One-on-one with Manfred
MLB commissioner discusses tanking, declining attendance in the league with The Times.
The Boston Red Sox are one of the marquee attractions in the major leagues, with a passionate fan base that extends far beyond New England. For the folks charged with marketing and televising baseball, it is a good thing that the Red Sox made the playoffs.
For the guy charged with running the major leagues, it probably is a better thing that the Oakland Athletics made the playoffs.
The Red Sox opened the season with the highest payroll in the majors. The A’s opened the season with the lowest, and they were one of four teams cited in a grievance filed last February by the Major League Baseball Players Assn. The teams that make the most money share millions with their less fortunate brethren and, according to the collective bargaining agreement, the beneficiaries must direct those millions toward “an effort to improve its performance on the field.”
After a severe chill had hit the free-agent market, the union wondered what evidence might exist to show that the A’s, Miami Marlins, Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Rays were living up to that agreement. The Pirates, for instance, had not signed even one free agent to a major league contract.
The A’s won 97 games, more than any team in the National League. The Rays won 90. The Pirates posted a winning record. The Marlins were awful, but they were not one of the three teams that lost 100 games.
The grievance remains unresolved. However, of the teams that opened the season among the top 10 in payroll, more teams missed the playoffs than made them, and two — the San Francisco Giants and Toronto Blue Jays — appear poised to cut back on spending and join the wave of teams that turn to young players and scale back competitive ambitions for a year or two.
That seemed like a good place to start a conversation with Commissioner Rob Manfred. The interview, which took place last week at the league office in New York, is excerpted below and appears in full on The Times website at latimes .com/sports.
There was a lot of talk over the winter about tanking, whether you want to use that term or not. The season has played out. For the first time in 16 years, three teams lost 100 games. Three teams won 100. Do you believe there are reforms you need to propose to incentivize winning?
First of all, I think the vast majority of the conversation about — I’ll use your word — tanking was driven by people who either had an agenda, or who don’t understand the fundamental trends that have emerged in the game in terms of the way you put rosters together and how you maintain your competitiveness over time. I think of the four clubs that attracted the most commentary over the winter. One is going to the playoffs. Two were in the hunt well into August. It just goes to show that predictions as to who is going to win, in this changing environment, have not turned out to be that good.
I am not concerned that there is a lack of a desire to win. I am absolutely convinced all of the organizations in Major League Baseball want to win. It is a question of what strategy they have adopted, and what time frame they are looking at, in order to put themselves in a realistic position to win.
You said some people might not understand what is going on in the game and some have an agenda. What do you mean by an agenda?
The MLBPA filed a grievance. They clearly have an agenda. And, by not understanding, what I’m saying is this: If you look at productivity broken down by age in our industry, it has moved down, significantly, the last 10 years. Younger people are providing more of the gross productivity in the industry. When you appreciate that fundamental fact, it is not surprising that people would be interested in getting younger players on the field, to take advantage of that higher productivity.
Attendance this season fell to its lowest level since 2003. Do you believe teams playing not to win in a given year — even if it is a competitive strategy –plays into that attendance decline?
There are going to be teams that are in the hunt and teams that are not in the hunt every single year. I think the net effect on attendance depends on whether it’s big markets that are in the hunt or smaller markets that are in the hunt. So I don’t see wins and losses as a huge driving factor.
So how do you explain the 4% drop in attendance this season?
I think what happened to us this year is pretty straightforward. We know that a point, a point and a half, of that is related to the fact that Miami is reporting its attendance more accurately, which I applaud. Telling the truth is always a good thing. Secondly, we were down almost 10% in April. We had record cancellations. You never get the same attendance for a rescheduled game. But, even worse, we played 35 games in April where it was less than 40 degrees at game time. We played two last year. I think these factors explain a lot of the downturn.
Having said that, it’s important to remember we’re still drawing nearly 70 million people a year. It’s an astounding number, in and of itself. And all live entertainment — not just sports — faces a challenge in terms of getting people to come, because there are so many more alternatives that are available to people. The younger generation is a little different in terms of what it wants to see. We need to work hard to make sure we’re putting the best entertainment product we can on the field.
When you became commissioner, I asked if the best available markets for expansion might be outside the United States and you said, “I think that is probably right.” Now that you have played additional exhibition games in Montreal and regular-season games in Mexico, what have you learned that might make you more or less confident in that assessment?
I think the results of our play in Montreal during the exhibitions, and in Mexico for exhibitions and the regular season games, confirm the fact that, outside the United States and close enough to the United States are markets that are very interested in having Major League Baseball. That level of interest, I think, is a huge positive for the sport. That remains a viable alternative for us to explore once we get past the stadium issues in Tampa and Oakland.
What does it do for the league that Billie Jean King now is part of the Dodgers’ ownership group?
From day one, Mark Walter, Todd [Boehly] and Peter [Guber] — the principal owners — have been intent on having diversity in their ownership group. I think this is another step along that road. In terms of the institution of Major League Baseball, it is a huge positive. To have someone who is a legend in another sport as part of an ownership group in baseball, there is nothing but positive about that.
For years, even before you became commissioner, the Dodgers have talked about wanting to bring the AllStar game back to Dodger Stadium for the first time since 1980. What made the pitch successful this time, when you awarded the 2020 game to the Dodgers?
L.A. is a very big city. There’s a lot going on. It is more challenging in a city like that to get the facilities and the hotels lined up in a way that works for an AllStar game, because there are so many alternative things going on. They were proactive in terms of getting those facilities lined up for us. They overcame some hurdles that I thought might delay or impede getting the game there by working closely with the mayor, who was tremendously supportive. They just made a great bid.
Look, for us, being in L.A. is a tremendous opportunity to market the game. There’s the crossover with all the entertainment groups that are there, all the stars. I am really looking forward to a great event in 2020.