It feels like a hot stove event that would be more suitable in January, but then again, this comes from the perspective of a baseball writer. The Conference, while perhaps baseball-centric, includes speakers and topics from all the major sports.

I caught a few stray tweets from event participants this past weekend, though most seemed to originate from admirers of Bill James, quoting the gospel from the sabermetric guru now employed by the Boston Red Sox.

Looking for a more comprehensive review of the proceedings, I ran across an excellent recap from a writer named Evan Brunell at opposingviews.com. For those interested in the business side of baseball, I recommend you give it a read.

Highlights include agent Scott Boras explaining how he and the clubs with which he negotiates use metrics. Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow discusses his deployment of analytics while with St. Louis and his plans to move Houston ahead in that area.

New studies on predicting next pitches to be thrown, what is following the groundbreaking PITCHf/x system and a look at natural alternatives to steroids through identifying deficiencies via blood testing are also reviewed.

The article concludes with Boras (and James) predictably blasting the new restrictions on spending for both amateur talent and international free agents.

Just maybe I will make time to attend next year…

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One factor has been the inability to show a profit in running the Muckdogs. Since assuming control of the Batavia franchise in 2008, RCB has lost around $600,000 in total on the Muckdogs, according to an article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Though not rendered explicit in the article, based on past disclosures, this would signal the Muckdogs lost in the area of $110,000 in 2011, up from their $92,000 deficit logged in 2010. That would represent the majority of the Rochester loss in 2011.

Comments from RCB officials no longer hold out hope for a turnaround in Batavia, but instead reflect a realization that sale of the team is inevitable.

“We plan to continue operating the Batavia franchise until it is sold,” RCB President/CEO/COO Naomi Silver told the paper. “Making money any season in Batavia is a tall order. We know that now. Batavia has an extremely loyal fan base but it isn’t large enough. But when the team is sold, we expect to make a considerable profit.”

Despite fielding competitive baseball teams, the Muckdogs have consistently remained among the bottom-dwellers of the New York-Penn League in attendance, drawing on average around 1,000 per game.

RCB’s operating agreement with the Batavia ownership includes five percent take of the eventual sale price of the team. This will be the fifth year of the arrangement, so RCB would receive 25 percent of the sale proceeds from the Muckdogs franchise. That should be over a million dollars and could be as much as $1.5 million.

“The going price for a team in the NY-P League is $5 to $6 million,” Silver said. “I believe it is inevitable that the Muckdogs will be sold. I get a call or two a week from potential buyers.”

The team has been on the market since at least the third quarter of 2010, but no timetable for a sale has been disclosed. The St. Louis Cardinals Player Development Contract with the Muckdogs runs through the 2012 season and at this point, it seems the team will play at least one more year in Batavia.

What happens after that is entirely up in the air.

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The external owners of two of the three others are or will soon be actively shopping their clubs. The highest level team, the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds, is being prepared for sale. The short-season Class-A Batavia Muckdogs club has been on the market for about 18 months. The third externally-owned affiliate is the Class-A Quad Cities River Bandits.

The not-for-profit Memphis Redbirds Baseball Foundation is preparing a plan to place the team and its home, AutoZone Park, on the market, reports the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The Redbirds have been mired in a complex financial mess for several years that made it almost impossible to sell the team.

Considered one of, if not the best facility in minor league baseball, AutoZone opened in 2000. It came with a resulting heavy load, as its $80.5 million cost set a new record high for a minor league stadium. The combination of the high stadium debt, back tax liabilities and operating expenses out of line with declining revenues led to the deteriorating financial situation.

Fundamental Advisors LP, a private-equity firm, is owned more than $50 million in bond payments by the Foundation. The firm had purchased $25 million of tax-exempt bonds used to finance the ballpark after they went into default. The bonds are backed by the franchise and the stadium.

The current focus of the Foundation appears to be establishing sale parameters that would be acceptable to Fundamental Advisors, since the latter essentially has control of the team and stadium. This would provide a yardstick against which to measure prospective bids.

From the external view at least, the situation in Memphis appears to be improving somewhat. The club’s increase in attendance in 2011 of 31,000 was its first after nine straight years of decline. The business side of the team and the park have been facility-managed since 2009 by Global Spectrum, a unit of media giant Comcast.

When the Redbirds formally reach the market, it is not known if the St. Louis Cardinals will again show interest in acquiring the club. Back in September 2008, the Cardinals signed a letter of intent to purchase the team and rent AutoZone Park, but withdrew four months later due to the muddled finances.

Regarding the on-field product, the Cardinals’ current Player Development Contract with the Redbirds expires at the end of the 2012 season. The two began their relationship in the Pacific Coast League team’s first year, 1998. Agreements are typically executed in two- or four-year increments.

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Several dominoes would need to fall for the St. Louis Cardinals’ New York-Penn League affiliate to end up in Binghamton, NY in 2013, but it could happen.

The story begins with a group in Ottawa, Canada having received encouragement to pursue membership in the Double-A Eastern League.

“All signs indicate Ottawa would become the new home of the Eastern League franchise currently in Binghamton, New York,” the Ottawa Citizen reported recently.

Ballpark Digest noted the same, stating the Ottawa group had been in serious negotiations to buy the Binghamton club and move it north. The club would become the Toronto Blue Jays’ Double-A affiliate.

It gets even more interesting from there.

Based on conversations with “several MiLB team owners and brokers with knowledge of sales discussions,” Ballpark Digest suggests a second move could then be in the offing.

The scenario is that the Binghamton group, currently affiliated with the New York Mets, would remain in organized baseball and honor their stadium lease commitment currently running through 2016. The vehicle would be to drop down from Double-A to the short-season Class-A NYPL by purchasing the for-sale Batavia Muckdogs.

Batavia is heading into its sixth season affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals. The club is always among the bottom dwellers of the NYPL in attendance, the physical facilities are less than state of the art and the franchise has perennially lost money.

Placed on the market by its local ownership well over a year ago, the Muckdogs are estimated by Ballpark Digest to be worth $5 million, about $7 million less than selling the Eastern League franchise might net. The Muckdogs would then be moved to Binghamton starting in 2013 with the new owners making a tidy profit from the sequence of moves, goes the storyline.

Not surprisingly, B-Mets ownership denies the rumors. After all, they must remain focused on their knitting – selling tickets to the 2012 EL season – at least publicly. Even if the moving plans are true, announcing a lame duck summer would hardly accomplish anything positive for fan interest.

The Cardinals player development contract with the Muckdogs franchise runs through the 2012 season, same as the Mets’ agreement with Binghamton. While the Cardinals’ NYPL affiliation has shifted homes twice since 2005, from New Jersey to State College to Batavia, the organization previously expressed a desire to remain in the NYPL over the long haul.

The open question seems to be their 2013 location. Stay tuned to see if this story develops further over the upcoming months.

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Following is a summary of some of the key elements as reported by AP, the New York Times, FOX Sports and other sources.

Free agent compensation

Type A free agents – 2011 – The group of eligible players will be pared back to just the top stars, while players like relievers will be excluded from requiring compensation. The lists are yet to be disclosed.

Type A free agents – 2012 and beyond – The Elias Rating system will be scrapped. Clubs must have made a “qualifying offer” of at least $12.4 million on a one-year contract to receive compensation if a player later signs elsewhere. The qualifying amount increases in later years.

Type B free agents that generate a compensatory sandwich pick will be eliminated.

Draft and international players

A spending cap on amateur player spending will be put in place. A maximum amount that teams can spend on both draft picks and international free agents will be established. Clubs will be penalized from 75 percent to 100 percent or potentially even lose future first- and second-round draft picks if they excessively exceed the limit.

Salary

The minimum Major League salary will jump from $414,000 to $480,000 initially, and to $500,000 over the life of the five-year agreement.

Arbitration

The percentage of “Super Two” players eligible for arbitration between their second and third years of service time will be increased from the top 17 percent of players to 22 percent.

PEDs

Human Growth Hormone blood testing will begin in February, with penalties the same as for steroids today.

Note: While you are here, make sure you register for our free, World Series Highlights DVD sets giveaway.

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While the Boston Red Sox’ fall from grace this September has been well-chronicled, their primary combatant for many of the most desirable and expensive free agents, the New York Yankees, did not make it past the first round. They fell to the Detroit Tigers at home last Thursday night.

After the St. Louis Cardinals eliminated the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 5 of their National League Division Series one week ago, the current status of the highest-payroll teams in 2011 is summarized following. Their on-field results are not a very strong endorsement of high spending.

Only two of the top nine spenders made the post-season – period – and after their first-round defeats, neither of them are still alive. Top active payroll clubs are the number 10 and 11 teams, Detroit and St. Louis, at $105 million each. Interestingly, the two lowest-payroll playoff entrants have been eliminated as well, Tampa Bay and Arizona.

Further, the East and West Coasts were knocked entirely out of the picture the rest of the way in 2011, an occurrence the television networks must certainly not like.

