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My affinity for the game of baseball goes back to the late '80s. Most of my fondest sports memories and obsessions trace themselves back to that time. I was the kid who wanted to know everything about anything I was interested in, and sports was at the forefront of my inquisitive beginnings.
I remember the Bash Brothers in Oakland, Orel Hershiser's '88 season, and the Reds ending the A's dynasty (as well as Rob Dibble and Chris Sabo's speeches at their celebration). My favorite team back then were those Braves' teams of the '90s. We moved to Atlanta the summer of '91 in the midst of them going worst to first and beginning their run.
As I grew older, I began to look into the business side of things in sports. Contracts, their structure, salary caps, team revenue streams, etc. Whatever I could read about or research, I found fascinating. Keep in mind, this was just before and during the internet boom. I didn't have quality internet access until I was a freshman in college.
One thing that has stood out to me is the fact that baseball players have the highest average salaries of all major pro sports in this country. They play a 162-game schedule, plus playoffs, over a seven month period. Playing almost everyday is tough, but it isn't as physically demanding as football, or as fast-paced as basketball.
Over the last few offseasons, baseball has seen a switch in philosophy. No longer are teams backing up the Brinks truck and giving free agents a blank check. Top stars like J.T. Martinez, Jake Arrieta, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado have all found themselves without the deals they were expecting heading into spring training. Part of the reason is that baseball is no longer as popular, therefore no longer as profitable, as it was years ago when guys like Alex Rodriguez could get multiple $200 million-dollar plus contracts.
Another reason is the obviously more team-favorable system when it comes to players under team control. I have a proposal to help fix baseball's broken system:
Players are placed under team control for at least six years on an active 25-man roster. Teams will often hold players down in the minors, or stashed on the 40-man roster, until they feel they're ready to start their six year clock in the big leagues. Prime example locally is George Springer. He won't be a true free agent until he's 31. I propose teams sign their drafted rookies to similar deals like the NBA and NFL have. A simple four or five year deal, with team options for the fifth or sixth year seems logical. However, if the player is still in the minors or not, the team would have to resign him to a new deal. This eliminates the team from stashing the player and holding off his 25-man roster clock. This also rewards the player for working hard and getting to the big leagues sooner rather than later.
Teams will benefit under this system if they're able to sign a player to a long term extension before or after his rookie deal is up, but before he prices himself out of their budget. Smaller market teams would have a better chance to retain their players, rather than losing them upon hitting free agency. An example of this is when the Rays signed Evan Longoria to a six-year deal a few years before he was set to be a free agent instead of going to arbitration. Many were shocked he took the deal, but he bet on himself and the team bet on him living up to an early deal.
This was a mere conversation starter about a sport I feel that could be on the verge of losing its place in our sporting pantheon. Baseball is a game that needs more help that it's willing to admit. Soccer is itching to take baseball's place. It's growing like weeds and prone to take over if baseball doesn't weed and feed it's lawn.
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They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for Oklahoma City surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.
They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Denver star Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Houston games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Slovenian fans will be watching Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their playoff opener at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Los Angeles. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Defending champion Boston features, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.
Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.
In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio is from France, steals champion Dyson Daniels of Atlanta is from Australia, and assists champion Trae Young of the Hawks is from the U.S. — the postseason will have plenty of international feel as well. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels (along with Young, obviously) could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament.
“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”
By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born. For the first time in NBA history, players from one country other than the U.S. combined to score more than 15,000 points; Canadian players scored 15,588 this season, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from that country.
Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It'll be either him or Jokic, which means it'll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers winning two seasons ago.
“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.
In other words, he's like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo and Doncic either.
And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA's most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else's. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it still is significant.
The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade, since soon-to-be-enshrined Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony did it when he was with New York in 2012-13.
“We’re so small, we have 2 million people. But really, our sport is amazing,” fellow Slovene Ajsa Sivka said when she was drafted by the WNBA's Chicago Sky on Monday night and asked about Doncic and other top Slovenian athletes. “No matter what sport, we have at least someone that’s great in it. I’m just really proud to be Slovenian.”
All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport's international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league that has been taking shape for many years. The initial target calls for a 16-team league and it potentially could involve many of the biggest franchise names in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
It was a season where four players topped 2,000 points in the NBA and three of them were international with Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo. Globally, time spent watching NBA League Pass was up 6% over last season. More people watched NBA games in France this season than ever before, even with Wembanyama missing the final two months. NBA-related social media views in Canada this season set records, and league metrics show more fans than ever were watching in the Asia-Pacific region — already a basketball hotbed — as well.
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers — which are clearly being fueled by the continued international growth — suggest the game is very strong right now.
“Looking around the world, and of course here in North America," Zagklis said, "the NBA is most popular and more commercially successful than ever.”