Bruce Dowbiggin
Rays Of Sunshine In MLB’s Pointless Lockout

If you’re a baseball fan planning on going to 2022 spring training to see your favourite team you might want to pause before booking a flight or hotel room. In case you didn’t see the news, MLB has locked out its players again as the two sides jockey for a new collective bargaining agreement.
“We hope that the lockout will jumpstart the negotiations and get us to an agreement that will allow the season to start on time,” says MLB owners commissioner Rob Manfred. “This defensive lockout was necessary because the Players Association’s vision for Major League Baseball would threaten the ability of most teams to be competitive. It’s simply not a viable option.” Sure. Go with that.
Understand that for baseball fans the words collective-bargaining agreement are as welcoming as a reminder that you’re due for a colonoscopy. Labour actions of the past have ruined seasons and— in the case of the Montreal Expos— doomed a franchise. (See: 1994 lockout )
“The Expos were widely regarded as the best team in baseball that season, prohibitive favorites to win the World Series for the first time in franchise history. Once play resumed, the cash-strapped Expos tore apart their contending team, shipping off their best players in trades for lesser prospects in most cases.” By 2005 they had moved to Washington.
Since that 1994 disaster MLB has managed to avoid losing playing time to strikes/ lockouts. But the pressure has been building since the sport rejected the notion of a salary cap in favour of a much-less-restrictive luxury tax on free-spending terms. While the NHL, NBA and NFL operate more stringent salary cap systems, baseball has gone its own way in controlling salaries.
Concurrent with that has been an explosion of revenues for MLB, sending salaries and franchise values into the stratosphere. (See my book Cap In Hand for a full history of salary-cap economics and how a return to freer player markets is the future of the business.)
In a sign of how loose the financial reins have become, Max Scherzer’s $43-million annual salary with the New York Mets is more than the entire payroll of two MLB teams. With no minimum payroll, Pittsburgh and Baltimore are free to lap up their 1/30th share of MLB’s lucrative digital/ TV package, logo rights and other baubles.
Meanwhile players are concerned that while the stars become rich as Saudi princes the working class of the sport is not getting a proper share of the revenues. They claim owners are using devious practices to delay players getting to arbitration and free-agency. And they decry owners tanking for better draft picks or simply to make money.
None of this says that an early solution is imminent should the sides get past the next few weeks. The only lever for players is cancelling games, and there are none scheduled till next February (spring training) and late March (regular season). Likewise players are paid their salaries only during the regular season, meaning no player will lose any money till the games begin. Translation: They’re not panicking either. So expect the real negotiating to start in February as camps set to open for 2022.
The hiccup in the debate over highly paid superstars and exploding payrolls is the Tampa Bay Rays. The definitive “small MLB market” Tampa has found a way to get to the 2020 World Series and the 2021 ALDS using a formula that involves dumping their name players (Evan Longoria, Blake Snell, David Archer) and culling prospects and rejects from other clubs.
While teams like the Blue Jays, Mets, Yankees, Dodgers and Angels are profligate spenders on big names, Tampa throws around nickels like they were manhole covers. The Rays are so frugal that they’re proposing their summertime games be played in Montreal.
You want more? The cash-strapped Rays traded their stopper at the 2021 trade deadline— even as they led the majors in wins. They virtually invented the notion of reducing the value of starting pitching by creating the “bullpen” day, in which they start a relief pitcher and followed him with a series of other situational pitchers. Picking through the bargain bin they found inexpensive rejects and burnouts on other staffs and thrust them into their lineup.
As Mack Cerullo of Yahoo Sports noted, the Rays used 39 different pitchers last season; of the nine relief pitchers on Tampa Bay’s opening-day roster, only three remained at season’s end. The team’s three All-Stars, Joey Wendle, Mike Zunino and Andrew Kittredge, made a combined $5 million last year. Brandon Lowe, Randy Arozarena and Austin Meadows, the heart of their batting order, made less than $3.7 million among them.
Despite cutting corners the Rays had the No. 1 ranked system in baseball starting 2021. By season’s end prized rookies Wander Franco, Arozarena, Luis Patino and Shane McClanahan were all keys to TB getting to the ALDS. When they get too expensive the Rays will likely trade them for prospects or let them walk in free agency.
(Although the Rays tarnished their Scrooge reputation by signing the brilliant young Franco an eleven-year, $182 million contract extension, with a club option of $25 million for a twelfth year.)
Which begs the question: why are the tall foreheads of MLB shutting down the sport to save a system that has worked so well for Tampa? There is a ready template to compete and prosper in smaller markets. Why is this news to other owners? Likely it’s easier to lock out players than do the heavy lifting of the Rays. With no threat of losing a franchise via relegation (as in soccer) or being cut off from the MLB gravy train why bother?
So prepare for months of crocodile tears from owners that MLBPA’s demands “would threaten the ability of most teams to be competitive”. And prepare to hold your nose when they say they’ve solved the Grand Old Past-Time.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Bruce Dowbiggin
All Bets Are Off: Why Prop Betting Scares Sports Leagues, Police

