kwill Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 Hey Guys, I am wondering if some of you guys can shed some light on this issue. Do the White Sox own all of the affiliates or just a partial stake? Do the affiliate have any control of which guys get sent up or down? If not, Do the other investors ever get upset that their team is a bad product on the field? How much money do the minor league teams bring in? Sorry, if some of this is obvious. I just always kind of interest me on how the revenue stream worked in the minors? Seem like the White Sox lucked out on getting to fairly large markets in Charlotte and Birmingham. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChiliIrishHammock24 Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 What always kind of interested me was the role of a GM for a minor league team. Because you really don't even get to construct your own roster. And your best players get taken from you, and sometimes struggling/injured players get forced on your team. Must be weird to try to build a team, but you really aren't the guy constructing your roster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 QUOTE (kwill @ Aug 31, 2016 -> 01:52 AM) Hey Guys, I am wondering if some of you guys can shed some light on this issue. Do the White Sox own all of the affiliates or just a partial stake? Do the affiliate have any control of which guys get sent up or down? If not, Do the other investors ever get upset that their team is a bad product on the field? How much money do the minor league teams bring in? Sorry, if some of this is obvious. I just always kind of interest me on how the revenue stream worked in the minors? Seem like the White Sox lucked out on getting to fairly large markets in Charlotte and Birmingham. Most minor league affiliates are independently owned. In the Sox case, they own a majority stake in the Winston-Salem Dash, but the other 4 non-complex teams are independent. The AZL team is a "complex" team that does not operate as a business, and is run by the Sox. The affiliates do not control who goes up or down. They work with what is called a Player Development Contract (PDC), an agreement wherein the parent club supplies the players, manager and coaches, and pays their salaries. They also exercise some degree of control in other areas. The minor league teams are profitable in some cases, though few make big bank. But the profits are held by the owners, which is usually not the parent club (though there has been a trend lately towards teams buying their affiliates). When the MLB lawyers made the statements that paying players more would financially ruin minor league teams, they were being 100% false and they knew it. QUOTE (ChiliIrishHammock24 @ Aug 31, 2016 -> 01:55 AM) What always kind of interested me was the role of a GM for a minor league team. Because you really don't even get to construct your own roster. And your best players get taken from you, and sometimes struggling/injured players get forced on your team. Must be weird to try to build a team, but you really aren't the guy constructing your roster. A Minor League GM is a mirror to the MLB GM. MiLB GM's do everything EXCEPT what is on the field. Here's an article written by a minor league GM for FutureSox explaining it for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eminor3rd Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 (edited) NSS is right on all of that. I work for a Yankees affiliate; we're basically a contractor for the NYY. Our job is, essentially, to put on a game around their players. That includes ticket sales, concessions, stadium operations, gameday operations, etc. All of the operations staff are on our payroll, but all the players, coaches, trainers, and clubbies are on their payroll. The NYY have small ownership stake in us, but the operation is run by a private group that owns nearly all of it. Our GM is responsible for "baseball operations," which is mostly stuff like transportation and lodging for the players, dealing with umpires, and managing facility compliance. For example, the outfield grass must maintain a certain level of "brightness" when the lights are on at night, measured in footcandles. The league and/or the Yankees send guys to check up on that type of stuff from time to time. Player movement is (as mentioned above) entirely out of our hands, but TBH, it's just an operational afterthought for our GM. We all want our team to win because we work here, but our on-field success has next to no impact on attendance, and playoff games are generally not well attended anywhere in the MiLB. We started of our season 14-4, and then our five best position players got called up and we immediately started losing games. That was a bummer, but it didn't really make our GM's job any harder. Edited August 31, 2016 by Eminor3rd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwill Posted August 31, 2016 Author Share Posted August 31, 2016 Hey guys, Thanks so much for the information. It is super interesting. I think it would be hard for me to go to games in the minors. It seems like individual success is way more important than any kind of team success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eminor3rd Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 QUOTE (kwill @ Aug 31, 2016 -> 01:30 PM) Hey guys, Thanks so much for the information. It is super interesting. I think it would be hard for me to go to games in the minors. It seems like individual success is way more important than any kind of team success. Our average fan could hardly care less whether or not the teams wins. Our season-ticket holders do, though, but they also really latch onto specific players and root them on/hope they succeed at higher levels. There's no question that, from the affiliate end, they only really care about individual success. But you wouldn't be able to tell by watching what's on the field. The coaches and players treat it like it's the only baseball happening; they see winning as part of the training process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 31, 2016 -> 01:59 PM) Our average fan could hardly care less whether or not the teams wins. Our season-ticket holders do, though, but they also really latch onto specific players and root them on/hope they succeed at higher levels. There's no question that, from the affiliate end, they only really care about individual success. But you wouldn't be able to tell by watching what's on the field. The coaches and players treat it like it's the only baseball happening; they see winning as part of the training process. Agreed on all of this. Also to add, minor league games are a lot of fun, and way less expensive than the majors. It's worth doing at least once, and some people I've met prefer it to MLB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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