Note the salary listings are from the USAToday Salary Database. I believe it records season-opening rosters only, so later moves can lead to discrepancies. Still, the big picture is clear. At least in 2011, money is not going to buy the title.

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Press release:

With the Cardinals in the first round of the National League playoffs, St. Louisans can eagerly anticipate both the national attention and the measurable economic benefits that post-season play will bring to the St. Louis region.

The St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association’s (RCGA) Chief Economist Ruth Sergenian noted that the total economic impact of the Cardinals playoffs depends upon the number of games played here in St. Louis. If all possible games are played through the World Series, the impact would approach the impact of the All Star’s week in 2009 at over $56 million. Any added economic benefits to the region from the playoffs are above and beyond the $313.6 million impact of the 2011 Cardinals regular season.

Sergenian calculates that the economic impact of the Cardinals appearing in the Divisional Playoffs would approach $5.2 million per game. This estimate is based on the assumption that the games would draw 46,200 attendees per game. Historically, out of town visitors constitute some 40% of Cardinals attendance. The playoff’s will bring increasing attendance from the out of town visitors, as well as the media, and the MLB. Direct visitor spending is expected to reach $1.5 million per game for the division series.

In addition to direct spending by visitors, operations at Busch Stadium will boost total new direct expenditures to $2.6 million per game. There are approximately 3,000 day-of-game employees at Busch Stadium. The total direct expenditures will ripple through the local economy to generate nearly another $2.6 million in indirect and induced expenditures, to reach the total impact of almost $5.2 million. The RCGA uses an economic model called IMPLAN to develop these estimates.

The RCGA is the chamber of commerce and economic development organization for the 16-county, bi-state region. With nearly 4,000 member companies, RCGA members constitute 40% of the regional work force. The mission of the RCGA is to unite the region’s business community, and to engage dynamic business.

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According to one rumor, the idea was floated during the first quarter discussions between Pujols’ agent, Dan Lozano, and club executives, but was tabled. It came up again this week in a Jon Heyman article at SI.com.

Perhaps it will arise once again when talks resume this fall.

Is it a good or bad thing?

At first blush, the Cardinals might seem motivated to consider this concept. On a general basis, ownership has expressed a willingness to introduce creative elements into the discussions. The intent could be to use non-cash items to bring down the out-of-pocket expense on what might otherwise be an MLB-record contract.

Could there have been motivation to externally leak this particular component?

One possibility is its potential value in influencing public perception. In some quarters, the rumor mill has depicted the Cardinals as having low-balled Pujols with their contract offer. From the team’s perspective, an equity example might help de-emphasize a harsh view of the standard average annual value (AAV) calculation of the proposal.

It could be a differentiator for the Cardinals’ bid. Other clubs may be more reluctant to offer an ownership stake, instead perhaps more inclined to bid straight money and years to a player new to their organization.

It could also hurt the Cardinals’ negotiating position. While Pujols could see tax advantages in this approach as well as potential growth in his ownership share of the club over time, if chasing an MLB-record AAV is what he wants most, this would get in the way of maximizing his raw dollars and perhaps years.

Is ownership motivated?

Let’s take a quick look at the rough value of the team, as reported by Forbes. Last spring, they placed a value of $488 million on the Cardinals, the eighth-most valuable club in MLB by their estimates. A one-percent share would equate to roughly $5 million and you can do the math from there.

In other words, would it be worth it to ownership to save $50 million over the life of Pujols’ next deal to cede a ten percent share of the Cardinals? It seems a high price to pay.

There could also be internal issues. Which owners would be willing to dilute their stakes to make room for Pujols? There are over a dozen investors in the Cardinals current ownership group.

The concept of a player holding an equity stake in his team is allowable by Major League Baseball but requires permission of the commissioner. If it came down to it, would that approval be granted easily?

I would be very surprised if MLB or any team’s owners would be eager to risk the potential of exposing their books to an active player and member of the Players’ Union.

In other words, it might be good PR for the Cardinals if fans think Pujols is under consideration for partial ownership, but that doesn’t mean they intend to pull the trigger – at least initially.

Now, later or not at all?

One variation could be to give the player an option to acquire shares at a pre-defined price upon his retirement. Again, there is potential downside, though on appearance less than in the case of granting immediate team equity.

This agreement would remain on the books for another decade or so and could become an inhibitor if a broader change in ownership was considered during that time. Would a prospective new ownership group want to have Pujols involved, for example?

In recent reader polling this spring at The Cardinal Nation Blog, fans embraced the idea. Almost 50 percent of voters would include a future share of team ownership in Pujols’ new contract, while 17 percent would do it effective immediately. The other third oppose the concept regardless of when it would be executed.

Does a new CBA offer opportunity?

Recently, I have read a number of writers expressing surprise that with all the labor strife currently occurring across professional sports, specifically in the NFL and NBA, that MLB seems the exception. I wonder if they realize negotiations between the union and ownership on a new basic agreement haven’t fully gotten underway.

If completed by this coming December, the new collective bargaining agreement would take effect at that time. If not, players could continue to decide to play in 2012 on an interim basis as the new deal is hammered out. There is always the possibility of a strike if negotiations turn ugly.

One could only imagine how concerns over an active player and member of the union potentially having access to the books of a major league team might complicate negotiations.

For that reason alone, I don’t see the immediate equity scenario happening. The owners would seem to have too much to lose by the risk of opening up their financials – now or in the foreseeable future.

Does it benefit anyone other than the player?

Former commissioner Fay Vincent, who was once fired by the owners by the way, has been at the lead of the movement, pushing this concept of player equity in clubs. I recently wrote him about it, asking several questions including why the owners would ever allow this. He did not reply.

Vincent’s remarks and articles on the subject stress the tax advantages from the player perspective. I suspect Vincent also very well knows the problems it could create for ownership and to a lesser extent for the union, but apparently has reasons to downplay that important dynamic. Perhaps he is trying to build a groundswell of support among those who aren’t thinking this all the way through.

The idea of players getting access to ownerships’ finances would certainly offer the potential to disrupt the labor calm in MLB, wouldn’t it?

The union angle

MLB Players Association Executive Director and General Counsel Michael Weiner has said that he is not necessarily for or against the concept of players holding an equity share in their team while noting it would require both internal union dialogue as well as discussion with ownership. After all, perhaps the union might also be uncomfortable with owners among their rank and file.

It is important to consider possible impacts to the game once the door is opened. If granted to Pujols, there would be nothing to stop the expansion of ownership to a broader base of players. In fact, Vincent’s advocacy is not restricted to Pujols; the Cardinals star is just one immediate example.

In an October panel discussion that included Vincent, Weiner noted possible integrity issues that a broader partnership could raise. A scenario was cited in which players on one team would benefit financially if a different team was to make the playoffs.

One weak link can break the chain

My bottom line is that while the idea of granting Pujols a share of the Cardinals has a nice feel to it, the various inhibitors are such that I really question whether it will happen this fall. Any one of the items mentioned above could scuttle the idea, with likely other inhibitors not yet brought to light.

Perhaps the details of a player holding equity in his club will be hammered out some day, but it seems like it would take considerable time and effort to make it a reality.

On the other hand, if the Cardinals don’t come up with some creative aspects to successfully inject into the proposed contract other than flat dollars and years, they may be forced into the unpleasant prospect of either matching the highest bid Pujols can secure in the free agent market or watching him walk away.

Even if so, would that be more palatable to ownership than ceding a chunk of the team and everything that goes with it?

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Comparable to their general position in annual payroll rankings, the St. Louis Cardinals hang near the bottom of the top third of the clubs. In 2011, they come in at number eight, up from ninth last year and 10^th in 2009.

The club’s FCI of $223.18 represents an upturn of 3.1 percent compared to 2010. It is the eighth increase in the last nine years and most since a 3.8 percent increase in 2008.

Overall, Cardinals FCIs have grown less than eight percent in total since the large increase incurred in conjunction with the new ballpark opening in 2006. In fact, this year’s average ticket price of $31.17 is not quite even $1.50 higher than the team’s average ticket price of $29.78 in 2006. This bears further watching, however. With the new dynamic pricing structure being implemented in 2011, ticket prices should show greater volatility than ever before.

Across MLB, the 1.2 percent ticket increase this year is the smallest jump since the FCI’s 1991 inception after the previous low of 1.5 percent one year ago. That may have something to do with the fact that overall attendance in MLB was down 0.4 percent in 2010 on the heels of a six percent decline the year prior.

The Boston Red Sox rank first in MLB in average ticket price at $53.38 and lead in the FCI as well for the second consecutive year and eighth time in the last nine years. Their American League East rivals, the New York Yankees, are right behind.

The average FCI across MLB of $197.35 represents a 2.0 percent increase compared to last year. The best value in the game is the $120.96 it takes to see the Arizona Diamondbacks, lowest for the third year in a row.

The other teams in the NL Central rank as follows: Chicago Cubs (third, down from second), Houston Astros (ninth, up from 12^th), both with above average FCIs. The other three reside in the bottom third of MLB clubs: Cincinnati Reds (21st, up from 25^th), Milwaukee Brewers (23^rd, same as 2010) and Pittsburgh Pirates (28^th, same as in 2010).

