Do articles like this one and this one seem unseemly at a time like this? Don’t these agents come off like used car salesmen?I have respect for their management skills but there is a time and place for everything. Squeezing every dime out of a club and a city and the fans in this economy just doesn’t sit well with folks right now. Keep your heads held up high. Now is the time to leave a little on the table. Make it up in good will for everyone in all segments. We are all in it together. There doesn’t have to be an ultimate winner and an ultimate loser in every negotiation. I think those days are long gone.

I was just reading the Sports Business Journal and a section on Major League Baseball attendance. There were some mind-blowing stats.

After 70 games, the Washington Nationals had drawn 2,070,439 fans, a huge increase over last season. The Baltimore Orioles had drawn 1,725,238, which was about flat from the year before. In all, fans in our region went through the turnstiles about 3.7 million times for both teams combined. The Nationals are now out drawing the Orioles in terms of attendance.

The NY Yankees on the other hand had drawn 3,761,696 on their own while the NY Mets had drawn 3,301,501. Hence, in NYC, 7,000,000 million fans had gone thru the turnstiles to attend baseball games.

In a league where there is no salary cap, how can smaller market teams compete with bigger market teams when there is such a disparity in attendance and resultant revenues? The Yankees essentially have outdrawn the Orioles by 2 million fans so far or about what the Nationals have drawn to date. Very sobering.