Sunday’s Super Bowl concluded another season of wagering on the sport made great by gambling. With billions wagered legally— and billions wagered illegally—the NFL is a Frankenstein of the betting industry. Everything is done to create parity while simultaneously promoting chaos. When other leagues talk about success they are talking about the NFL’s colossal gambling industry.
The penetration of betting has only increased with legalization in Canada (Ontario is the only “open” legal market at the moment) and the United States (38 states currently allow sports wagering). It has gotten to the point where sports bettors in Las Vegas, for decades the only legal spot for sports gambling, complain that Nevada is falling behind its neighbours. Some drive across state lines to wager on sports offerings not made in Vegas.
We could do a small book on all the new betting applications that have sprung up with sharps applying stock-market analytics and trading strategies to break down a football game. But for today we’ll concentrate on the device that has turbo-charged public betting in the past generation: Proposition bets. And the enormous risk they bring.
In the bad old days when gambling was underground, dominated by organized crime, football betting meant the money line (who will win), sides (by how many points) and totals (how many points would be scored in as game). The range of options within these parameters was limited. You could parlay (two bets), tease (two or more choices with alternate odds) or do future bets.
Then along came proposition bets (props). There are propositions on everything from how many yards player X will run for, how many interceptions Player Y will throw and how many touchdowns player Z will score. There are also team props. The range of props covers almost any result generated by a football game— and a few generated by halftime shows and coin flips.

When props first began to catch the public interest, they were a novelty. Snobs saw them as sucker bets for squares. In Vegas, books would stage a glitzy launch ten days before the game to announce their props. No more. The first props for SB LIX were out minutes after the conference final games were decided. The brushfire is now a conflagration.
The two weeks before SB LIX were saturated with experts breaking down the teams, their predilections and their models for predicting prop winners. In a game with no appreciable favourite this meant every microchip of data being examined. (We had at least a dozen props then added a couple more during the game to hedge against any losers.)
The great fallibility of prop betting is their individual nature. With totals and sides the results are determined by efforts of the 92 NFL players allowed to suit up each week. Outside of the QBs, kickers, coaches and perhaps the referees, no single person could determine a W or L. Not so with props.
A player can drop a pass or miss a tackle— affecting his prop— without anyone being the wiser. The NFL scrutinizes players for erratic patterns, but on a single basis anything is possible for a player who is being influenced by bettors. Integrity of the product is paramount for the NFL and its gambling partners. So a rogue player is like a communist in Joe McCarthy’s America.
There is also betting on non-football props concerning length of national anthem, colour of Gatorade used to douse the winning coach and clothing choices of the halftime performers. Here, bettors are truly on their own as the NFL has no control on Kendrick Lamar’s playlist. (Considering KL’s associates “in the hood” this a very Wild West way to lose money) own the colour of Gatorade used (yellow).
So far the NFL has avoided any public gambling scandal like the one that landed the personal translator for Dodgers’s star Hideki Ohtani in jail for tipping off gamblers. (So far MLB has managed to wall off Hideki from the crimes). But the possibilities are there in NFL and other sports where a player compromised by debts, drug issues or sexual activity can be leveraged for profit.

The league with the most visible prop problem is the NBA with its small rosters (15 players game day). For a reminder the NBA was forced to admit that there is a current police probe into player Terry Rozier, now of the Miami Heat. “In March 2023, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity related to Terry Rozier’s performance in a game between Charlotte and New Orleans,” NBA spokesman said. While the NBA has cleared Rozier police area not satisfied.
In the 2023 matchup between the Hornets and the New Orleans Rozier pulled himself from the game after just nine minutes. As a result Rozier finished well below his prop bet of 32.5 combined points, assists and rebounds. Bettors howled about the suspicious nature of Rozier’s exit with a foot problem.
What made cops suspicious was that the network of gamblers placing money on Rozier was the same network that had allegedly manipulated former Raptor Jontay Porter’s prop numbers. Porter has been banned for life over charges he shaved numbers for the nefarious characters cited in the rosier story. Police are still investigating him.
The NBA is still reverberating from the 2007 scandal of referee Tim Donaghy who used his knowledge of the NBA to bet on professional basketball games and tip off crimes figures. He was banned for life and sentenced to 15 months in prison. Now released from prison Donaghy continues to warn about the vulnerability of betting NBA games.
Then there is the risk associated with U.S. college athletics now that players are paid to attend a certain college. Money and temptation flow freely in the new portal system that allows players to transfer schools midway through their eligibility.
Sunday’s game produced a one-sided windfall for Eagles’ bettors and the usual controversial referee calls did not affect the outcome. But it should not be seen as a reason to be less vigilant, particularly with props.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
Bruce Dowbiggin
The Limping Loonie: Are Canada’s Pro Sports Team In Trouble Again?

