If busting the union isn’t what baseball owners really sought by canceling the rest of the 1994 season, might they settle for second prize, like bending a TV contract until it breaks?
It sounds absurd, but so does not having a World Series for the first time since 1904.
In case you missed it, the Baseball Network debuted this summer, only to be given the quick hook. After the All-Star Game and four other dates for regional telecasts, the project was tabled by the strike, followed by acting Commissioner Allan “Bud” Selig’s “Day of Pain” address.
Assuming this taffy pull among millionaires is settled before the sport joins the endangered species list, the next national telecast by the Baseball Network will be July 11, the All-Star Game from Texas.
But a wild card lurks, and we don’t mean the second-place team with the best record in either league. No, we mean the Fox Network, which has thrown all sorts of money around with the expressed purpose of becoming an athletic supporter for all seasons.
We cannot speak for baseball owners, but in this moment of “grave economic problems,” it would behoove them to get to the ready-and-waiting Fox while the getting is good. The proprietors of our national pastime might be one sweet TV deal away from being able to hire back some of those $18,000-a-year front-office types who had nothing to do with this high-stakes stupidity but were laid off anyway.
There is a slight problem. Baseball has two partners in the Baseball Network, ABC and NBC, and they signed a contract for this bold new venture in May of 1993. It was for six years, subject to review after two years. That would take the agreement at least until the end of the 1995 season, depending on whether the aborted 1994 season is defined as a season.
“We have to meet and discuss that soon among all three parties,” said Dennis Swanson, president of ABC Sports. “But it’s right there on paper that we are together in this for next season, if there is one.”
Thing is, the Baseball Network isn’t a very good deal for baseball owners, and you know how they are unless they get what they want. They bond, they appoint a hard-nosed negotiator and, in extreme cases, they even eliminate something that has been an American ritual every autumn for 90 years. If the World Series can be voided, why not a contract?
Now, if you’re a real skeptic, you could infer that baseball owners actually did get what they wanted when they conceived the Baseball Network. CBS, the previous rights-holder, had paid $1.06 billion for four years of major-league telecasts and was screaming about drowning in red ink.
The owners took this to mean their next TV contract would be disaster and they said so, which is one sure way to end a bidding war. It’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy. By sheer coincidence, of course, the owners spoke of impending doom as they geared up for this mother of all impasses that we now have.
Whatever, in a novel arrangement, baseball opted to form the Baseball Network that would eliminate all rights fees in lieu of a joint venture to share risk and reward. ABC and NBC weren’t looking at much upside potential, but there wasn’t much of a downstroke, either. The goal was to generate merely $330 million from advertisers for the first two years, far below CBS’ obligation. But everybody was happy, or so they said.
Then last December, Fox splurged and paid $1.56 billion over four years for the rights to the National Football Conference, or only half the NFL. Then Fox bought hockey, too. Baseball owners, meanwhile, were left on their soup lines, which doesn’t mean the feast is over.
Some timely chaos could be the means toward a profitable end, and if baseball can guarantee fans anything this winter, it’s chaos.
“Like I said,” Swanson repeated, “we have a contract.”
Yeah, and we used to have a World Series, too.
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