T
he national pastime needs national control. Major League Baseball operates as a monopoly, enables stubborn and avaricious owners, and allows teams to take advantage of their host cities. While the NBA and NHL implemented a centralized “bubble” as a COVID-19 safety measure in 2020, MLB allowed teams to play in their home communities. As a result, players and staff contracted and transmitted the virus among teammates and the public, often without punishment for careless conduct. The organization has repeatedly condoned cheating, responding only to government intervention. When a steroid epidemic came to light in the early 2000s, MLB brass cracked down only when pressured by President Bush and Congress. MLB’s then-commissioner Bud Selig knew about this rampant drug abuse problem for more than a decade yet failed to act even as steroid use increased among high school athletes. Many young baseball players lost their lives to these illegal substances; some even cited their favorite stars as a catalyst for their drug use. To rectify MLB’s economic exploitation of cities and communities, indifference to public health, and cavalier attitude toward detrimental behavior, the league must be stringently regulated and its teams placed under public control.
Cities often front the cost of new stadium construction without reaping significant economic benefits. Twenty-seven of MLB’s twenty-nine American stadiums received a taxpayer subsidy to finance their construction. The two exceptions—Boston’s Fenway Park and Chicago’s Wrigley Field—were erected decades before such public funding became commonplace. Public funding most often comes via municipal bonds issued by a team's host city, which are exempt from federal taxes. This practice has led to staggering losses for the US treasury— nearly $1.6 billion since 2000.
Besides these direct subsidies, cities often agree to fund additional infrastructure improvements in areas surrounding new stadiums. While these undertakings undoubtedly facilitate economic growth and benefit communities at large, they also enrich bloated teams that do not contribute their requisite share. In 2005, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans for new Mets and Yankees ballparks with a firm promise of no taxpayer subsidies. His word proved insincere, as the projects received hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and benefits that are not granted to most businesses. As development advanced and stadium price tags swelled, the city pumped unsightly sums into unanticipated project components at the behest of team ownership. In the late 1990s, San Diego voters signed off on constructing a new downtown ballpark for the Padres with a pledge from the city that the deal would pay for itself. Two decades later, San Diego continues to pour millions from its
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To rectify MLB’s economic exploitation of cities and communities, indifference to public health, and cavalier attitude toward detrimental behavior, the league must be stringently regulated and its teams placed under public control.
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tourism tax fund into the stadium’s operations and maintenance, siphoning money that could be allocated to public entities. More recently, Miami covered nearly three-quarters of the cost of the $650 million Marlins Park through high-interest-rate