With the Canada/ U.S. Tariff War going from talking conflict to hot trade war on Feb. 1 there are numerous predictions as to what might happen if the dispute drags on. As the sides in the Ukraine War will tell you very few of the outcomes so far were foreseen by the sides when the shooting started. That’s the nature of these conflicts.
One immediate byproduct seems to be the continued descent toward 60 cents by the Canadian dollar. If Trudeau and his anointed successor Mark Carney are true to character it will also involve billions in cheques going out the door— a la Covid— to those citizens “harmed” by the Liberals stumbling into a highly predictable and easily avoidable trade war. If past is prologue, vast amounts of that money will disappear as bad actors find a way to access the funds. While Canada’s GDP collapses some more.
For the moment, however, let us concentrate on what Justin Trudeau’s ineptitude might be costing Canadian professional sports teams in American-based leagues. On the purely trivial level it means that your beer at the park/ arena will be Canadian suds exclusively. Not cheaper or better. Just Canadian. Owners will stock luxury boxes with Canadian wine, etc. A road trip to see the Canucks in L.A. or the Canadiens in NYC will balloon, too.
But on a more serious level the showdown between Donald Trump and Trudeau could well return Canadian teams in the NHL to the bad-old days of the early 21st century. Despite efforts then to create a Canadian fund to save teams, two clubs— Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques— were forced to sell because of a dollar that bottomed out around 62 cents U.S. Winnipeg went to Phoenix/ Quebec City went to Colorado as a result
In Montreal the MLB Expos also moved— to Washington— after 37 years, because no one in Quebec would/ could pony up the money to make up for the declining dollar or repair the disastrous Olympic Stadium. Expos fans then had the cruel fate of watching Washington win the 2019 World Series after the Expos had never gotten that far. (Nordiques fans saw Colorado win two Stanley Cups after escaping Quebec.)
Why were these teams forced to move? Because while teams collect revenues locally in Canadian dollars almost all their payroll and other costs are paid in American dollars. So when you see the Toronto Blue Jays facing a possible US $500 million price tag to keep star Vladimir Guerrero you’re really talking about raising $750,000 million in CDN revenues to meet the demand. Multiply those jumps over a 25-man roster and you’re talking a huge jump in payroll— or being consigned to after-ran status.
While no one is about to hold a tag day for Toronto it will make the Jays’ job of competing in a division with the big-spending New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox that much harder. With a national market of almost 40 million now to exploit they still have resources. But will American players want to play in Canada during a hot trade war between the nations? Now that yahoos fed by a doltish CDN media have started booing the Star Spangled Banner in Ottawa and Vancouver before games do you think that will encourage American stars on teams there to stick around?

But the NHL is where the biggest losses will be seen. Already there have been concerns about the Jets.2 surviving in Winnipeg. Last week it was revealed that after years spent coming back from Covid revenue shortages, the NHL is going to raise its salary cap from today’s US $88 million to as much as an estimated US $115 million in three or four years. The news that players will no longer have escrow payments held back to compensate owners for revenue shortages was greeted with cheers by players and their agent.
The boost in the cap will likely mean that today’s US$14 million peak (Leon Draisaitl) will also advance to somewhere just beneath US$20 million a season. And while that figure is a few years off, teams will have to start negotiating today with their stars with that figure in mind if they wish to retain them.

The test case will be superstar Connor McDavid who is due for a new contract after 2025-26. For the small-market Edmonton Oilers that will mean creating a template that buys him out of estimated salary later by boosting his salary before the cap arrives at its peak. With Draisaitl already pulling down top dollar the Oilers’ resources will be stretched thin to accommodate McDavid— while still paying the rest of the roster.
Could the drop in the dollar produce another Gretzky-like trade for Edmonton when the Oilers were forced to dump the greatest scorer in NHL history to L.A. because his worth exceeded the Oilers’ ability to pay? We chronicle the trade in depth in our new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey.
The fate of hockey stars will be only a small piece of any future U.S. trade deals. But they will be highly visible to Canada’s hockey fans. Not being able to satisfy them is a political price no pelican wants to face. But given the current intransigence by Justin Trudeau scrambling to stay in office it is far from improbable.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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