* The FCI, developed by Team Marketing Report, is made up of the prices of two adult and two child average-price tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular-size hot dogs, parking for one car, two game programs and two least expensive, adult-size adjustable caps.

Not every group of four would spend this much money, but it provides a consistent point of comparison across 30 teams over time.

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St. Louis Cardinals value (source: Forbes)

Interestingly, the new Busch Stadium is only valued at $136 million despite its $357 million cost, with its $20 million per year debt service noted. (Note reader comments below that this is an equity statement, not a valuation.) Forbes estimates that the Cardinals took in $207 million in revenue, with operating income of $19.8 million, up from $13 million the prior year. Gate receipts were assumed to be $95 million.

Player expenses were pegged at $110 million by Forbes, basically flat year to year. Team season-opening player payrolls have yet to be determined, but the Cardinals are expected to be in that same 10-12 ranking range for the 2011 season.

Interestingly, despite being ranked in the top half, the Cardinals are worth slightly less than the average team. Overall, Forbes estimates the average MLB franchise is worth $523 million. That is an all-time high and up seven percent from last year.

The New York Yankees remain the most valuable team at $1.7 billion. At the other end of the totem pole at number 30 is the Pittsburgh Pirates at $304 million.

While some disagree with these valuations, with MLB’s books closed to the public, the yearly Forbes process provides the most exhaustive analysis generally available.

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Now for the bad news. They still reported a $92,000 deficit for the year on gross revenues of roughly a half million dollars.

That compares to $250,000 in red ink from during their initial season providing business management of the club in 2008 and nearly $150,000 more lost the next year. The actual deficit over the three years is $488,917, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

The silver lining on the dark cloud is that RCB has accumulated five percent ownership of the Muckdogs franchise for each season of their deal, or a total of 20 percent by the end of this season. At an estimated sale price of $4 to $6 million, the Rochester group would seem destined to make an eventual profit, even with continued losses operating the team likely in 2011.

The Batavians are less fortunate, however, as their equity position in the team declines each year. For a good period of time last summer, it looked like 2010 would be the final year for New York-Penn League baseball in the upper New York town.

While they have staved off extinction for another year, the handwriting is on the wall. With continued losses and that erosion in their ownership stake each season, the franchise is slowly bleeding to death.

Last summer, the team was officially put on the market. RCB chairman Gary Larder reminded his anxious shareholders that their annual losses operating the club will end as time for baseball in Batavia runs out.

“The team is for sale,” Larder said. “We don’t expect to be doing it again next year. We expect they will be sold.”

Not surprisingly, the hometown Batavia Daily News painted a more hopeful picture about the situation while acknowledging the sale process is in full swing.

“We are working to find a buyer that will give us what we think is fair value for the team and keep the team in Batavia for another couple of years. That would be the ideal situation,” said RCB COO Naomi Silver.

“Because of our ability to get our (RCB) money out of it in the end, we are not in a desperate situation to find a buyer. We are going to find the right situation. In the last week, I’ve talked to six different parties, and I don’t know if any will come to fruition, but people are interested.”

2011 is potentially shaping up to be a lame-duck season for baseball in Batavia. As soon as possible, new ownership would most likely relocate the franchise to an area with a better facility, greater population draw and of course, a realistic chance to turn a profit that neither RCB nor the Batavia majority owners before them could achieve.

Apparently unconcerned by all this, the St. Louis Cardinals signed a two-year extension of their Player Development Contract with the Muckdogs last fall and are committed to provide players to the team in 2012 no matter where their home might be.

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Here are some of his key points.

General team finances

St. Louis is 24^th of 30 MLB markets, using Nielsen DMA as the measure. This does not include “outer markets.”

The Cardinals are 20^th in MLB in revenue due to the size of the market and the resulting cable television deal, which runs for seven more years.

In local revenue (tickets, food, beverage), the Cardinals rank in the top five in MLB. No team has a bigger gap so greater local dependence on local revenue.

The club receives 1/30^th of all MLB revenue. For example, MLB Properties for central licensing and MLB Advanced Media. This allows clubs more consistent revenue through team up and down years.

(According to a recent report from BizofBaseball.com, MLBAM alone generates a half-billion dollars in revenue annually.)

Considering all sources, St. Louis is 10^th in revenue across MLB, which is the same spot as player payroll spending. They consider themselves a “top 1/3 club” along with the big market teams, but have greater dependency on ticket sales.

They are looking at changing season ticket reporting to a more consistent method across MLB. For example, eight ten-packs could equal one season ticket.

The Cardinals are implementing customer relationship management (CRM) to better understand preferences and past history.

Ballpark finances

New Busch Stadium cost $411 million, including some first season expenses.

A $100 million assistance proposal from the state did not pass. Meant they needed city help or they could not have financed the stadium.

There is a five percent city admission (or amusement) tax on entertainment tickets (including Rams, Blues, etc. – unique in MLB.) above the sales tax that was abated by the city for 29 years.

Prior to the new stadium, the five-year average (through 2002) the Cardinals paid the city was $7.7 million in admission, revenue taxes etc. It is now up to an average of $10.3 million in the last five years because of increased revenue and a higher payroll tax. City did the right thing.

State was active, too. MODOT moved up the schedule to relocate a highway exit to make room for the park and the state gave them tax credits for environmental cleanup from old gas stations. Same credits were available to any MO business. $50 million in state investment. Revenues from Cardinals to state up from $9 million average before new stadium to $18 million average since it opened.

Other than San Francisco, financed like St. Louis, the cost of most stadiums were at least 90 percent public assisted. St. Louis was about 10 percent.

The Cardinals borrowed about $300 million to build the stadium. They are able to service the debt annually, but carry a larger burden than other clubs.

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For example, a group is planning a rally to show their support for the two sides to come to terms. Other suggestions are intended to “help” the club identify additional revenue sources, which they could then deploy in paying Pujols.

One proposal is for the Cardinals to create their own regional television network in the image of the Yankees’ wildly successful YES Network. Unfortunately, any such change would not occur quickly enough to impact the current situation.

First of all, there are major market differences between St. Louis and New York. In fact, St. Louis ranks 24^th of the 30 metro markets using Nielsen DMA data, according to team president Bill DeWitt III. While he acknowledged that does not take into account “outer markets” where the Cardinals are regionally strong, it wouldn’t close the gap with The Big Apple.

Yet there is clearly considerable money to be made in team broadcast rights.

Last fall, the Texas Rangers inked a landmark 20-year contract extension with FOX Sports Southwest that takes effect in 2015. The total value of the deal is said to be a whopping $1.6 billion.

That $80 million average per season is a huge increase over the $45 million the club reportedly receives under the current contact. An additional $35 million each and every year could buy a lot of anything, including the services of several baseball players in their prime.

With the Texas situation firmly in mind, during the recent Winter Warm-Up I asked DeWitt III if conditions could be right for a similar windfall for his club.

DeWitt characterized the Texas situation as “the perfect storm” with a change in team leadership due to the previous owner who “had overly-leveraged the franchise and got into trouble that probably started with the A-Rod contract. I won’t draw any parallels,” he quipped. DeWitt also observed the Rangers cable TV footprint ranges from Arlington to Dallas to Houston.

One major reason these conditions won’t be developing soon in St. Louis is that the Cardinals have seven years remaining in their current contract with FOX Sports Midwest. The deal had been extended prior to the 2007 season.

A provision in the revised agreement that was picked up stipulates that starting in 2011, all Cardinals games not telecast nationally, about 150, will be found exclusively on the regional sports network. Available via cable and satellite, FOX Sports Midwest was rated number one among all such networks across MLB during the 2010 season. Free, on-air Sunday games, most recently shown on KSDK and a regional network, have likely disappeared forever, DeWitt acknowledged.

The team president further pointed out that there are risks in long-term deals like the one made in Texas that might limit the Cardinals’ flexibility down the road.

“To get into an extension (with FOX Sports Midwest) might be a bit premature but we are looking at everything that is happening in the industry,” DeWitt said. “Some clubs have extended very long into the future – 20-year deals. The Oakland A’s have done that (with Comcast SportsNet) and a few others.”

The Cardinals don’t seem to see a clear benefit in the trend.

“We are kind of scratching our heads thinking about that because… is that good for the club? Or is it risky if it is one of those things where sure, you might be able to lock in some big increases and maybe even bump up revenues and payrolls and so forth, but are you limiting your flexibility and options for the future – perhaps do your own cable network of things of that nature?” DeWitt asked.

With at least seven years of the status quo ahead, don’t expect incremental cash to begin flowing in to fund Pujols’ impending contract – unless a tremendous portion of his money is deferred.

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Back in November, the St. Louis Cardinals announced they would be joining the ranks of other teams across a number of professional sports using dynamic ticket pricing starting this coming season.

Anyone familiar with how airline seats are priced and sold already understands the basic concept – charge more when demand is high and drop prices when demand is lower.

