Blog Post 3
West Neill
Professor Jenkins
PS 101
April 14, 2022
Baseball and Politics
Throughout the history of baseball, the expression “Baseball and Politics” is talked about a lot. Since the beginning of baseball, the MLB has been known for overstepping its boundaries in the world of politics. By taking advantage of the immense revenue stream, they generate and threaten to relocate their facilities to other cities to push beneficial city ordinances or other actions. Usually, it is the MLB that is manipulating companies and sponsors, but in the 2021 season the roles get reversed and the MLB got a taste of their own medicine, leaving a bad look for the entire league.
Every year the MLB host an All-Star game marking the midpoint point of the season usually in early July. The All-Star game is usually the biggest game of the regular season. With the best players from each team playing against each other all in one place. The teams competing in this game are split between the two conferences in the MLB, the American and National League. These teams are selected by various methods, the managers are selected from the teams that went to the World Series in the previous season. The Starting players for each team are voted on by other players and fans, while the remaining players are selected by the manager of that team. Each team will have around twenty position players and twelve pitchers bringing the total roster to usually thirty-two total players.
Early in 2021, the MLB decided that the All-Star game and MLB draft would be hosted at the Atlanta Braves stadium. This decision was made to honor the recent death of Hall-of-Fame Braves player Hank Aaron the passed away in January of 2021. The six months to plan for the big game was cut short on April 2nd the MLB released that they will be relocating the All-Star game to the Colorado Rockies stadium. The reasoning behind their decision was stated that the Election Integrity Act was signed on March,25 of 2021. This act was implemented to prevent voter fraud from mail-in ballots in Georgia. But it was immediately slammed by the media, relating this act to “Jim Crow” laws from the civil rights era. The media soon turned to the MLB and companies involved with the All-Star game being held in a few months. These big-name companies began to threaten the MLB and cut ties with them permanently if something was not done. So immediately the MLB decided to relocate the game and draft to keep their sponsorships and endorsements. Immediately the city of Atlanta was enraged by this, claiming the MLB had caused them over $100 million in losses from 41,000 stadium tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, and other traveling expenses. Atlanta filed many lawsuits against the MLB some amounting up to one billion dollars. However, all lawsuits were dropped eventually. Although the game was not going to be hosted in Atlanta the MLB agreed to still honor Hank Aaron's contribution to baseball in Colorado.
From the MLB’s perspective, this was the correct business decision to make. Hundreds of millions of dollars are invested into the MLB every year from various companies. These companies pay insane amounts of money for advertisements during the All-Start game. This is because the All-Star game provides the best publicity, with viewers from all over the country and the world. When these companies began to receive pressure from the media, they instantly began withdrawing their investments. This left the MLB had two choices, lose millions of dollars, keep the game in Atlanta and continue to receive hate from the media. Or relocate the game to a different facility and keep their sponsors and maintain their political views. When stated like that the second option seems like a win-win situation.
But for the Braves and the city of Atlanta, this decision would cost them millions. Atlanta was completely neglected and abandoned in a situation they had no control over. The Braves had to prepare many months ahead to completely renovate the stadium for the All-Star game. Replacing almost every brave sign with an All-Star sign as well as changing the advertisements throughout the stadium. Some other things they had to plan for are the increase of supplies, and merchandise specifically designed for the game. As well as losing the special memorial for the Iconic Hank Aaron. Also affecting the city of Atlanta had many implications in place for the surplus of traffic coming to the city. All these lost investments were never compensated for by the MLB. This enraged the fanbase of not only Atlanta but the entire east coast fan-based that planned months to attend this game.
When looking at both perspectives it is hard to find a consensus on this situation. The MLB could have potentially taken a non-recovering financial and political loss. As for the Atlanta and the Braves, became viewed as villains over the situation they could not control and took an enormous financial loss. And the fans that planned to attend the game in Atlanta
I think the ultimate solution should have been the MLB relocating to another stadium on the East coast so the fans could somewhat still be satisfied with traveling convenience. The new facility should be encouraged to buy out the salvageable merchandise from the Braves reducing some of the losses. Since the Braves are correlated with the MLB, they should be compensated for 100% of the losses from the preparation of the All-Star game and receive a small percentage of the revenue generated from the All-Star game. Since The City of Atlanta wasn’t under any contract or agreement with the MLB, I think they should be compensated for 50% percent of proven All-Star related, all ready-made transactions made before the relocation. But both sides understand finical decisions like this can happen because of politics. Situations like this have happened since the beginning of the MLB. It is just one of the negative trade-offs that come with baseball and politics.