$1-$33 $19.08 $17.48 $17.48Florida $2-$28 $11.42 $11.42 $10.11 Montreal $7-$33 $9.81 $9.81 $6.81 New York $1-$30 $19.66 $16.23 $13.06 Philadelphia $6-$20 $14.20 $11.02 $11.02 With consumer confidence wavering and the possibility of baseball’s ninth work stoppage, since 1972, looming when the current collective bargaining agreement, between the players and the owners, ends on October 31, 2001, how can Baseball keep from tearing itself apart and disintegrating into the kind of labor strife that occurred in 1994? Many owners point out the all-time attendance record baseball set in 2000, of 72.7 million, and the new six-year, $2.5 billion Television contract just signed with Fox Sports as evidence of the present strength and prosperity that Major League Baseball is enjoying. But, despite the record set for total attendance, half of all Major League teams actually saw a decline in attendance last year, and there are significant ticket-price increases scheduled for more than a dozen teams, this year, that threaten to further diminish attendance. Furthermore, the television ratings for last year’s All-Star Game and World Series were the lowest ever. All of these things combine to paint a grim picture for the future of Major League Baseball in the 21st Century, but there are some possible solutions that have been suggested by the Commissioner’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Baseball Economics. The Panel was charged, in 1999, to spend eighteen months studying the financial problems facing baseball and to find ways to strengthen the financially weaker teams. They were led by Yale University President Richard Levin, political columnist George F. Will, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former Senate majority leader George Mitchell, and consulted by 14 team owners and the players union. They developed five ...