The challenge for clubs is to make these changes quickly and in a manner most advantageous to maximizing profit. Of course, the team spins it as being a fan-friendly action. Thank God they are looking out for the peeps.

“Our number one goal is to provide our fans with the best values possible and fill the stands at Busch Stadium,” said Joe Strohm, Cardinals vice president of ticket sales.

New news on this front occurred on Thursday, when it was announced that both the Cardinals and Oakland A’s have selected their vendor to manage the process.

Qcue [kyoo kyoo] from Austin, Texas will be the provider of the “dynamic pricing engine” that will manage ticket prices for the 2011 season. The Cardinals are far from the first to hop onto this bandwagon, joining other teams from Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and NASCAR as Qcue clients.

Qcue’s algorithms adjust prices in real time as they monitor ticket demand. Conditions such as pitching matchups, weather, opponents, day of the week, sales to-date and other factors are taken into account. The software communicates directly with Tickets.com, MLB Advanced Media’s wholly-owned online ticket seller, allowing teams to change prices almost instantaneously.

According to stats on Qcue’s website, 40 percent of seats end up unsold while 10 percent of tickets are re-sold on the secondary market at an average of double the face value. Clubs see opportunity in cutting into each.

The Cardinals haven’t had problems selling tickets any time recently, though 2010 brought seemingly more specials than in the past. The team drew 3,301,218 to Busch Stadium last season, the fourth-highest attendance in Major League Baseball. It was the 14th time in franchise history and seventh straight season the team topped the three million mark.

The stakes are especially high for the Cardinals. Despite being in the 24^th-largest metro market of 30, the team ranks in the top five in MLB in local revenues, according to team president Bill DeWitt III. That category includes food, beverage and of course, ticket sales.

During his Winter Warm-Up presentation, DeWitt noted that his club is more dependent on these local revenues than many others and announced the Cardinals are implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system to enable them to track individual customer histories and target specialized initiatives.

MLB also has their fingers in the lucrative ticket resale segment of the market as they enter their fourth season of a five-year deal with EBay’s StubHub Inc. unit signed in 2007.  Season ticket holders looking to resell individual game tickets are assessed a fee equivalent to 15 percent of the sale price while buyers see 10 percent tacked onto their purchase. I suspect clubs have also used this avenue to move excess inventory. It is masked as Stubhub does not disclose sellers’ identities to buyers.

First and foremost is filling up the stadium the first time around.

“Qcue’s solution not only gives us greater day-to-day ticket pricing flexibility but also broadens the ticket-buying fan base, rewards fans for buying earlier in the season and protects season ticket holder value,” Strohm said.

I am not so sure about the assertion of rewarding early buyers, as ticket prices could just as easily go down for certain games as the season progresses.

The benefits of dynamic ticket pricing to the team is clear. For the customer, it is much less so.

Acquiring tickets is being turned into an investment-style guessing game for the prospective buyer. At any sporting event, like on an airplane, each person in a given row may have paid a different price for an identical seat, yet no one other than the ticket seller themselves know who got the best deal.

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Despite leases in place through 2017, the St. Louis Cardinals and Florida Marlins are being pressured by their spring training Jupiter, Florida landlord. Palm Beach County managers will not release money set aside for improvements to Roger Dean Stadium until the two organizations commit to ten year lease extensions, reports the Palm Beach Post.

The Cardinals have trained in the Jupiter facility since it opened in 1998 after moving from their long-time home in St. Petersburg. St. Louis has a rehab facility there and both A-Advanced and Gulf Coast League clubs that call the complex their home during the regular season. According to the article, the Cardinals and the Marlins pay the first $250,000 in annual site expenses with the locals covering the remainder.

Both organizations are reportedly unwilling to commit to an extension unless they receive a clause enabling them to opt out of their leases if either the New York Mets or Washington Nationals move away from Florida’s east coast during that time.

There have been long-standing rumors of interest by the Nationals to relocate from Viera to Orlando, so the Palm Beach County officials may take issue with the proposed clause.

In recent years, the Dodgers left Vero Beach and the Orioles abandoned Fort Lauderdale. As a result, the Cardinals, Marlins and Mets play each other in the majority of their major league spring training games and all minor league spring contests.

A Marlins official commented in the article that both his club and the Cardinals are happy in Jupiter and have no plans to leave. No one from St. Louis was quoted. In other forums, Cardinals officials have commented frequently about the logistical problem, but they acknowledge no alternative is in sight – at least until their 2017 lease is up.

Between now and then, negotiations may become increasingly contentious.

In other related news, Roger Dean Stadium general manager Joe Pinto has resigned to move to the Triple-A Norfolk Tides in the Baltimore Orioles system. Jupiter Hammerheads GM Mike Bauer is acting until the Cardinals and Marlins replace Pinto, who had been in the job since 2007.

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Earlier this week, former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent penned an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Albert Pujols’s Capital Opportunity.”

At face value, Vincent appeared to be offering a public service to those players already being paid the highest salaries in the game by suggesting they relieve some of their considerable tax liability by pursuing ownership shares in their teams as part of their compensation.

Vincent cited examples of corporate executives and film industry bigwigs that have prospered in such an arrangement, while wondering aloud why MLB stars currently pushing for contacts such as Albert Pujols and Derek Jeter don’t demand the same treatment.

Initially, I was intrigued by the premise, but after reading more, I became alarmed over the impracticality of Vincent’s recommendations. I began to wonder why he would be advocating an approach that he acknowledges is not allowed under baseball’s current agreements.

Why is Vincent pushing for a solution to a problem that may or may not exist for a very few? Even if the tax burden on these elite athletes was a major issue, their agents often secure long-term payouts of contracts and deploy savvy financial professionals to manage their clients’ investments.

Why in the world would Vincent care about this?

I can only draw the conclusion that not far beneath the surface, the deposed commissioner seems to be trying to stir up trouble during the final year leading up to a new agreement between players and owners. His proposal could drive a wedge between the top players and the rank and file as well as cause heartburn for the owners who fired him almost two decades ago.

In an article touting the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee candidacy of former Vincent adversary and Players’ Union head Marvin Miller, MLB.com’s Peter Gammons outlined several gaping holes in Vincent’s proposal.

“For instance, it has recently been suggested that one way to resolve the Derek Jeter and Albert Pujols contractual stalemates is to give each a piece of ownership. If only Miller were in the MLBPA office to roar to The New York Times or The Associated Press. What that would do is alienate Jeter or Pujols from teammates unhappy about the biggest or smallest of issues. As a member of ownership, neither player would be allowed in union meetings, and how could they be eligible for postseason shares? If Phil Hughes or Colby Rasmus were shaken down by management, why wouldn’t they harbor animosity toward Jeter or Pujols?”

Even prior to that, in fact as soon as I read his Monday article, I emailed Vincent to express my concern. I waited for several days, but he did not respond. The content of my note follows.

“Mr. Vincent, we have spoken and exchanged messages about umpiring and the Hall of Fame in the past. I enjoyed and appreciated your openness.

I am contacting you now about your Wall Street Journal article on the subject of team ownership shares by players. While I agree with your basic proposal as a valuable long-term direction for a small group of elite players, I find your specific recommendations for the here and now surprisingly impractical.

Specifically, you state there is nothing in MLB rules which prohibit player ownership, yet later acknowledge that the current union agreements do just that. Despite this reality, you express surprise that players negotiating for current contracts are not demanding that which is not allowed and would not realistically be negotiated into the current CBA. Further, you erroneously said the CBA ends this year.

You and I both know that Albert Pujols’ next contract will be signed long before a new agreement is in place. Given that, how in the world could he request and receive a share of ownership of the Cardinals as you say he should in your closing statement?

You also avoid any discussion of the challenge within the union of implementing a change that would only benefit the very top tier of players. To negotiate such a change may mean the rank and file would likely have to give in another area just to ease the tax burdens of the elite few. That could be a very tough sell.

Agents, which as you know can be very savvy, may have personal compensation issues with such a proposal. For example, if Scott Boras thought he could prosper financially from such a change, chances are very high that he would have been pushing for player (and even agent ownership?) long ago.

You, more than 99.9 percent of your readers, understand the myriad of complexities behind such changes, yet gloss over many of the realities in your WSJ article. For that, I am disappointed.”

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Sporting News magazine has unveiled their “Best Sports City: 2010” – Chicago. In the process, they also ranked 401 other locales based on an undisclosed formula that looks “…at the 12 months from summer 2009 to summer 2010, based on point values assigned to various categories, including but not limited to won-lost records, postseason appearances, applicable power ratings, number of teams and attendance.”

Following are the rankings of St. Louis and the Cardinals minor league affiliate towns. Johnson City made an especially strong showing at #157. Even in the case of financially-challenged Batavia, at least four other New York-Penn League towns follow them on the list.

26. St. Louis

47. Memphis

142. Springfield, MO

157. Johnson City, TN

261. Jupiter, FL

264. Quad Cities

380. Batavia, NY

Click on this link to see the entire list.

