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-Digger’s Daily-

Will the current U.S. economic downturn sweep across baseball diamonds? Can team owners survive when gate receipts are certain to be far less than previous boom years? Small market teams could be in for a very challenging time. Owners victimized by ponzi schemes, stock market failings or floundering assets from personal business ventures could reshape baseball in 2009.

In good years, it’s been the small market low budget teams singing the blues. This season, they might be winners while the free spending teams take heavy hits on the chin. During recent prosperous years teams never worried about high ticket prices, concessions, television contracts, ad revenues and player salaries. With tempers suddenly flaring towards executives with big salaries and a new inexperienced President waging war on corporate America… will Major League Baseball suddenly fall under anti-trust regulation for the very first time?

Imagine this… if our Treasury Secretary is granted special powers to take over troubled businesses will a failing sports organization be seized? Probably not, but, we’re living in different times nowadays. Our country is being quickly changed into a government owned society. AIG, banks, insurance companies, health care, automotive industry and soon to be more corporations taken over by politicians who weren’t able to regulate during up years.

The steroids era has Congress looking closely at how baseball operates on a daily basis. What will happen if the Florida Marlins, Cleveland Indians or Seattle Mariners struggle? Imagine if one of the games big time franchises suddenly has trouble making ends meet due to wild salaries paid to players and personal fortunes lost (Yankees, Red Sox or Mets)? Would the power hungry single party government try to wrestle control away from owners? Or, demand baseball’s exemption status be revoked? A far fetched thought indeed.. except for exemption status.

How will civil disobedience groups treat baseball players and owners? Corporate executives have faced a heavy backlash as citizens around the world rage in fits of protests to death threats. There’s a tremendous protest about to take place in London as world leaders gather for a G20 economic summit. Sports figures making millions could suddenly find themselves staying out of public view after games instead of living it up in host cities.

Of course, this brief blog is a bit of imagination running as I type. Or is it? Bar talk is already buzzing on this topic and it extends well beyond baseball in sporting circles.

(www.allworldallsports.com)