Kovacevic: If Nutting could vote yes to this labor pact, it's time to pony up

Bob Nutting voted yes.

I've had the reasoning explained to me. I appreciate it. I even respect it, to an extent.

But at the end of this momentous Thursday, when Major League Baseball ended its 99-day lockout and achieved a new labor agreement that essentially ensures another half-decade of the slow, sickening death of the sport in Pittsburgh and for one of its foundational franchises ... yeah, the man responsible for that franchise's stewardship voted yes.

They all did ...

... but I don't cover the other 29.

Nutting voted yes to an agreement that raises the Competitive Balance Tax threshold by $30 million over the next five years -- from $214 million to $244 million -- clearing an easier path for another handful of teams to join the Dodgers into $200 million territory.

He voted yes to an agreement that accomplishes absolutely nothing toward addressing the historic chasm between those teams and the Pirates, Orioles, Marlins, Rays and others. Not the salary floor of $100 million that the owners broached in their very first proposal but then never again. Not a solitary penny of expanded revenue sharing.

He voted yes to an agreement that punishes teams like the Pirates by implementing a draft lottery that'd kick them and other "small markets" -- that's the actual language used -- back to No. 10 overall if they're in that lottery more than two years in a row.

He voted yes to an agreement that expands the playoffs to 12 teams rather than the 14 that the owners had wanted, minimizing the already minuscule chance we'll ever see those again on the North Shore.

He voted yes to an agreement that, pending the expected implementation of an international draft, will eliminate draft-pick compensation when teams lose a player to free agency.

He voted yes to an agreement that allows the union to proceed with its 2018 grievance against the Pirates, Rays, A's and Marlins for not spending enough.

Right or wrong, given the stark choice of a yes or a no, he voted yes to all of that.

OK, then. Must mean he finds it ... at least mostly acceptable, right?

So let's take that also to mean that, given that any owner of any professional sports team would reasonably place competing for a championship as the No. 1 priority, he finds such success to be plausible in this setting. Because there's nothing else that any responsible owner could be considering when casting such a vote.

Also fair, right?

Fine, so here's the challenge I'll put forth to Nutting right here: Get the Pirates' payroll to $100 million by 2023, or sell the team.

Or. Sell. The. Team.

If the biggest benefit Pittsburgh's baseball fans could've gotten from the new labor agreement would've been the owners' proposed $100 million floor, then the Pirates could unilaterally address that themselves by just spending $100 million at the next realistic opportunity. (Way too late in the equation to do that this season, obviously.)

And there's zero excuse for not doing so:

1. They've done it before.

The Pirates' 40-man roster payroll maxed out at a franchise-record $99,866,170 in 2016, the year after they won 98 games and had made a third consecutive playoff appearance. And as this table from Cot's Contracts shows -- the column in the middle's most relevant -- they've been in that range four times since Nutting took control in 2007:

COT'S CONTRACTS

As the parentheses in the table illustrate, that still was only good enough for 23rd in the majors, but it clearly allowed the team to contend. I don't recall many complaints around here regarding the team's caliber of play or, for that matter, the spending.

Funny how that works.

Do it again.

2. There's a ton of money.

Every team in sports bled revenues in the pandemic, but that's pretty much over. And the Pirates, like all of their baseball brethren, are about to be awash in unprecedented shared cash.

That point's critical here. Because while no one can match the Dodgers' annual $239 million in local TV money, everyone's still getting $60.1 million in national TV money ...

... plus their own local TV money, which for the Pirates is believed to be in the $40 million range from AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh, plus some new streams coming from Apple, NBC and others that've yet to be revealed.

That's $100 million right freaking there.

But in case more proof is needed, there's additional revenue sharing from the agreed-upon 48% of all local revenues that get pooled, including gate receipts, local TV revenue, concessions, parking, sponsorships, etc. Teams like the Pirates, with the lowest revenues, receive what's believed to be $50 million each year from that pool, though that information isn't made public.

Now we're at $150 million before the first click of the first turnstile on the North Shore.

Wait, one more: In 2015, when the Pirates' payroll was right around $100 million, MLB's overall revenues were $8.2 billion. In 2019, the last non-pandemic year, they were a record $10.7 billion. That's a 30% increase while, at the same time, the Pirates' payroll was slashed in half.

It's there. Spend it.

3. Try building something.

The one thing that's driven me the most nuts about Nutting's ownership is his seeming reticence toward making even more money.

I've spoken with business people for years about what a cash cow PNC Park could be if it were ever filled on a year-to-year basis. It's among the smallest in the majors, and the ticket tension would allow for an increase in prices -- they're now the lowest in any major professional sport -- and a corresponding increase in spending and, if Ben Cherington's as smart as he seems, a corresponding increase in wins.

What's the bogeyman here?

Go ahead and win and make money. It's OK to do both. Ask the Steelers and Penguins about that. No one in town begrudges the millions that Art Rooney II, Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle have made, and they won't begrudge the Fenway Sports Group, either, provided they see the ownership's committed.

Yeah, baseball's system's a joke. What was there before, and what'll be there the next five years. It's broken beyond repair, embracing only a handful of markets and treating the rest like pariahs. Same goes for the broader culture that allows it. Rob Manfred's as abysmal a commissioner as Tony Clark is a union exec as Scott Boras is a de facto union exec. They make my stomach turn, the whole lot of them.

But I've had it with that subject. For months now, I've been one of no more than two or three voices nationally in favor of a salary cap and, even though it's the same system utilized by the NFL, NHL and NBA, was largely laughed off, even by those who favored it. And now, here we are, with the owners having backed off a system that would've afforded cost certainty and shared growth, and with the players having remained wholly oblivious to the cold fact that they're receiving 40% of all of baseball's revenues while their football, hockey and basketball brethren are guaranteed 50%.

Both sides blew it big-time.

But my overarching concern always, always, always was Pittsburgh.

I cover two teams that compete in fair economic situations, and both are efficiently run, the Steelers having had 18 consecutive seasons without a losing record and the Penguins having qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs 15 consecutive years. That's fun. That's uplifting. That's the kind of thing that raises a city's spirits.

By contrast, all one hears about the Pirates, here and nationally, is the denigrating term "small market" and all the requisite jokes about hopelessness. That's not fun.

Sports are supposed to be fun, right?

Nutting voted yes. He really did. 

I'm informed that he was an active participant in these labor talks, and I believe that. Generally speaking, he's way more involved in the operation than most seem to realize. I'm further informed that his yes vote wouldn't necessarily represent approval of the agreement but, instead, might facilitate remaining a vital part of future talks. I believe that, as well. I've never once known the man to lie.

But I'm sorry, at some stage, there's got to be a stand. The Raiders under Al Davis used to be the lone dissenting vote on all NFL matters. The Steelers' players made waves a few years ago by being the only group that rejected a labor vote, only to be hailed for that act shortly thereafter when everyone turned on Roger Goodell. No one wondered where they stood, least of all their own fans.

The Pirates' fans wonder. And I sure can't blame them.

As such, the onus is now squarely on Nutting to demonstrate how this system, of which he publicly approved, can be converted into a $100 million payroll by 2023 and, from there, whatever else is needed to pursue the long-awaited sixth World Series championship. Start by signing Bryan Reynolds, like, this weekend.

Either that, or let someone else try.