Right, and given that 5 other large markets are split (including DC / Balt) they have a very large market all to themselves. They own all of New England, a vast market. Henry's being a bit self serving with that 16th BS.
Henry's closer to right than wrong. Somewhere on this board I posted a few market analyses, including a reference to something Nate Silver did that you can track down, that has Boston somewhere in the 8th to 12th range, even accounting for its share of New England. The two largest markets are the Yankees and Mets, the next two are the dodgers and angels. The Cubs are around 5th, then it becomes fairly close among Philadelphia, Toronto, Atlanta, IIRC. Then there is Washington, Boston, and maybe Dallas. This does not account for
the Cardinals following throughout much of the central part of the country due to being on KMOX for years.
Also, he does not begrudge any team spending money to improve itself. He is not complaining about NYY's spending. Rather, he is saying that the way for the profitable but non-competitive teams to improve is not to whack New York and other teams that, for lack of a better word, TRY to put a good product on the field, but instead force the non-competitive teams to use their subsidies on the baseball product. As a fan, I would not mind that.
He's not dodging an obligation to subsidize the markets with less revenue capability. He's more than willing to pay a higher payroll tax if his payroll gets extreme. His point is that you shold tax payroll for the subsidy, not revenue, because taxing local revenues encourages lazy owners to collect checks and put bad products on the field. Man, do I sound like the Gipper or what?
Plus, think of the stimulus effects . . . (now I feel better).