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On Monday, some astonishing news apparently leaked out.

After suffering through former owner Tom Hicks’ bankruptcy, the Texas Rangers have reportedly come to terms on a 20-year extension with FOX Sports Southwest for their local television rights. The amount is said to be a jaw-dropping $3 billion, or an average of $150 million per season.

In comparison, USA Today, who reported the initial news, also cited the $45 million per year that the Los Angeles Dodgers make in their contract with FOX Prime Ticket. The Biz of Baseball mentioned the 2007 deal between the Seattle Mariners and FOX Sports Northwest, a 12-year contract “well in excess of $400 million,” on average over $33 million per year.

Update: The Houston Chronicle states the new 20-year Rangers deal is for $1.6 billion, or an average of $80 million per season starting in 2015. The article also notes the Astros current contract with FOX Sports Houston is in the vicinity of $45 million per year.

Closer to home, I am unaware of the terms of the St. Louis Cardinals current agreement with FOX Sports Midwest. Contacted on Monday, an FSM spokesman would not comment, stating that information is not made public.

What we do know is that the current multi-year contract was extended prior to the 2007 season. That revised deal allowed FS Midwest to increase its number of Cardinals games from 110 to 130. After four years, they exercised a contract provision to take the final 20 games previously telecast via free television locally by KSDK NewsChannel 5. As a result, starting in 2011, FS Midwest will carry all 150 Cardinals games not broadcast nationally.

In terms of viewership during the first half of the 2010 season, FS Midwest was number one among the 29 US-based regional sports networks with an average rating of 9.70. That represented a 41.6 percent increase over 2009. Nielsen data was reported by SportsBusiness Journal, a subset of which follows.

In terms of raw numbers of households (HH) tuning in, not surprisingly the New York teams are first and second, respectively. The Cardinals are sixth, ahead of all four clubs whose yearly financial terms are apparently known.

What that means for the future of Cardinals broadcast rights is unclear, but it would seem that if the team can remain competitive, it will be in a strong position whenever new talks are appropriate.

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After noting that the Batavia Muckdogs drew just 601 fans on Thursday night for what became their final game of the 2010 post-season and perhaps their last game ever, it reminded me that I wanted to look at minor league attendance for the season across the St. Louis Cardinals system.

Turns out that I didn’t have to do the data collection work, as the folks at Baseball Digest already have. They collected attendance figures for 176 teams across minor league baseball.

Below, I extracted the information for the Cardinals top six farm clubs and added some year-to-year and in-league comparisons. Here are my major observations:

• Despite all six clubs playing very good baseball, including five playoff entrants, only the lowest two rungs experienced an increase in attendance over 2009.  Batavia and Johnson City’s increases are relatively small.
• They’re not alone, as 104 of the 176 minor league clubs averaged fewer fans per game in 2010 compared to last year.
• Palm Beach, Johnson City and Batavia remain within the bottom ten percent of the 176 teams tracked in average attendance.
• Of the Cardinals affiliates, only Memphis and Springfield are not deeply lodged among the poorest-attended teams in their respective leagues.

Update 9/15: Minor League Baseball announced overall attendance was down 1/2 of one percent this year, or -0.005 as represented on the above scale. In other words, the four Cardinals clubs’ declines of from four to nine percent were substantially greater than average.

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In case folks missed it, in August the Memphis Commercial Appeal ran an update on the ongoing sticky financial situation still tarring the feathers of the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds.

While the defending Pacific Coast League champions continue to be competitive on the field, the balance sheet of the St. Louis Cardinals’ top affiliate has been an ongoing problem.

Attendance is basically flat this year compared to last, up an average of 75 fans on a base of over 6,600 per game. Yet, unlike in recent seasons, current expenses are being paid and some of the $2.5 million left unpaid from the past is being settled as well.

One factor this year is the downward renegotiation of payments to bond holders who funded the construction of AutoZone Park. In addition, the former management of the club was cleared out last summer in favor of a facilities management firm owned by Comcast.

The team remains for sale and while tires have been kicked, there are no offers on the table, John Pontius, treasurer of the Memphis Redbirds Baseball Foundation, told the paper.

Another news item notes one direction the new management and the City of Memphis may be taking to increase use of the ballpark and therefore, revenues.

A proposal is being worked on now for an event of longer duration than the annual Civil Rights Game, which was held in Memphis in 2007-08, but subsequently relocated by MLB, first to Cincinnati the last two years and then to Atlanta for the 2011 and 2012 games.

AutoZone Park is one of five stated contenders to secure the post-season baseball tournament of the Southeastern Conference, or SEC. The annual event has been held in Birmingham, Alabama each May since 1998, but is approaching renewal for 2012 and the four years beyond. The Redbirds tried to win the event last time it came up for bid in 2006, as well, reports the Birmingham News.

While the Memphis facility is top-notch and has the highest seating capacity of the contenders, its biggest drawback may be its relatively western location with respect to the SEC member schools. A decision is expected by year-end.

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Alanna Stage of the Batavia News wrote an article which outlines the lack of financial progress being made by the Batavia Muckdogs franchise.

Key factoids:

-          With 1,024 fans per game, down from last season, the Muckdogs are last in attendance in the New York-Penn League. The next worst team averages over 1,400.

-          The chairman and COO of Rochester Community Baseball (RCB), operator of the team, is threatening to make the decision to end their management agreement unless attendance improves, perhaps even before the season is out. RCB is only committed through the 2010 season.

-          Remarks from the chairman of The Genessee County Baseball Club, owners of the team, support RCB’s concern over the low level of fan support.

From past articles: link

-          Upon the club’s sale, RCB would pick up five percent ownership of the Muckdogs for each year they have operated the club. 2010 is their third season.

-          RCB lost $400,000 running the Muckdogs during their first two years of operation, 2008 and 2009.

-          The franchise may be worth from $3 million to $5 million on the open market. If sold, it would certainly be moved away from Batavia, likely forever.

I spoke with a senior Cardinals official who would only say that any negotiations for the organization to remain associated with the franchise would not be discussed until after the season ends. The Cardinals player development contract is up this fall.

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Just like his hairdo, Major League Baseball commissioner-for-life or until he actually retires Bud Selig comes up with some really ugly visions from time to time. The most recent concept – one he has convinced himself that “everybody” wants – is more playoff teams.

Selig was interviewed on-air by ESPN’s Dan Schulman during Monday night’s home opener for the Minnesota Twins in their new Target Field home. Here is how the exchange went, courtesy of Larry Brown Sports:

Schulman: “Do you see any change in the playoff format? Do you ever see another Wild Card team?”

Selig: “Well, I remember all the abuse I took about the Wild Card to begin with and now everybody wants more. I would like to see more. You know we only have eight out of 30 — the least number of any sport — we have the most direct playoff system. It’s something we’re going to consider. In some ways I like it, in some ways I don’t. It’s very attractive.”

In summary, “everybody” wants it and Bud sees it as “very attractive.”

I can’t help but wonder…

• As he was prattling on, did Selig consider the weather conditions under which mid-to-late November night games might take place at Target Field?
• Is the commish thinking of this as another possible solution to his American League East death penalty problem for the Tampa Bay Rays short of realignment? In this scenario, could three (or more?) teams from one division play their way into October (and November)?
• Is this concept in scope for Tony La Russa, John Schuerholz and their “special committee for on-field matters?” And if so, are they bringing this idea forward, with Selig pre-testing it out on the public?
• Could a shortened regular season, back to 154 games, for example, be a part of an expanded playoff format? What would this do to records set since the schedule increased to 162 back in 1962? Would perennial also-rans be willing to give up four guaranteed regular-season home dates with only a slightly-increased hope of reaching the post-season?
• Is there any chance that the current system is changed substantially to give division winners more credit for finishing in first place over 162 games? Today, giving the best teams over six months of play a one-game first-round benefit is about as stupid as awarding home-field advantage in the World Series based on an exhibition game in which no one really wants to play.
• One element of an expanded playoff format could be the addition of first-round byes. In contrast with football, where a full week off expands to two with a bye, would the idea of taking off ten days or more really offer an advantage? Baseball players aren’t used to sitting that long.

Finally, here is the short list of issues I believe are more pressing for MLB to tackle and resolve. Of course, ideas like more post-season games have a pronounced cash-register appeal that tackling most of these problems lack: Fixing revenue sharing, instituting blood testing, cleaning up television blackout rules and solving the international problems, perhaps via a draft.

While I have no confidence any of the above will get done anytime soon, neither do I have any expectations about Selig’s new project. After all, this is the man that brought us the concept of contraction and so many other not-ready-for-prime time ideas.

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Comparable to their general position in annual payroll rankings, the St. Louis Cardinals hang at the bottom of the top third of the clubs, coming in at number nine, just up from tenth last year. The club’s FCI of $216.56 represents an uptick of 0.7 percent compared to 2009 and is the seventh increase in the last eight years.

Overall, Cardinals FCIs have been pretty stable since the new ballpark opened in 2006. In fact, this year’s average ticket price of $30.14 is only slightly higher than the team’s average ticket price of $29.78 in 2006.

