Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Feb 10, 2012, 4:54 pm
While full details will not be available till 2/29, some good news is already coming in for fans that are looking to stream MLB games via computer, and other devices. For the first time, a subscription to MLB.TV Premium ($124.99 for the season, up from $120 last season) will come with ...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Feb 10, 2012, 12:43 pm
  No, there wasn’t a player signing at Boston’s Logan International Airport, but there was a uniform unveiling, of sorts. Red Sox sponsorship partner JetBlue unveiled an Airbus A320 in Red Sox colors today marking the first time a commercial airliner has worn an MLB “uniform”....
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Feb 9, 2012, 1:59 pm
As a free agent, only a handful of players accept salary arbitration when it is offered them, as most opt to test the market. But, there are a handful of such players each year, and 2012 is no different with Kelly Johnson (Blue Jays), Francisco Rodriguez (Brewers), and David Ortiz (Red Sox) b...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Feb 8, 2012, 12:14 pm
This week, a second edition of “Last Week in Bizball”. Can Wilpon and Katz keep the Mets?, plus the tidbits. ARE WILPON AND KATZ KEEPING THE METS? Where to start with the Mets woes? Irving Picard, representing the victims of Bernie Madoff, is attempting to extract close to $...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Feb 7, 2012, 2:58 pm
With Marlins SS Emilio Bonifacio going to hearing today, 2012 will pass last year in terms of the number of salary arbitration hearings that will take place. Last year, just three players went to salary arbitration hearing with their respective clubs (Ross Ohlendorf- Pirates, Jered Wea...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Feb 7, 2012, 10:11 am
This week in “Last Week in Bizball”, MLB teams are media companies. These past handful of seasons, MLB attendance and regular season national TV ratings have been pretty much flat. The overall ratings trends for MLB’s marquee TV events, the ASG and WS, are clearly downward...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Football - Feb 7, 2012, 4:20 am
Whether it was "the rematch", the fact that it was New England vs New York, what have you, America loved Super Bowl XLVI, not just a little bit, but at an epic level. The 2011 NFL season concluded with another television milestone as Super Bowl XLVI on NBC reached a total audience of 166.8 ...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Feb 2, 2012, 8:29 pm
UPDATE: Rays win salary arbitration case with Niemann. He will earn $2.75 million rather than the $3.2 million he had been seeking. The Rays are now 6-0 in salary arbitration hearings. On the same day that a panel of three arbitrators ruled in favor of the Washington Nationals over John Lanna...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Feb 2, 2012, 12:27 pm
UPDATE: The Nationals win the first salary arbitration case of 2012 against Lannan. He will earn $5 million for the 2012 season as opposed to the $5.7 million he had been seeking (see the Salary Arbitration Scorecard) The first salary arbitration hearing for 2012 took place yesterday b...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Feb 1, 2012, 4:20 pm
Baseball is an amazing thing... short of being a metorologist, where can you fail more that succeed and keep your job? For that matter, you hit into play fair 1/4 of the time, you're going straight to the Hall of Fame. The reason for it's difficulty are based on a couple of things, none the l...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 30, 2012, 10:26 pm
This week in “Last Week in BizBall“, an all tidbits edition including Indians TV rights, Liberty Media & the Braves, the annual Harris Poll and more. LWIB, The Plain Dealer published this piece from Bill Lubinger detailing the growing importance of local TV rights in MLB. T...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 26, 2012, 3:48 pm
It’s often said that players in MLB “make too much money.” In relationship to some professions (teachers often get cited), the relationship in pay gets brought up. Of course, when you really think about it, MLB is really a form of entertainment. It’s a capitalism thing – supply an...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 24, 2012, 2:28 pm
The NFL is king. Or, at least it’s king on television. No matter your sports allegiance, it’s an undeniable fact. To put this in perspective, the Conference Championship games this past weekend averaged 53.7 million, making it the most watched Conference Championship Sunday since 1982. The Giant...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 23, 2012, 8:52 pm
This week in “Last Week in BizBall“, paperless ticketing and the secondary market, plus tidbits. PAPERLESS TICKETING & THE SECONDARY MARKET Last month I blogged about the problems that secondary ticketing has created for many MLB franchises. Many clubs believe that the secon...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 23, 2012, 2:50 pm
As we’ve done for several seasons now, The Biz of Baseball has been updated to give you all the players that have exchanges figures as part of the salary arbitration process. (SEE SALARY ARBITRATION FIGURES) The table is broken out by: Player Club Position ...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 22, 2012, 10:54 am
Dan Shaughnessy, who long ago did his heel turn, had already blasted the club’s ownership for the penny pinching ways, when Red Sox GM compounded the complaints with a text book salary dump sending designated starting shortstop Marco Scutaro to the Colorado Rockies for righty Clayton Mort...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 20, 2012, 1:20 pm
Yu Darvish has been signed with the Rangers. Here's the breakdown With 5 minutes left before the deadline to get him signed, agent Arn Tellem and the Texas Rangers agreed on a six-year, $56 million deal that sees $49 million of it guaranteed and the 2017 salary of $11 million a player option ba...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 19, 2012, 12:15 pm
