designation are faring better in larger metropolitan areas than in more rural, isolated areas. Indie ball is also more serendipitous, with teams folding, merging, and moving almost annually. Without that MLB parent money, the indie teams pay for their own players, and tend to lose money almost on travel alone. It's possible that some soon-to-be former MiLB teams will go the indie route, but at their own risk.
I support contraction, but with some reservations. The 42 teams that are speculated to be thinned out mostly play in towns and regions where the team is a reasonable, but flawed source of revenue. Creating a more satisfactory stadium experience, regardless of how necessary or extraneous it might be, could be too much for some teams and prove to be the X factor. It will also potentially alienate more fans from what some still consider the national pastime.
(634)
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Poetry in Motian
Did anyone expect the bipartisan "supercommittee" to successfully lay out a budget plan? We already know DC is ridiculously polarized, but this was just the banana on the sundae, and it's clear that voters can't digest this for much longer. That is not to say, however that I personally wanted them to flounder; any sliver of progress would've been appreciated, and the supercommittee failed to accomplish even that. This is a crisis not only on the national level but globally; with Europe facing its own fiscal dilemma, our allies need the United States' investment more than ever. And yet, with the whole world watching no congressman or senator on either side of the fence could put aside their petty differences and compromise.
The problem with the federal budget crisis --and the toxic nature of Washington in general-- is that it cannot be pinpointed to one single person. The average conservative would blame President Obama or former Speaker Pelosi, but the seeds were planted long before either took their respective office. The common liberal would blame former President Bush if only because the economy tanked on his watch, but it's far more complicated than that. For drawing a divide between the left and right I would give a certain amount of credit to former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who infamously barred members of his party from associating with Democrats, even on a social level, with censure as punishment. Newt's successor Dennis Hastert didn't so much enforce the backdoor policy so much as let it pour over to both parties, and by the time Nancy Pelosi became speaker the damage was done.
For the economic stalemate, I have grown more exasperated with Grover Norquist with each passing day. If you'll excuse this HuffPo link, Andy Reinbach couldn't have said it better: Norquist has forced, bullied, and otherwise persuaded most of Republicans in Congress to swear they'll never raise taxes, hook, line or sinker. People tend to forget that the ongoing fiscal situation was brought upon by the defaults and bankruptcies of several major banks as well as irresponsible federal spending. Taxation was, if anything, a distant third in the blame game; lowering taxes is barely feasible at the moment, but eradicating them completely would only send us all further down the sinkhole. Norquist's theories on tax reform, while noble to a degree, are irrational and strident. If you want to cast stones, don't hurl them at the status quo so much as the people behind the status quo.
The 2012 election is less than a year away, and it's already sizing up to be the most important vote of our lifetimes. I would expect a greater purging of incumbents than in 2010; what is up for grabs is which party will suffer more casualties in Congress, and whether that will trickle up to the Oval Office. The Republican takeover last year was intended to clean up the Democrats; however, the GOP's chances in '12 have been hurt by their constant gridlock approach. At the moment I see no heroes, no knights in shining armor; just fools and puppets.
Other notes:
+ With minimal context, here is my seventh annual list of things I am thankful (and not quite as graceous) for:
Thanks: Groupon deals, Sudoku, my sudden turnaround in fantasy football (4-2 after an 0-5 start), the Chicago improv community, my patient roommate, and most importantly my friends and family.
No Thanks: Orly Taitz, "9-9-9," truly experiencing Chicago's infamous "lakefront effect" 2 1/2 miles west of Lake Michigan, the dearth of entry-level job postings online, corrupt college football programs, and forcing to budget myself to absurd extremes.
+ Finally, the jazz nerd in me has to acknowledge this. Earlier today the world lost drummer Paul Motian, the last surviving member of the "classic" Bill Evans Trio lineup of the late '50s/early '60s. Though he was a prolific leader and sideman for over half a century, he is best remembered for his percussion panache alongside Evans and bassist Scott LaFaro. Even more tragic is that he survived those bandmates by a solid three decades; LaFaro was killed in a car accident in 1961, Evans died of natural causes in 1980. Known for his work ethic, he was playing gigs at New York's Village Vanguard up to four weeks before his death. Motian painted colors on the drumset, and today the world feels a little more black and white without his presence.
Next week: the year in music, 1986. Happy Thanksgiving!
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Man with a Plan
"Difficult things take a long time, impossible things a little longer." --André A. Jackson
I will attest that President Obama gave a stirring speech to Congress last Thursday night, but my confidence in his economic policies and aspirations for job growth were left largely unchanged. The jobs bill that he outlined is not without its flaws, as one blogger pointed out; it's not so much built on cooperation as it is slouching on faith. It shouldn't feel last-ditch but it does. Like so much in the economic debate, I am impartial yet exasperated at the same time, and the flawed jobs bill adds to my worries. I want to give the president the reason of a doubt, but defending him can be awfully tricky.
As for Obama himself-- for some odd reason I can't get myself to take a seat on the hater bandwagon. You take away President Obama's economic pussyfooting and overall he's been halfway decent as Commander in Chief; alas, the 2012 election will be a platform on the economy and little else. There is a fair percentage of the US population that never wanted anything to do with the guy and won't give him an inch on anything, and Obama keeps chugging along in spite of their nearsighted vitriol. On one hand, the left hates him for caving into the Tea Party GOP agenda last month; on the other hand, the right hates him because he didn't cave enough. Playing to the middle and emphasizing pragmatism is the only way Obama can gain traction in a hyper-partisan environment like Washington, because taking one side or the other would merely excaberate a bad situation. I don't envy the position President Obama is in right now, but it's hard to draw sympathy, either.
Other notes:
+ For those of you that missed my Facebook rant this morning, let me reiterate my outrage at the latest frivolous fast food lawsuit. (Click here for more info.) People are born with a certain color of skin, a specific gender, certain physical abilities. However, nobody on this planet is born weighing 300 pounds. I truly, sincerely wish we were a less self-involved society and took more accountability for our actions and our mistakes. Even then, if you can't fit in the booth, sit in a damn chair.
+ Fantasy Update: both of my roto baseball teams made the playoffs... kinda. My TV.com roster finished one game out of first, while my "other" team ended the regular season 8th out of 10. This is the polar opposite of how this usually works, as my TV.com team usually languishes in the second division. Hopefully I'll end the year on two high notes.
+ Finally, a major announcement: after spending two-plus years commuting from the suburbs to hone my love and passion for improv, I'm finally moving to the city of Chicago. A ex-classmate of mine will be out of the country for four months, and I'll be subletting his apartment starting in late October. I'm still temping out in the suburbs, but this is a sacrifice that I've been sitting on for too long and needed to make sooner than later. Wish me luck!
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