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I don't know a single thing about Harper. I'm 99% sure that ship sailed a long long time ago, but that's just an assumption. For Machado I know what everyone else knows on Wednesday or so I thought it was really close but turned out to be a false alarm. They're in a great spot and in my opinion have no reason not to at least be high bidder at this point. Heading out in like 10 mins and prob won't be back here for a while so if anyone has any burning questions let me know!

Fellas..... You are all going to go insane if you keep investigating random twitter user rumors for Machado news. I know this whole process has sucked but there's next to zero chance that some random twitter user has info

About as many times as you bring it up to complain about. Maybe a few less

All of us if true:

Yesterday my girlfriend took a photo of the two of us, and in the reflection of my glasses you can clearly see I'm holding my phone with Soxtalk's page open.

Someone close to the negotiations told me that the Sox were Harper's top choice until he saw the paltry number of pages his thread on soxtalk.com generated. "It's like they don't even want me", were his words.

Don't blow your cover J. Michael Robertson

I would hope they'd do something about the SP depth. Also that one kid on the Joc rumor def had something and apparently it fell through last minute-ish I'm going but I'm every bit as confident the Sox land Machado now as I was last time I strolled over here. The ONE thing that scares me is that Preller is a complete and total wild card. Yankees scare me exactly zero

Alright guys, Im flying out to the Dominican for vacation tomorrow morning. I'm gonna rock my Sox hat, act inconspicuous and find someone that knows the Machados. I'll get the real scoop once and for all.

Manny machado grew up in the USA.

"Cubs management to burn Wrigley to the ground and move club to Portland."

My wife left me on gumdrop day in 98’

You do know that The Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks are overwhelming majority owners of that channel, right?? NBC only owns a small minority for licensing rights. Reinsdorf will own roughly 60% of that channel between the Sox and Bulls, so he's the majority owner as of 2020. He can do whatever he wants. As of 2020, Wirtz will get his cut of the profits and JR can do whatever he wants with the rest. I don't doubt he's stealing from the Bulls to fund the Sox there.

It has to do with # of subscribers to the channel in the viewing area. It is an indirect relationship. The Hawks, Bulls and Sox own 80-90% of NBCSN-CHI. NBC only owns 10-20% of the channel. JR can give the Sox as much of the money made from the network as he wants. He's stealing revenue from the Bulls to give the Sox more.

They don't but it doesn't change the fact that regardless of whether or not people watch Sox games, NBCSN-CHI is in every household in the area with cable/satellite. That is where the money comes from. If they didn't have the other teams(especially the Bulls) along with the Sox, they wouldn't get as big of a contract. Also, the article you cited only talked about the Sox' share of Cook County, which is only 60% of the metro area. Even if they have 47% of Cook, they probably only have 10-15% of DuPage, Kane, Will Etc.

They only have a "bigger market" because their games are on NBCSN-CHI and they share it with the Blackhawks and Bulls. Those two teams draw from the whole city. If the Sox were the only team on a sports channel it wouldn't surprise me if they had the smallest TV contract in baseball. The Sox have been bottom 5 in TV ratings in baseball for the better part of this decade. The TV contracts are about how many people have access and decide to pay for a channel. Most people aren't subscribing to NBCSN-CHI for the Sox, they're subscribing for the Bulls and Blackhawks. This will be interesting if/when the Sox start winning again. The Sox are, at best, a lower end mid-market team. In 2017 and 2018 they were 29th in baseball in consumption of the team. (TV/Radio)

You are not authorized to do this

I'm choosing to believe it because it makes me happy. That is all.

36 year old manny does not bother me in the slightest

I regret clicking on this thread today

there are a few people on this board who are extremely irrational. relax. it's free agency. in today's game, this is how long it takes. every little thing that comes out is probably total BS and to take anything said as "they don't want to be here" is INSANE. who would have thought a few years ago (or even at the beginning of the offseason) that the sox would be in the final 3 or 4 teams for each of the big guys. they're doing something right this offseason guys. chill out.

I’m a patient man. I can wait for this but at a certain point the distraction needs to end and the team has to move on in my opinion. I would have the start of the season as the deadline. After that I wouldn’t enagage in any more discussions. You take it or leave it. Not because you want to be a hard ass or because of pride but because if a player hasn’t decided at that point then his motivation is in question and it’s clear he didn’t really want to be with organization. If he was motivated to play the game and be committed to your team he would have made sure the two sides were engaged as much as possible to get something done.

I have a feeling something is going to happen within the next 2 months.

