Miami Marlins: Owners should be forced to spend money

Bruce Sherman is often criticized for not spending enough money on the team, and spoke about this off-season recently. It’s definitely debatable how he spent his money last off-season based on the way the Miami Marlins have been playing. Should he have had Kim Ng pursue other options? Were there better options? I wrote about that earlier as well. It does take us to a larger problem, MLB needs to take a longer look at the relationship between owners, fans and cities.

Bruce Sherman needs to be fair to the fans and the city of Miami.

Bruce Sherman spent over $100 million on the team last off-season, over $130 million to be exact. We can talk about whether that’s “enough”, or if the actual moves were wrong, or if he should’ve done more but all of that is just details. The important thing is something else entirely: the fact that his moves have to be questioned and examined in that way point to a larger problem in Major League Baseball.

Ownership changed have to be approved by other owners and by the MLB commissioner. Why? To make sure that the owner isn’t “bad for MLB”. Do you know what should be considered? Whether the owner will do everything possible to make sure that the team wins. Teams make money through tickets, merchandise, food sales, broadcasting deals… that revenue has to be reinvested into the team.

Jeffrey Loria’s stadium situation shows that there is a relationship between owners, cities and teams. The relationship is based on the foundation that the owner will make sure that the team will try to win. That means doing everything reasonably possible to ensure that outcome. Not spending enough money and putting enough revenue into the team is the obvious issue. If an owner doesn’t do that, then they’re not trying to win, and if they’re not then they’re misleading the team’s city and fans.

If Bruce Sherman doesn’t let Kim Ng do everything reasonable to make sure the team wins, then he’s lying to the city of Miami and its fans. MLB needs to have a department that evaluates revenue allotment by owners, and punishes owners who don’t meet fair thresholds. If less than 60% of revenue is reinvested into the team, the owner is not doing their job. MLB needs to deal with this issue as it will only improve attendance and revenue for everyone. Wouldn’t you be more loyal to a team that you know is trying to win for you?