By Jeff
Just read this story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Just as they said last year, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and the players union have no problem with the way the Pittsburgh Pirates use the money they receiver through revenue sharing.
A common complaint in Pittsburgh is that Pirates owner Bob Nutting pockets all of the revenue sharing money the team receives, rather than put it back into the team. A Forbes report stating that the Pirates made a $25 million profit in 2010 add fuel to these critics' fire. Too bad as Post-Gazette writer Dejan Kovacevic said in his blog here, the $25 million amount makes no sense and was not verified by anyone.
Now I am in no way a Nutting fan. I am one of those people that believe the team is moving in the right direction, but I would be a very happy man if Nutting sold the team and was never heard from again. He's just not a baseball guy. With that being said, the man receives more blame and hatred than is fair.
MLB has forced teams to take on payroll if it is determined that they are spending revenue sharing dollars in the wrong place. MLB has taken over teams that are being run into the ground by irresponsible owners. Clearly the league is not afraid to act when they view a situation as problematic. The fact they haven't penalized the Pirates for either of these practices shows that the Pirates currently are not misusing revenue sharing funds and are not being run into the ground by Nutting.
Some will still claim Nutting is pocketing all of the profits, and there is nothing anyone can say to dissuade these individuals from thinking otherwise. Others will says Selig is a joke and his support of the team means nothing, and I can't really argue the fact that Selig makes decisions that make me bang my head against a wall. But he has a history of punishing big and small market teams and their ownership for actions viewed as harmful to the league, so I'm actually going to trust him on this one.
Stiff Little Fingers - Johnny Was
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