Across MLB, the average 1.5 percent ticket increase this year to $26.74 is the smallest jump since the FCI’s 1991 inception. That may have something to do with the fact that overall attendance in MLB was down 6 percent in 2009. Six teams cut their average ticket price, 13 stayed flat or showed an increase of less than one percent while 11 teams implemented increases. The Cubs rank first in average ticket price at $52.56. Moving into their new ballpark, Target Field, the Twins show the largest average ticket price increase by a huge margin, at 45 percent over 2009.

The average FCI across MLB of $194.98 represents a 0.7 percent decline compared to last year. This is the first overall drop in the average FCI since at least 2003. The best value in the game is the $115.24 it takes to see the Arizona Diamondbacks, lowest for the second year in a row.

With some high-end ticket price cuts made during last season, the New York Yankees gave up their 2009 place as having the highest FCI, dropping to third.  Their AL East rival and long-time FCI leader, the Boston Red Sox, retook the top spot.

The FCIs of other teams in the NL Central rank as follows: Chicago Cubs (second, up from third), Houston Astros (12^th, down from 11^th), both with above-average FCIs. The other three are clustered near the bottom, but all increasing in a relative term from 2009: Milwaukee Brewers (23^rd, up from 26^th), Cincinnati Reds (25^th, up from 27^th) and Pittsburgh Pirates (28^th, up from 29^th).

* The FCI, developed by Team Marketing Report, is made up of the prices of two adult and two child average-price tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular-size hot dogs, parking for one car, two game programs and two least expensive, adult-size adjustable caps.

Not every group of four would spend this much money, but it provides a consistent point of comparison across 30 teams over time.

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Writers all over the internet are overreacting to word having leaked out that Bud Selig’s 14-member task force, the “special committee for on-field matters,” has reportedly discussed the idea of “floating realignment” across Major League Baseball. The committee is co-chaired by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and Atlanta Braves president John Schuerholz.

The concept is intended to improve baseball’s competitive balance by having teams change divisions annually, based on geography, payroll and perceived opportunity to contend.

Others have already pointed out the many holes in such an idea. That means I don’t have to, though I will at least list a few of them.

• Loss of natural rivalries and division records
• End of interleague play (drawback or benefit?)
• Aggravates the designated hitter inequity

And of course, the biggest problem: the fact that the best from a division of non-competitive teams would still have little chance of winning the World Series. In other words, the cutest from among a collection of the runts from different litters isn’t going to win a best of show award.

While I rarely miss the opportunity to bash Selig, the people attacking him for this odd proposal just plain didn’t do their homework. Selig isn’t even part of the committee, having empowered them to consider whatever recommendations they feel appropriate to improve the game on the field.

At this point, the commissioner has not publicly backed this or any other idea being tossed around by the committee and what he has done privately is unclear. The original source of the news, Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, has said, “The concept gained strong support among committee members.”

Therein lies the rub, as La Russa, who was in the room that Verducci was not, has completely waved off the idea.

In all fairness, after getting everyone all riled up, at the end of his piece, Verducci added the following, a major disclaimer. Apparently, most who reacted angrily over the subject missed this part.

“The floating realignment idea is nothing more than a concept at this point, part of the brainstorming sessions that have occurred in the committee’s one in-person meeting and occasional conference calls,” Verducci wrote.

The committee met again in person on Thursday in Jupiter following the Cardinals game. At least La Russa, Schuerholz, Rob Manfred and a couple of others from the MLB office and perhaps Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. were scheduled to be in attendance.

The specific purpose of Thursday’s meeting was to run the near-term ideas past the players, represented by MLBPA head Michael Weiner, a man La Russa said prior to the session that he had yet to meet. After all, nothing can happen before or as a part of the next collective bargaining agreement unless the players agree.

In a move for which Selig can be fairly criticized, he excluded player representation from the committee, keeping the union on the outside and adding extra steps and complexity to the process.

Prior to the meeting, La Russa made it very clear that the group’s focus is on items that can provide immediate help.

“There were some topics discussed that were more urgent, where we could get something done this season. Floating realignment was not one of them,” the manager said.

La Russa acknowledged that many ideas were served up as the baton was passed around the room in the committee’s initial meeting.

“We’ve talked about a whole range of issues and the commissioner was exactly right,” La Russa explained. “To his word, there were no sacred cows. Guys could bring up… We went around the table in the first meeting and anyone could bring up anything they wanted to talk about.

“There were a lot of repeated subjects and a few that were unique to a guy or two. And we discussed every one of them. In some cases, it is planning and other parties involved and in others we think it is possible to initiate changes in 2010,” the manager said.

I brought floating realignment up for clarification on Sunday and this time, La Russa was even more definitive.

“I don’t even know what it means,” he said flatly.

When I defined the term for him, he denied it had been discussed.

“I don’t know where that came from,” La Russa concluded.

As a result, all the reaction and overreaction over floating realignment seems totally unnecessary.

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This past week, the St. Louis Cardinals announced a new program for 2010 called Cards Cash. It is essentially stored money loaded into the barcode of your game ticket which can be used at any Busch Stadium register, including concession stands, kiosks and the Team Store.

The Cardinals have begun selling tickets with Cards Cash in the first three configurations that follow with the fourth coming in a couple of weeks:

• Holliday Pack –7 games and $7 per ticket in complimentary Cards Cash for each of the specified games ($49 total value Cards Cash added per pack)

• Outfield Loge Box Season Tickets – Full Season, Half-Season, and 27-game plans, with $5 per ticket in complimentary Cards Cash for each game ($405 total value Cards Cash added per seat for full season plan)

• Group Tickets – groups of 25 or more may choose to add Cards Cash to their tickets and receive $12 Cards Cash value for only $10, or $6 value for only $5.

• Single game individual tickets – when they go on sale in early March, a single-game Cards Cash feature will be offered in which fans can add Cards Cash and receive $12 value for only $10.

The first two Cards Cash configurations offer a good deal – if you were planning to purchase these plans, that is. In that case, you have found money, so to speak. If you want to use the stored value, great, but if you don’t, you still receive the value from the tickets you bought. (Update: As always, be sure to compare per-game ticket prices across packages.)

That is not so for the tickets that most people will buy, however – single game tickets and to a lesser extent, Group Tickets. In those cases, any money added to your ticket is nothing more than a loan to the Cardinals, which you can collect with interest – if and only if you follow all the rules.

Otherwise, you are sunk.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the concept and the use of new technology. It works well as a perk with the ticket packages. But until they work out the limitations in future seasons, the average fan has to be very careful when adding stored money to his or her single game ticket.

If you know you are going to the game and plan to spend more than $10 on goodies, go for it. Just understand there is no turning back.

As a public service, here are six questions and answers that illustrate the risk. (In case you can’t tell, I wrote these, not the Cardinals, but I do believe the answers are accurate.)

Q: If I added Cards Cash to a single game ticket, but find out later that I can’t attend the game, can I get my money back?

A: Sorry, no refunds on tickets or Cards Cash.

Q: Well, can I move my stored money to a ticket for another game, then?

A: No. If you don’t use the Cards Cash on the day of the original ticket, it is gone.

Q: If I don’t spend the total stored value on my ticket the day I am at the game, can I keep my ticket and use my Cards Cash later in the season?

A: No. See above. As an aside, you probably didn’t buy much at the game, as it doesn’t take much effort to make $10-$12 disappear pretty quickly.

Q: What if I lose my stored value ticket or it is damaged once I am in the ballpark?

A: It’s gone. It would be no different than if you lost a ten-dollar bill. (I hope you remember where you were sitting!)

Q: What if I can’t attend the game for which I bought a ticket with Cards Cash and give the ticket to a friend (because I would never deal with scalpers)? Where does my stored value go?

A: It stays with the ticket. You had better get your friend to pay you an extra $10 to cover your sunk cost and don’t forget to tell him he has a bonus.

Q: If I don’t spend the total stored value on my ticket the day I am at the game, where does my money go?

A: The Cardinals keep it.

It would seem that an interpretation was made that Cards Cash does not fall under the Federal Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, shortened to “Credit CARD Act of 2009”. Enacted by Congress and signed by President Obama last May, among the many provisions of the Act is protection for consumers who purchase certain types of gift and stored value cards through the establishment of a five-year mandatory expiration date.

Some states have enacted even stricter Gift Card Consumer Protection Laws, according to the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, ConsumersUnion.org. Missouri is apparently not among these states.

The Credit CARD Act of 2009 specifically covers “general-use prepaid cards”, “gift certificates”, and “store gift cards”, but excludes “several other common types of prepaid cards, such as reloadable cards that are not marketed as gift cards, telephone cards, cards not marketed to the general public, and loyalty, award, or promotional cards,” according to the US Federal Reserve.

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Heavy debt load

There is a segment of Cardinals watchers that never seem to be satisfied with the expenditures ownership allocates to the player payroll. One area often singled out is the over $20 million annual debt service required as a result of the construction of the new Busch Stadium. That is $20 million that could be used to buy free agents, goes one line of thinking.

