How many of you follow baseball?  How many of you follow the New York Yankees?  How many of you know who George Steinbrenner III is? Well, for some of you, Hal Steinbrenner has taken over the Yankees for his father.

So, where am I going with all of this? How about having the Steinbrenner family work out a comp plan so they can buy some of these states that are in deep financial trouble. As you can see, Michigan is pictured on the left. One of the top 5 states that is in financial trouble. Not only with Detroit and the automobile business going down the tubes per se, but that Michigan ranks amongst some of the highest in foreclosure numbers also.

Do you know that the New York Yankees payroll for next year alone will be around $420 million. Sure, there is a salary cap, but you are only penalized when going over the cap. The penalty is by paying a luxury tax that goes back into the pot, that gets distributed to the other teams. Baseball is the only sport of the 4 major sports not to have a stiff cap.

3 new players signed just by the Yankees in the off season for a total of 423.5 million. You could buy a small country and feed them. Here are those 3 players.

Mark Teixeira - 8 year - 180 million  /  C.C. Sabathia - 7 year - 161 million  /  A.J. Burnett - 5 year - 82.5 million

Here are a few more New York Yankees who have re-signed.

Alex (A-ROD) Rodriguez  10 year - 275 million  /  Derek Jeter 10 year - 189 million

Do you know that baseball on a whole last year was down over 1% in attendance and that for most teams, ticket prices went up about $2.00 a ticket. Maybe both those numbers don't seem like a lot, but when you add them up, it starts to become a big difference. Do you not think that someone like Bud Selig, who is baseballs commissioner, would take into account what has happened to the U.S. economy??  How about the Big 3?

Here is something else to ponder.....  don't you think that baseball or several of the other sports could learn from the financial disasters that we have suffered as U.S. citizens?  Or maybe vice verse, that we could learn from some of the owners of these sports franchises, the ones that have made money and kept prices down?  Best of yet, possibly learn from the NFL, when it comes to a business. There is some very good income that goes into the NFL and they even have profit sharing and so much more for the teams and players. It took many years, but it's a very profitable and lucrative business for most involved. Can't we learn from this? 

Here are some cold hard figures..... 

Let's say the average house price in Michigan is $200,000. Let's just respectively assume that there are 100 foreclosures filed on a monthly basis for just 1 year.  That is 1,200 homes foreclosed, meaning that 1,200 families are now displaced.  Just in one year, that comes out to $240,000,000 million dollars. Gee, Steinbrenner's payroll for next year is almost doubled that.

Now, I was just using a basic example, knowing that there are a lot more foreclosures out there. And I know sports is entertainment. But when does it all stop?  Many of us know that many tickets and season ticket holders are that of corporations. But wait, wasn't that part of the poor spending habits by the Big 3?  Spending money on high priced meals, dinners, private jets, etc, etc. If baseball allows this, teams will fall out because they won't be able to compete. And then what happens to the sport in itself?  Would we have multi-million dollar stadiums sit vacant now?  That's a pretty big house to sell, don't you think.

Solution???  Damn, if I had all of the answers, I wouldn't be writing to you all. But how about these teams giving back to the communities?  Sure, they pay stadium taxes and some other things. But what does that money really get used for?  What about having certain types of funds to help those out that fell upon financial hardship?  How about for every $1.00 spent on a new signing, .01 gets donated? That could be $2.4 million into the pot.  Sure, that would only help 12 homes at $240,000 each. But isn't that a start?  And that just one baseball team.

I have always believed that someone will buy tickets.... but look now.  Hockey is down in attendance also. And it won't get better, it will get worst first. How many people have to go bankrupt before we bail everyone out?  The average American has to cut back on gas, food, and other small ticket items. Why can't we make this happen with sports?   Just food for thought...  What do you say?

Ken Cook made this comment, which would be a wise one....   Ken's comment   But my thought of a response... wouldn't they just raise ticket prices by $2.00 then?  lol

While on this subject, Kris Wales wrote about this....  Worth the time to read ....  just more food for thought.

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