Moores Feeling Blue Over Salary Boom

John Moores feared this was coming.

The software and real estate magnate who owns the San Diego Padres had cautioned that the Dodgers could become the “monster to the north” if sold to Rupert Murdoch, given his economic and global resources.

Now, Moores believes Murdoch’s ownership has contributed to baseball’s serious payroll and revenue disparities.

The Dodger payroll is $74 million, with the possibility it could go to more than $85 million if they sign free-agent pitcher Kevin Brown, whom Moores is trying to retain, providing “we don’t have to commit financial hara-kiri.”

“This was the one thing I was concerned about with the Dodgers, although I never expected their payroll to go as high as it is,” Moores said. [Previous owner] Peter O’Malley was a pretty prudent guy, but it looks like the new owners aren’t. It looks like they’re only interested in their own self-interest, but in the long term they’ll hurt the game and their fans.”

The Dodger payroll has increased about $25 million since the start of the 1998 season, Fox’s first as owner.

President Bob Graziano refused to debate Moores.

“Every market has different and independent issues,” he said. “I’m hesitant to analyze or comment on what another owner is doing in his market. I’m hesitant to comment on what our ownership is doing.

“As I’ve said before, Fox is willing to sustain the payroll in an effort to bring a championship team to Los Angeles, but that can’t last forever. We have to develop revenue streams that will allow us to sustain the payroll [without borrowing from Fox].”

Graziano agreed with Moores that the luxury-tax and revenue-sharing provisions in the new bargaining agreement haven’t been a deterrent to the payroll escalation or resolved the competitive imbalance.

“In some ways,” Graziano said, “the situation is worse than when the agreement was instituted. We’ve got to focus on it and focus on it quickly.”

Moores called it a potentially crisis situation in which baseball can’t afford to saddle fans with the high salaries as the NBA did.

He described competitive imbalance as a burning issue and said baseball needs to embrace the massive revenue-sharing concept of the NFL or the same teams will continue competing in the playoffs and World Series, and that “will badly diminish the product in the big markets, because it will have no meaning after a time, and it will ruin the product in the small market, because those teams will have no chance.”

“I think we may have seen an early warning sign [during the National League’s championship series] in Atlanta. The Braves have a terrific team, but they didn’t sell out our games there. Maybe their fans had seen a little too much [of the Braves in the playoffs] or come to expect too much.”

Ultimately, Moores said, Commissioner Bud Selig needs to provide unilateral leadership where possible, and the players’ union has to acknowledge the problems and help work on a meaningful solution.

“At the end of the day, however, I’m afraid that the union is satisfied with the short-term gain and is comfortable with the situation as it exists,” he said. “Hopefully, that will change. In every other industry that has encountered economic problems, the union has been brought into the discussions and worked together with management on a solution. Otherwise, that industry has failed.”