File this one in the “broken record” department: prepare for yet another season of MLB’s blackout policy remaining in place. The reason for the broken record? This story has been written repeatedly for years. A source at MLB said that for all practical purposes, the matter will likely n...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 18, 2012, 5:21 am
Orioles Ink Johnson, but swap figures with their other arbitration eligible players Dan Connolly tweeted word of Jim Johnson's one year, $2.625 million agreement with the Orioles on Arbitration Deadline Day. The righthanded reliever's new deal represents a 169.2% raise over his 2011 sal...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Football - Jan 18, 2012, 12:08 am
Remember that thing called the NFL lockout? Neither do fans. Numbers released by the NFL and Nielsen Media  show an average of 36.6 million viewers watched the four playoff games last weekend, the most ever for an NFL Divisional Weekend and a four percent increase from last season’s previo...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 17, 2012, 10:31 am
The first 2012 Spring Training exhibition will be held on Wednesday, February 29th in Clearwater, Florida, where the Philadelphia Phillies will host Florida State University, while the first Cactus League game will be in Phoenix, Arizona on Friday, March 2nd, when the Seattle Mariners will visit the...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 17, 2012, 10:19 am
This week in “Last Week in BizBall“, will BAM cooperate with “TV Everywhere”?, plus the tidbits. MLBAM AND TV EVERYWHERE In November, in light of World Series TV ratings, I examined the state of MLB national media rights. In a nutshell, the long term national TV ratings tr...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 17, 2012, 7:02 am
Sign and trade deals are more common to the NBA where a long-standing collective bargaining agreement provision enables the club re-signing a player to pay more than would be available from another club, but that didn’t stop the Colorado Rockies from first working out a one-year deal with S...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 14, 2012, 2:04 pm
As part of the long-tenured agreement between MLB and the MLBPA, last night 142 players eligible filed for salary arbitration. Last year, there were 137. The process of exchanging salary figures occurs Jan. 17, with hearings running from Feb. 1-21 in St. Petersburg, FL. Players and clu...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 12, 2012, 9:15 am
... Tim Epstein practices sports law in Chicago. LWIB, the Sports Law Blog included a ... and outcomes experienced by owners of both Chicago teams. The way Tim depicts the situation, the White Sox have been treated very generously by ... a shortfall in projected hotel tax revenue, Chicago...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 11, 2012, 4:48 pm
The legal dispute between FOX Sports and the Dodgers over media rights has been settled in a Delaware bankruptcy court. The Dodgers had been looking to put the media rights for the Dodgers up for sale ahead of the expiration of the current agreement the LA club has with FOX. That contract has FOX ha...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Basketball - Jan 11, 2012, 9:46 am
You've probably heard by now that the new CBA's luxury tax rules will have adverse effects on well-constructed teams like the Thunder and the Heat. One thing that hasn't been discussed in depth is how exactly these teams will be affected by the tax. You probably won't notice any big difference this ...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 11, 2012, 9:35 am
This week in “Last Week in Bizball, debate over the new CBA continues. As you know, late last year, MLB and the MLBPA concluded negotiations on a new “basic agreement” (aka CBA), which governs the industry for the next five seasons. Since the details of the new CBA were released,...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 10, 2012, 2:54 pm
Bud Selig is far from perfect. He is not slick in front of the cameras, like Roger Goodell. He has a hearing problem, has yet to get aids, and a myriad of pictures have been snapped of him cupping his ear. He fancies himself a historian of the game, which he’s better at than many give him c...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Jan 10, 2012, 12:32 pm
When MLB reached their new CBA with the players, part of the new deal was adding additional playoff teams to the mix. The format, which will see a one-game play-in between two teams in each league, is, in this author’s opinion, a good idea. After all, MLB has the fewest percentage of playoff teams...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Football - Dec 26, 2011, 6:36 pm
You, I, or politicians, every decision we make comes with consequences. Good or bad, there are outcomes to what we choose to do. The big difference is, politicians are constantly being watched by the media and taxpayers for missteps. Controversial subjects are often sidestepped, and the fundi...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Basketball - Dec 24, 2011, 8:32 pm
Following are the opening day rosters for NBA Tip-Off ‘11. The season begins tomorrow (Dec. 25th)with five games: ATLANTA Jason Collins Willie Green Kirk Hinrich Al Horford Ivan Johnson Joe Johnson Tracy McGrady Zaza Pachulia Jannero Pargo Vladimir Radmanovic Donald Sloan Josh Smith ...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Hockey - Dec 19, 2011, 2:38 pm
Welcome to another NHL edition of Bizball Radio with Seth Everett and Maury Brown! In what may be the best podcast that Seth and Maury have done to date, the two breakdown realignment in the NHL to address the relocation of the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg, and the ripple effect that th...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 15, 2011, 12:23 am
... Darvish is the next in a line of players that have ... , Daisuke Matsuzaka, or Ichiro Suzuki, the “posting system” that has been ... Major League Baseball Players Association in the case of a Major ... Japanese Player’s Japanese Club the amount of its successful bid ... Player sha...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 14, 2011, 4:00 pm