Generally speaking, I am pretty sure those complainers are from outside St. Louis, apparently preferring to have seen an increase in the local tax burden to build the new stadium instead. Then there are those that have no idea how to pay for anything and just irrationally complain. They are my favorites.

It could be worse, folks. You could be in Chicago.

The good news is that deep-pocketed Ricketts family of the TD Ameritrade fortune bought the Cubs in October. The bad news is that the LLC put in place for the acquisition is $900 million in the hole after the Ricketts loaned themselves $200 million for working capital and improvements to crumbling Wrigley Field.

Forbes notes that the Cubs 2009 payroll of $134 million was third-highest in MLB but “stacked with high-priced players with no-trade clauses.” Their conclusion is that the combination of “high debt and bloated payroll makes it highly unlikely they will be able to improve any time soon.”

It is also worth noting that having a wealthy name-brand family purchase your favorite team isn’t necessarily the ticket to success. Just ask Royals fans how David Glass and his Walmart money have improved the KC clan.

Update: The Cubs have announced the Executive Club, an all-inclusive area on the Suite level, where seats are $300 per game or $24,300 for the season.

2010 roster changes

As Cardinals fans know, their winter roster changes included big steps like keeping Matt Holliday and signing Brad Penny, but also involved allowing a number of lesser players to leave.

The Cubbies made one huge addition by subtraction move when troubled outfielder Milton Bradley and his bad contract were shipped off to Seattle. In return, they took on another ugly deal in pitcher Carlos Silva. At least I have never heard anything negative about Silva’s clubhouse demeanor.

To that end, I have read several reports speculating that the Cubs recent addition of first baseman Kevin Millar was more about chemistry than baseball. The 38-year-old was a part-timer last season in Toronto and over the last couple of years batted .230 with an OPS of barely .700. Yet one of the self-styled “idiots” from the 2004 Red Sox is also known as a fun-loving, free spirited guy – just the opposite of the sullen, explosive Bradley.

I wonder if Sweet Lou Piniella can deal with the other extreme?

Here is a brief summary of the Cubs comings and goings this winter, courtesy of The Sports Xchange.

ARRIVALS: RHP Carlos Silva (trade with Mariners), RHP Jeff Gray (trade with A’s), OF Marlon Byrd (free agent from Rangers), 1B/3B Chad Tracy (minor league free agent from Diamondbacks), OF/1B Xavier Nady (free agent from Yankees), 1B Kevin Millar (minor league free agent from Blue Jays).

DEPARTURES: OF Milton Bradley (traded to Mariners), RHP Rich Harden (free agent, signed with Rangers), INF/OF Jake Fox (traded to A’s), INF Aaron Miles (traded to A’s, then traded to Reds), LHP Neal Cotts (non-tendered, signed minor league deal with Pirates), RHP Aaron Heilman (traded to Diamondbacks), OF So Taguchi (released, signed with Japanese team), OF Reed Johnson (free agent, signed with Dodgers), RHP Kevin Gregg (free agent, signed with Blue Jays).

Lou on Mac and hitting

Speaking of Lou speaking, his recent comments at an awards dinner in the Big Apple were reported in The New York Times. The Cubs manager says he forgives Mark McGwire and thinks the support of Albert Pujols will go a long way for the new Cardinals hitting coach, who he thinks will “do a nice job.”

A former hitting coach himself with the Yankees, Piniella also has some suggestions. He wonders whether McGwire will need to learn how to deal with today’s ballplayers and offered this interesting advice for working with major league hitters:

“You don’t really need to change any mechanics.”

Hmmm.

The Times piece ends with a totally unrealistic view of how McGwire will be greeted at Wrigley this summer.

“I think Cub fans will treat him fine,” Piniella said. “We have a great rivalry. He’ll be accepted well. I think they feel he confessed and it’s over with.”

Yeah, right. McGwire might be wise to investigate whether any of the Wrigley hard hats pictured above are still for sale.

La Russa on Chicago

Like Tony La Russa, Piniella’s current contract ends after the 2010 season and Lou has suggested it might be his last in the Windy City. In the same interview from which I reported his White Sox-related remarks, La Russa also made it very clear he doesn’t ever see himself taking his friend Piniella’s job.

“You’ve got a double-headed whammy there. I have a lot of friends and fans that I’m close to with the White Sox. And you know White Sox and Cubs, they don’t mix. I’ve got friends and fans that I’m close to in St. Louis, and the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cubs don’t mix. So I think if there is one place that I don’t fit, just because of my past, it would be the Chicago Cubs.”

Spring training handout debated

The Cubs made a preliminary decision on their spring training future, opting to stay in Mesa, Arizona rather than move to Naples, Florida. There is just one small problem – how to pay for the replacement for Hohokam Stadium.

The idea on the table is a controversial “Cubs Tax”. Under the proposal, other Arizona spring training teams would be assessed a ticket surcharge to build up a kitty for the Cubbies’ new den. Not surprisingly, cross-town rivals the Chicago White Sox and the Arizona Diamondbacks have already come out against the half-baked idea.

It appears that the next key date is in mid-July, at which time Naples could re-enter the fray if the Arizona folks cannot come up with a more realistic plan.

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A typical approach by those who believe they can personally motivate St. Louis Cardinals ownership into increasing their player payroll is to reverse-engineer estimates for revenue, expense and profit, thinking they can do a better job than financial experts like Forbes.

One area the critics almost always overlook is the debt assumed in the construction of the new Busch Stadium. In a recent presentation to faculty and business students at Webster University, Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III showed this debt represents between 13 and 15 percent of the club’s annual expense.

Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. has been even more specific, noting their borrowing of $300 million of the $365 million required to build the ballpark requires them to pay more than $20 million annually in principal and interest.

That is $20 million not available for other purposes, including paying players, which is the largest single expenditure for the organization, representing about half their annual spending, according to DeWitt III.

The purpose of bringing this up is not to show pity for the DeWitts and their partners, shrewd businessmen all. Let’s face it. Had they been able to convince the taxpayers of St. Louis to fully finance the stadium, one can assume they would have been more than delighted to accept the handout.

That is precisely the train wreck that has hit a number of other cities, including in National League Central rival Cincinnati. In a Sunday article, The New York Times paints a sobering picture of numerous municipalities, scared of losing their teams, having funded shiny new facilities only to later realize their basic revenue assumptions to repay the debt incurred are unattainable.

After tax increases foisted upon local citizens didn’t prove to be enough and the MLB Reds and especially the NFL Bengals unwilling to alter their “sweetheart” lease terms, Hamilton County, Ohio is left with no choice but to cut basic services to taxpayers and deplete a bond reserve fund. This takes money away from necessities such as schools with no plan for paying it back.

Similar problems were cited with publicly-funded sports venues in Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Columbus and Glendale, Arizona. Back-end loaded interest payments are identified as a common problem, the risks ignored at the time the original commitments were sold by wide-eyed officials to the citizenry.

Trying to squeeze more out of the Cardinals for his prize free agent Matt Holliday, spinmaster extraordinare Scott Boras recently took his personal struggle of the rich versus the richer to the people, many of whom are hard-working taxpayers and ticket-buyers alike.

The agent drew a parallel between the Cardinals and the Phillies, the latter having a payroll about 30 percent higher than St. Louis despite the two franchises being similarly valued, according to Forbes. Boras apparently neglected to mention that Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park was state-funded.

One can only hope the self-deputized St. Louis payroll police understand and appreciate the bullet taxpayers avoided by ensuring the owners of the Cardinals were kept on the hook to pay the vast majority of the freight for their baseball palace – just as it should be.

Folks must also realize there is no free lunch. Someone has to cover the expense. It is only common sense that having debt service when a number of other clubs do not may mean the Cardinals have less in their coffers to pay players as a result.

That shouldn’t keep fans from expecting to see a competitive team on the field, but it seems the organization deserves some leeway in how the end is accomplished.

Specifically, if the Cardinals do not overpay for Holliday and he is lost to another organization, some will expect them to quickly re-allocate every dollar to other free agents, whether mediocrities or not.

Instead, if the club decides to stash some additional cash for signing the four extra players in the early part of the June 2010 draft awarded as compensation for the losses of free agents Holliday, Mark DeRosa and Joel Pineiro, some vocal critics will not accept it.

If the organization chooses to hold back money to acquire veteran players in-season to help the 2010 club down the stretch (“dry powder” revisited), there will be those who will not believe it until they see it, despite the club having done just that in 2009.

They will instead chalk up the actions of the winter to greedy owners who had no intention of re-signing Holliday, but craftily used Boras’ delay to purposely let all the good alternatives land elsewhere before doing nothing. These same owners continue to be vilified despite bringing Cardinals fans nine winning seasons and seven playoff teams during the just-completed decade.

So it goes in the annual winter of second-guessing.

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ESPN’s Jorge Arangure tweeted Thursday evening that Major League Baseball’s owners are in favor of an international draft and the new director of the players union has already gone on record saying they would not oppose it.

