I agree, Jason, it’s odd that fans seem to be hostile to players in any financial conflict with owners.  I’m sure there’s lots of psychological grist for the mill, there… I’d also argue that the players’ union does a great job of fighting for what they want, but not such a great job of appealing for fan support.  If they made that a priority, there’s a lot they could say that would put them in a better light.
So far as player salaries as a percentage of revenue, I also believe that MLB players have far better pensions and health benefits after they stop playing.  In addition, their contracts are guaranteed (unlike NFL players).  How does this impact the percentage-of-revenue measurements?

Craig, Manfred’s point that you refer to is high on the agenda ( from what I can construe from my basement ) @ MLB. There have been past pieces in SBJ - including an opinion piece by Zimbalist - on this subject and you’re right, if you factor in player development costs that 52% figure climbs considerably.

Tom Werner has commented publicly on the high costs of player development.  Both he and Zimbilast have it pegged at an avg of $20 million per team per year.  That is obviously a lot of dough industry wide.

I think this is part of the larger issue of why Selig has intervened ( unsuccessfully ) in the Rule IV and is lobbying for an expansion of it.

I also think it is part of the reason that big league clubs are becoming more active in the owning and operating of their minor league affiliates.  I also think it is part of the reason that you heard Shapiro & Veeck @ SABR musing about a change in the structure of AAA.  (  I wasn’t there, is that what they were talking about? )

PS.  If anybody has a transcript of the discussion between Shapiro and Veeck, I’m interested in this subject.

Kelly—the comparison wouldn’t be with your average hamburger flipper or your average office manager.  The comparison would be with the overall labor costs for McDonalds or Dunder Mifflin, Inc. or whatever.

I don’t have the time to quickly find that out, but my guess is that salaries as a percentage of revenue for these companies is lower.  Thing is, those sorts of companies have all kinds of materials expenses that baseball doesn’t have.  Once you have acquired players, most of the expenses have been paid.

Ultimately, though, you have to figure it this way:  Baseball made $6B on the work of roughly 1000 Major League ballplayers last year.  GM, for example, has lost billions on the labor of hundreds of times more employees. In light of that, why is it that baseball players have to be ashamed of what they make?

I’ll grant you that there needs to be a broader comparison, Kelly.  My only point (not made well with the GM stuff) is that some industries are far more labor intensive than others.  It follows then, that industies in which labor is a bigger piece of the production pie should pay their workers a greater percentage of profits than industries in which the labor has to combine with things like sheet metal, rubber, electronics and other things in order to realize the profits.  Maybe services firms like accounting and the law are better comps.  Maybe it’s something else.

It’s also worth thinking about the specialization of the workforce.  Baseball players have highly specialized skills that are harder to find in the labor pool (to put it mildly).  Because a manufacturing business is more easily able to replace its workers than a professional sports league is, it follows that their salaries should be less.