Yesterday’s “Last Week in BizBall“ was longish, so I omitted the weekly tidbits. But now, here they are. Daniel Kaplan reported that the Diamondbacks secured $140 million of financing. The team refinanced a $60 million credit facility, bought back $45 million of bonds which had be...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 14, 2011, 1:16 pm
... Rodriguez Dept.” another new wrinkle pertains betting on any sport. There will be a ban on players betting with illegal bookies. In the “Anger Management Dept.”, players can face possible suspension if they “intentionally throw a ball or equipment at non-uniformed personnel with...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 13, 2011, 3:03 pm
Once upon a time, the Toronto Blue Jays won back-to-back World Series (92 & 93) and led MLB in player payroll (93 & 95) and attendance (89-93). Since the introduction of the expanded playoffs in 94, they are one of only 4 franchises (the others are the Royals, Pirates and Nationals) to not qu...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 13, 2011, 2:23 pm
... Matt Moore signed his 5-year, $14 million deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, it had many saying ... 2.5 million buyout. If the Rays exercise the option year, the ... year of the deal gives the Rays a $10 million option for ... loaded with methods by which the Rays could get out of the ... Price...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Football - Dec 13, 2011, 1:00 am
Welcome to a new edition of Bizball Radio with Seth Everett and Maury Brown! Just how marketable is Tim Tebow and why the fascination with him? In this edition of the football podcast, Seth and Maury talk the sensation and ask why the Broncos' quarterback is so popular. They also delve...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 12, 2011, 12:33 pm
When word hit on the weekend that Ryan Braun had tested positive for synthetic testosterone, social media and blogs went wild. The positive test is not just some rank-and-file player, the likes of which few fans care about, Braun won the MVP this year, and is the first player post-“steroid ...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 9, 2011, 3:16 pm
It took only one regular season start for Matt Moore to convince the Tampa Bay Rays that he was worth keeping around for the long haul. Sure, there was a glimpse of playoff brilliance and a few years of minor league dominance sandwiched around that. But the fact remains that less than three m...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 8, 2011, 2:47 pm
... budgets are limited. Free agency is now the only way large market teams can flex their muscles. The second wild card team slot would have put the Angels in the playoffs this past season. Now, the Angels ... The Angels were third in AL revenues coming into this season at $220 million per Forb...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 8, 2011, 12:10 pm
The Baseball Winter Meetings this year wound up being one of the most exciting in years, with the Miami Marlins becoming major players in the mix, while arguably the game’s greatest player heading to a new zip code. The Marlins seemed to be in on nearly every major deal, landing closer Heat...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Baseball - Dec 8, 2011, 9:10 am
The waiting is over for the Houston Astros after firing Ed Wade as late last night they announced that they have hired former Cardinals V.P. of Scouting and Player Development, Jeff Luhnow as their new General Manager. Astros President and CEO George Postolos made the announcement. Owner Jim Crane w...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Basketball - Dec 2, 2011, 9:27 am
Welcome to the latest NBA edition of Bizball Radio with Seth Everett and Maury Brown! In this basketball edition of Bizball Radio with Seth Evertt and Maury Brown, they talk extensively about the new NBA labor deal and ask, "If the NBA lost this much of a season, does the deal truly w...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Hockey - Nov 30, 2011, 4:37 pm
According to their annual report of the 30 clubs in the NHL (see www.forbes.com/nhl), the average value for a club in the league now is at $240 million, up 5% from last year, ranging as high as over a half-a-billion dollars for the Maple Leafs ($521 million) to $134 million for the beleaguered Phoen...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Basketball - Nov 26, 2011, 12:13 pm
It was 3am ET Saturday morning when it was announced, but never let it be said nothing good happens after midnight. The NBA and the players have reached a tentative agreement to end the 149 day lockout that has placed the entire 2011-12 season. To do so requires that the players reform as a union an...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Football - Nov 18, 2011, 10:05 pm
Welcome to a new edition of Bizball Radio with Seth Everett and Maury Brown! The Sandusky sex scandal at Penn St. has Seth and Maury talking about how sports institutions could be covering up the truth in this latest edition of Bizball Radio. Seth has ideas on how to punish Penn St. wh...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Hockey - Nov 17, 2011, 2:54 pm
Welcome to another NHL edition of Bizball Radio with Seth Everett and Maury Brown! In this edition, Seth and Maury talk about the strength of NHL's core fan base, how realignment factors in with the Thrashers relocating to Winnepeg and becoming the Jets, the state of the Coyotes, Islande...
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Maury B. posted an article on The Biz of Basketball - Nov 16, 2011, 11:35 pm
Welcome to the latest NBA edition of Bizball Radio with Seth Everett and Maury Brown! In this NBA edition of Bizball Radio with Seth Evertt and Maury Brown, they dig deep in the the NBPA decertification and what that means for the league. They go in-depth into NBA's model and ask, if t...
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