Web Site Could Be Answer For Small-Market Teams

Baseball fans had a lot to think about this winter, what with wondering where Ken Griffey Jr. was going to end up and debating John Rocker’s quotes and guessing how many home runs Mark McGwire would hit and trying to decide if anybody could beat the Yankees this season and all.

So it went largely unnoticed when commissioner Bud Selig, as part of his sweeping, best-interests-of-the-game power grab, was granted complete control over baseball’s Internet rights.

Observers who are more familiar with bottom lines than foul lines, however, quickly recognized that a potentially epic move had been made.

The Industry Standard, billed as The News Magazine of the Internet Economy, certainly took notice.

When the season opened, the bimonthly publication put a picture of Sammy Sosa on the cover with a provocative headline: “Can The Net Save Baseball?” The conclusion was that it very well might.

Baseball’s deep thinkers have been rightly criticized in the past for their less-than-progressive thinking. Hey, every one of the problems the sport faces today can be traced directly to dumb decisions made by owners and league officials.

They’re on to something here, though.

Majorleaguebaseball.com at the moment is viewed largely as a marketing tool. That will change dramatically under the new plan. The blueprint is for a new site to become a legitimate business with an international audience.

Imagine being able to buy tickets, merchandise and memorabilia online. Imagine, in a few years, the capability of ordering pay-per-view games through the computer. Imagine a public stock offering.

Imagine, in short, oodles and oodles of money.

And how does this save baseball? Well, the loot won’t be distributed evenly among the 30 teams. Selig will have the discretion to dole out more to teams such as the Twins and Royals and Marlins and Expos. That, baseball hopes, will address the competitive imbalance that has become the sport’s most vexing problem.

Unlike other major sports, which get much of their revenue from national broadcast rights that are shared, much of baseball’s income is from local outlets.

That results in the disparity that allows the Yankees (who get $50 million a year from Cablevision and a local affiliate) to have a payroll approaching $100 million and still make money, while the Twins (who take in about $9 million) claim to be in the red despite a payroll one-fifth that large.

That, in turn, is why the Yankees win and the Twins don’t.

The biggest hurdle to the vision of Utopia could be - no surprise - the Major League Baseball Players Association. Union boss Don Fehr is obviously going to want to be certain that the players get their fair share of any windfall that might occur.

Still, this quiet revolution has the potential to change baseball for the better.

And, by the way, do you think McGwire will break his own record this year?