This may be the single dumbest post I have ever seen in my life. Like you are fucking clueless bro. Go back to your “the Sox only have 30% of the market based on twitter follows” because that at least gave me a good chuckle. This just makes me angry. You do know the Bulls & Sox are separate ownership groups right? Jerry Reinsdorf can NOT give the Bull’s claim to the earnings of the business to the White Sox under any circumstance. Also, Comcast owned 20% of the network before, not sure where it’s been mentioned their stake is decreasing with the loss of the Cubs. Regardless, the Sox make money off the network first & foremost from the $50M+ they receive for their broadcast rights. I will guarantee any dividends they take from owning a stake in the actual network is much smaller.

Your business acumen is poor to quite poor. The White Sox receive money for the broadcast rights to their games. That is something that has to be negotiated with the owners of the network, which includes three groups that aren’t the Bulls. The White Sox may get a slight benefit from being packaged with the Bulls, but Comcast, the Cubs, & the Blackhawk ms are NOT going to agree to something that is completely unfair and costs them a ton of money. Also, we’ve been over your market share nonsense numerous times. There is no rule you can only watch one team or the other. My father is a former Sox season ticket holder who occasionally puts on a Cubs game. My father-in-law is a Cubs fan who casually watches the Sox. There are many people in Chicago who follow both teams, which can help bolster rating when things are going well. And the ability / potential to touch many consumers at once is incredibly valuable for marketing folks and why we having a bigger TV contract than many other franchises. No one with any amount of intelligence says “the Sox only have 30% of the market, so they should get paid what the Indians do” because when Cleveland is doing well they’re still a tiny little b**** of a market. The same does NOT apply when playing in Chicago.

That was the deal when the Cubs were involved. It is probably somewhere around 27% for the teams themselves and 20% for NBC after the exodus for the Cubs. It still doesn't change that JR has the option of robbing the Bulls to give the Sox a better TV deal.

Well they didnt sign a joint contract last deal so I have no idea why any of that matters. Jack this is all nonsense. Facts and stats prove it. Merchandise sales prove it. Team worth proves it. TV contract proves it. Enough dude.

All bigger markets than the Sox. We don't know the numbers for sure, but I believe their market to be 25-30% of greater Chicago, which would put them in the bottom 5 in baseball, smaller than the Twins and slightly larger than the Royals. Math: 30% of Chicago metro is 2.85M. KC metro is 2.1, Twin Cities is 3.2, Cleveland is 2.1. Cincinnati is 2.1 by itself, if you include Louisville add around 900k.

They might not be the worst, but definitely bottom 5.

He's not going west. From a tax situation alone, they'd have to pay $30 million more than the Sox for the deals to be equal. He also doesn't like the west coast. I'd be stunned

He's not going to the Giants. That is such a terrible fit. We don't need him either we have Palka and Engle after all.

Followed by: The Chicago White Sox have filed for a name change, their official name from now on will be new World order.

Oh I know. I have read them all right here

Philly would suck for a sports star though. Its like Chicago except the entire city is the southside. And I am from the southside so I can say that.

This is my favorite random tweet yet, as this guy has actually broke Patriots stuff in the past (but nothing relating to baseball):

Dude this is complete nonsense. 200 million dollars is a shit ton of money even if you have 200 million. Athletes have gone broke making more.

That's an obvious plant by Lozano. Tomorrow there will be stores like "Machado might sit out the season" ? It's just BS nobody should pay attention to.

I'm hungover and reading DA talk about how 400 million is the same as 200 million before I have to shower shit shave and go to work. This is the worst timeline.

What if the Sox are offering the most money, but that number isn’t as high as the agent/player want?

What were the averages after they won the World Series? Notice how in 2007, a shitty year, they averaged 33k? Sustained winning outlook will draw fans. The 90s would have but the strike hurt them.

Jack is going to wake up to a shit storm of notifications this morning ?

So much wrong with all your posts on this, but this is just wow worthy that anyone could actually believe this.

I really hope the Sox say what the hell and send him a juicy offer right before he decides. If that means Harper over Machado, then that's what Machado gets for not signing.

Love you too, Ben

In addition to the link I just shared, The Athetic also posted an MLB player poll last summer. For "which team has the best fans", the White Sox were one of 10 teams to receive votes, and for "which team has the worst fans", the White Sox received zero votes. All this, straight from the players and MLB writers, seems a lot more convincing to me than a poster on a message board claiming that the Sox are a bottom 5 team to play for just because.

That MIGHT be the one team you have an argument for.

It is based on the following logic: There is about as little national exposure as you can get in baseball playing for the Sox. The Rays probably get more exposure because they play Boston and the Yankees 38 times per year. They have their own "moneyball" thing going on. The A's get more exposure because of Beane and what he did /does there. I can't think of a team that is more forgotten nationally, even when playing well than the White Sox. The Padres have more/better talent, and the Phillies are closer to winning. There are legit baseball reasons why both teams are better options than the Sox. Take off the silver and black goggles. Can you put yourself in the shoes of a neutral fan?