If true, the sides need to get together today to begin tackling what will surely be some very complex issues. The current collective bargaining agreement has two more years to run, so there is still ample time if the parties are truly serious.

The union, formally known as the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), has a brand new head man in Michael Weiner. Well, not entirely new. OK, not new at all. The executive director had been the group’s general counsel and has been employed by the MLBPA for over 20 years.  As such, Weiner is expected to continue the policies of his predecessor, Donald Fehr, who had led the union for the last 26 years.

In a Thursday LA Times story, Weiner affirmed the MLBPA would support an international draft. In reality, the union’s position has not changed. Back in 2006, while the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) was being negotiated, the MLBPA was reportedly willing to discuss an international draft, but the owners declined.

Like any new idea, in instituting an international draft, the devil will be in the details.

Past management objections to the concept included increased staffing and related expense, the difficulty of aligning processes with varying country laws including testing and dealing with increased temptation to falsify player ages and names – all meaty issues. Yet those same challenges exist today without the structure of a draft.

The countries themselves may provide the greatest opposition. In fact, as recently as 2007, Puerto Rican government officials formally requested the island’s players be removed from the First-Year Player Draft pool because the related restrictions put their prospects on uneven ground compared to their neighbors. Of course, that went nowhere.

Those developing the new international draft guidelines would need to devise some strong penalties for nations that either directly try to opt out or indirectly scuttle the process by building unreasonably high fences. In other words, the draft must be administered equally across all nations or it will fail as circumvention methods would surely be identified and exploited.

One obvious reason the owners may be changing their tune from their indifference in 2006 and prior and come down in favor of subjecting international players to the draft is, you guessed it, money. They are likely interested in gaining control over the rapid and unchecked escalation in bonuses for top amateur players we have seen in recent years.

Yet gaining control in one area could lead to loss of control in another. A management objection to the draft in the past was driven by a fear that bonuses for mid-tier players might actually increase, as the draft formally establishes a player’s position in the rigidly-defined financial pecking order.

The primary way ownership might try to head this off is by attempting to institute a slotting system like is in place today for the players drafted from the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Weiner and the MLBPA may agree with the idea of a draft, but are dead set against slotting, which seems to be collusion by its very definition. The new director labeled it “a salary cap for entry-level players”. Of course, the words “salary cap” are a lightning rod if there ever was one.

While relations between the Lords of Baseball and the union have generally been amicable in recent years, the current undertow of potential collusion charges due to the depressed free agent market could scuttle progress on this and many other issues between now and the end-of-year 2011 conclusion of the current CBA.

An international draft won’t happen without some uncharacteristic proactivity and leadership from an MLB administration that is more known for its inability to resolve far less complex problems within the game.

Yet there is still room for optimism.

Here’s hoping the final years of the Bud Selig regime can be remembered for accomplishing something extremely important for the future of the game – the institution of an international draft.

Don’t hold your breath, though.

Well, perhaps you aren’t of that generation, but I was. Here in baseball’s off-season (unless you live in New York or Philadelphia), there is still a good quantity of interesting and quality writing that pops up on the traditional day of rest.

Here are a few articles of interest to me as a St. Louis Cardinals watcher.

TLR unsure on passing McGraw

With Tony La Russa home in California for the winter, the local scribes have better access and as such, are writing about him. John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle deals softly with the manager and the Mark McGwire issue, exploring it from a risk perspective taken by La Russa as his career nears its close.

Shea suggests 2010 will be the manager’s last season in that role and asked him point blank about the importance of overtaking John McGraw for the second-most managerial wins of all time.

“La Russa is open to a front-office gig after he’s done managing. He said moving up the wins leaderboard isn’t a priority. With 2,552 wins, he needs to manage into the 2012 season to catch John McGraw (a 211-win difference). He’s nearly 1,200 behind leader Connie Mack.

“’Passing John McGraw is not everything,’ La Russa said. ‘You want to assess that fire in the gut, because it takes that fire to do the job properly. I’ve seen players skate for their final couple of years. You could see them losing the competitive edge, and they took the money because they’re going on their past. There’s a line of integrity there. I don’t want to do that.’”

What’s ahead on the labor front

The Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo is one writer I often check out. His pieces typically indicate a greater depth of thought and seem less rushed than the many deadline-driven snippets that seem so common in today’s click-driven world.

In his Sunday column, Cafardo reviews the current status in the ongoing standoff between the Players Union and ownership. New Players Association executive director Michael Weiner, who is replacing outgoing Don Fehr next month, discusses the current concerns over contract collusion.

Further, Cafardo considers several factors that may be on the table during the next collective bargaining period. They include the length of the schedule, off days and travel days, draft pick compensation, international draft and small-market payroll subsidies.

A number of these issues need to be addressed. Here is hoping the new Weiner regime is able to work with the owners to make progress in these and other areas.

Team of the decade

Another writer whose work I care for much less is the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers and it is not just because he covers the Cubs. Yet, there are times he deserves a nod. Today is one of those days.

Rogers puts forward a compact, but compelling case for the Cardinals to be labeled as MLB’s “Team of the Decade”, noting their payroll efficiency as a differentiating factor.

Bud welcoming Bonds?

William C. Rhoden of the New York Times is one of the many scribes concerned by Bud Selig’s different stance taken over McGwire compared to other accused steroids users of his era, including Barry Bonds.

“Asked about Bonds’s future in baseball if he is acquitted on perjury charges, Selig said that if a club wanted to hire him as a player or a coach, ‘I don’t think there will be an issue.’”

Bud seemed to down a healthy serving of Sunday breakfast waffles when he qualified his statement.

“’Every case is different,’ Selig said. ‘But as we move forward in the future, every case is different, that’s all I’ll say.’”

Rhoden raises what I think is a good question when he wonders why those from the steroids era aren’t dealt with in a consistent manner, welcomed back to the game. By potentially playing favorites and establishing a “double standard”, Selig risks undermining his credibility and that of Major League Baseball.

McGwire/La Russa/Selig hardliner

Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan is representative of the many critical of the Cardinals’ hiring, coming down hard on the returning slugger/hitting coach, the manager and the commissioner.

“Tony La Russa is a sad enabler, a steroid denier whose legacy is entwined with that of a cheater. At least we can understand his motivation in bringing Mark McGwire back to baseball. But Bud Selig should say no, not happening, until we hear from the man who deceived us to such an astonishing degree.

“Mark McGwire owes an explanation to the (Roger) Maris family, if no one else.”

“Major League Baseball announced today that despite the nation’s worst economic downturn in 80 years, the 30 Clubs drew 73,418,479 fans during the 2009 championship season, producing the fifth largest total attendance in MLB history.”

Here are the numbers they left out of the release:

MLB	attendance	YTY
2009	73,418,479	-6.6%
2008	78,588,004	-1.2%
2007	79,503,175	4.6%
2006	76,042,787	1.5%
2005	74,926,174	2.6%
2004	73,022,969

In other words, MLB had its second consecutive down year, its largest decline and lowest total since 2004.

Buried in a later paragraph, they slipped in the bad news, but even found a way to fudge that.

“Because of the economy, this year’s total is 6.6 percent less than last year’s total, but is actually only 5.2 percent lower when accounting for the reduced capacities of the two new ballparks in New York. The total number of seats available at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium is approximately 1.5 million fewer than at the old ballparks.”

Let’s see. When the new parks were in planning, the spin was that the new facilities would operate at higher capacity for every game, therefore increasing season-long attendance.

That is precisely what happened in St. Louis, albeit in a better economic environment. Despite the new Busch being smaller than the old, a new club home season attendance record of 3,552,180 was set in 2007 in its first full season at maximum capacity. In all fairness, the club was also coming off a world championship.

Now the story changes for the MLB spinmasters.

Of course, not mentioned is how higher per-seat revenue projections from the new parks panned out since revenues are not reported.

Not bound by having to be politically sensitive, USA Today calls blasts this year’s attendance decline across MLB as being the “biggest single-season loss since Harry Truman was president” in a non-strike-related season.

USA Today notes 2/3 of the 30 MLB teams saw a year-to-year drop, including the Cardinals, though the club seems delighted to have come in at 3,343,252, a decline of 2.6 percent from 2008. That was actually a smaller decline than the 3.4 percent drop the team saw from their record-breaking 2007 to 2008.

In contrast to last season when the Cardinals’ percentage decline was greater than the MLB total, their decline this year was less than the entirety of MLB, -2.6 percent versus -6.6 percent.

There was another important benefit. By blowing away their original 2009 projection of 3,000,000 by 11.4 percent, reaching 3,343,252, the club states the revenue from the increase in ticket sales enabled them to make in-season trades for Mark DeRosa and Matt Holliday.

Cardinals	Attendance	YTY
2009	3,343,252	-2.6%
2008	3,432,917	-3.4%
2007	3,552,180	4.3%
2006	3,407,114	-3.7%	Busch III
2005	3,538,948	16.1%	Busch II
2004	3,048,427