OnlyBucs

65575B5B4F7D5E575A5F5057360 wrote: I think he's fine (not good not bad) and am not sure what people really expect.  I think there are often things going on behind the scenes that you or I couldn't possibly know about that sometimes cause decisions that look strange on TV.  I also have internal alarm bells that go off when a regular fan thinks they know more than a manager/coach/whatever.
There's a lot of truth to that. On the other hand, managers get fired. So just because they are the managers, they aren't necessarily doing the best job. Sometimes fans' complaints are warranted.




True enough.  And with calls like telling a player to go or stay at third base (in a 3B coach's case) it's a spur of the moment judgment call that is clearly right or wrong.  It's probably worse in football where everyone thinks they'd call better plays than the offensive coordinator.


The Astros have been sending everyone home and being safe due to dropped balls or bad throws to the plate. I still think its a bad idea, but they have been scoring on them in the playoffs. Even when plays work out for the team, they still might not be the best decision.

Funny, I have internal alarm bells that go off when fans default to support management decisions because they are management. It's just an appeal to authority.



Fundamentally no different than defaulting to support the positions of anyone in a decision making position.

7279717D7879622721566F777E7979387579160 wrote: Aren't the Pirates still in line to get more than double their current TV deal?  Maybe even triple?  They just got a billion dollar value placed on them.  Their $25 million (proclaimed) TV deal was one of the lowest in all of baseball. 






This will boil down to the revenue opportunity for whatever network buys the rights. I don't know how it breaks down, but income is generated from advertising (obviously hurt by lower ratings) and from cable subscriber fees as negotiated between the network and the cable operators carrying it.



I suspect that a lot of the network's income comes from subscriber fees. And those may be less directly impacted by ratings since other content (Pens' games?) may drive a lot of the subscriptions. Or bindling with other desirable networks.



That all said, cable subscriber numbers are shrinking. And with expected advertising rates down due to ratings, the Bucs will have less leverage in the next negotiation.

I don't really know how the negotiations work, I imagine the only way the Pirates could gain real leverage is if there were other bidders for the TV rights. I think it's kind of silly to look at the ratings drop as a drop in leverage for them as well. All that shows is a direct correlation between winning and ratings, which would seem obvious to most people, right? I think the high ratings during the success years show a nice revenue ceiling for the broadcasts, and coupled with projected growth of the region should allow for some growth in rating.



But, I think the Pirates would be prudent to focus on other revenue outlets as opposed to their local cable TV broadcast deal. With streaming services and people cutting their cable, the big money deals are a thing of the past and basing your revenue projections on cable income 5-10 years in the future is not sustainable.

5E6C60607446656C61646B6C0D0 wrote: I think he's fine (not good not bad) and am not sure what people really expect.  I think there are often things going on behind the scenes that you or I couldn't possibly know about that sometimes cause decisions that look strange on TV.  I also have internal alarm bells that go off when a regular fan thinks they know more than a manager/coach/whatever.
We could also apply that to fans thinking they know more than owners. We hear fans saying Nutting needs to increase spending to increase his profits by building a better team that will put more fans in the seats and improve TV ratings before the next broadcast deal. But I can't image Nutting saying, "Wow, I never thought of that." He's a very successful businessman. CNBC ranked him the 10th richest owner in MLB. Doesn't seem like a guy who doesn't think things thru or gets blindsided by something as obvious as lower attendance for a bad team means less revenue, as does lower ratings. Seems to me that whatever he's doing is working for him.

1E333E2F28392E6E6D5C0 wrote: I think he's fine (not good not bad) and am not sure what people really expect.  I think there are often things going on behind the scenes that you or I couldn't possibly know about that sometimes cause decisions that look strange on TV.  I also have internal alarm bells that go off when a regular fan thinks they know more than a manager/coach/whatever.
We could also apply that to fans thinking they know more than owners. We hear fans saying Nutting needs to increase spending to increase his profits by building a better team that will put more fans in the seats and improve TV ratings before the next broadcast deal. But I can't image Nutting saying, "Wow, I never thought of that." He's a very successful businessman. CNBC ranked him the 10th richest owner in MLB. Doesn't seem like a guy who doesn't think things thru or gets blindsided by something as obvious as lower attendance for a bad team means less revenue, as does lower ratings. Seems to me that whatever he's doing is working for him. 






Right. I'm sure he knows the investment he would need to make to benefit a higher TV contract. He probably already knows the TV contract within a few thousand dollars. Work has to be in progress.

Here's an blog post about the deal the Reds signed last year. The two teams are pretty comparable so the Pirates might be looking at something similar.



One thing that will be interesting to see is if Nutting negotiates for equity in the deal. Because that will be compensation that will have zero impact on baseball operations.

50777C5F120 wrote: Here's an blog post about the deal the Reds signed last year. The two teams are pretty comparable so the Pirates might be looking at something similar.



One thing that will be interesting to see is if Nutting negotiates for equity in the deal. Because that will be compensation that will have zero impact on baseball operations.


The section "Fuzzy value of payroll" is right on. That's what I've been saying for a while. Also why I would rather have front loaded contracts.