Revenue Sharing

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The 28 major-league owners finally took the first step toward the economic restructuring of baseball last night when they ended a lengthy stalemate and agreed unanimously on a plan to redistribute revenue.There was no progress, however, on the search for a new commissioner. A 2 1/2 -hour session that lasted until 2:30 a.m. ended with no recommendation, although Northwestern University president Arnold Weber and U.S. Olympic Committee executive director Harvey Schiller remain the front-runners.

Maryland has taken the first step toward replacing its two travel plazas on Interstate 95 north of Baltimore with expansive, airy welcome centers filled with amenities and operated by a company with years of experience serving travelers. The two-year, $56 million project to rebuild Maryland House and Chesapeake House as a public-private partnership with Areas USA was approved Monday by the Maryland Transportation Authority board. The deal requires the approval of the Board of Public Works next month and review by the General Assembly.

The Cincinnati Bengals were dealt another financial blow this week, one that will make it more difficult for the team to survive in Cincinnati if it doesn't get a new stadium soon.The Bengals, already coping with a rising player payroll and a $36 million tax battle with the Internal Revenue Service -- and whose owner already has held exploratory talks about a move to Baltimore -- found out they won't be getting any meaningful revenue sharing from the big-market teams.So without a new stadium on the horizon, and the revenue-sharing plan a disappointment, Bengals owner Mike Brown said he's running out of time.

Perhaps we should be grateful that the Baltimore Orioles may give Maryland taxpayers even a fraction of the revenue from the advertising behind home plate. You've seen the billboards. Ads for stores, gasoline, tires, satellite TV and fast food right behind Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters when they do their thing. The ads, displayed on video boards and sold in half-inning segments, generate more than $1 million a year. The state, through the Maryland Stadium Authority, is supposed to get a piece of that.

ATLANTA -- Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell hasn't collected the first dollar from his Baltimore stadium deal, but NFL owners already are contemplating ways to get a share of it.The owners concluded their meeting yesterday by discussing the thorny issue of finding new ways to have the high-revenue teams share more of their profits with the low-revenue clubs.They put off a vote on the matter until their next meeting Feb. 8-9, and the debate is likely to be spirited.It's considered likely that the owners will approve the Browns' move because they don't want to prevent Modell from getting a lucrative deal in Baltimore, but passing a revised revenue-sharing plan will be much more difficult.

KOHLER, Wis. -- After meeting for nearly 31 hours, presumably to begin to put baseball's financial house in order with revenue sharing and a cap on players' salaries, representatives of the 28 major-league teams left here early today without settling anything.The owners left the posh American Club resort hotel just before midnight without having taken a vote on the packaged concepts of distributing their individual wealth among all of the teams and placing a cap on player salaries, a notion that was sure to bring a player walkout.

Orioles owner Peter Angelos returned from the quarterly owners meeting in Phoenix a little poorer than he left, but he said again yesterday that he is in favor of a long-term revenue-sharing agreement that would enhance the top-to-bottom financial stability of Major League Baseball.Angelos abstained from the vote on the new interim revenue-sharing plan that was approved Thursday, but said it was not because the new plan will cost the Orioles an additional $1.8 million in shared revenue this year.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The 28 major-league owners returned home from a three-day meeting this week with much of their agenda successfully in place, but the long-term impact of their Florida summit remains unclear.What was the agenda, anyway?They approved a revenue-sharing plan that is the first step toward a comprehensive labor agreement and changed their bylaws to consolidate the bargaining power of chief labor negotiator Richard Ravitch. They finalized realignment, but chose not to elect a new commissioner because of the possible effect it could have on the labor situation.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The search for a new baseball commissioner inched forward last night, when the search committee presented its recommendation during the opening session of a three-day owners meeting, but it remains unclear whether any candidate will be able to garner enough votes for approval.The committee was set to present its candidate at a meeting of Major League Baseball's Executive Council, which would then decide whether to put the name in front of the full ownership tomorrow.

TAMPA, Fla. -- The long-awaited collective bargaining negotiations between baseball ownership and the Major League Players Association got under way last night, but the three-hour meeting was only a minor first step toward a new labor agreement.Ownership negotiator Richard Ravitch met with union officials and a group of about 70 players to present a general outline of management's tentative revenue sharing arrangement and the salary cap that the owners hope will accompany it.The players left disappointed that there was no specific proposal, but encouraged that Ravitch promised to share all of the financial data that was used to formulate the revenue-sharing agreement hammered out among the owners in January.

A new arena is a poor risk for Baltimore if the city is counting on attracting an NHL or NBA franchise, sports business experts say, but some agree with city leaders that a proposed 18,500-seat venue could be profitable without such an anchor tenant. Neither the NBA nor the NHL offers many relocation or expansion prospects, analysts said, and the presence of basketball and hockey teams in Washington make the odds even longer for Baltimore. "The market, which, whether we like it or not, is actually the Baltimore-Washington market, is pretty saturated as it is with sports," said John Moag, former chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority and head of a Baltimore-based investment firm that specializes in sports.

The NFL's haughty dispute between big-market and small-market teams over revenue sharing is back. Spurred by rising costs in a sluggish economy, league owners decided yesterday to terminate their collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association in 2011. By unanimous vote, the 32 owners effectively shortened the current CBA by two years, opening the door to a year without a salary cap (2010) and a potential lockout in 2011. Rest assured, America, there will be uninterrupted football at least until then.

WASHINGTON -- Michael Chertoff, the lean, intense former federal judge who has been running the Department of Homeland Security for three years, worries about more than dangerous people and deadly weapons passing our borders. He also frets about the nation - and the next president - letting their guard down. "The biggest obstacle my successor will face is, `Does the public and does Congress have the will to stick to it?'" said Chertoff, head of the federal government's newest bureaucracy, and one of its most unwieldy.

The University of Maryland Eastern Shore is among 63 colleges that participated in a "deceptive" revenue-sharing scheme with a Florida student-loan marketing firm, New York's attorney general said yesterday. Under the partnerships, Clearwater, Fla.-based Student Financial Services Inc. paid universities and athletic departments for the right to use college mascots and trademarks in marketing federal-loan consolidations to students, said New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo. Campuses typically also received payments of $75 to $100 for each loan application processed.

The NFL's founding fathers would have been proud. After two days of crucial meetings near a Dallas airport, NFL owners voted 30-2 to approve a six-year extension of the league's collective bargaining agreement with its players that avoided what could have been years of uncertainty and crisis. Though few details were available, the deal did broaden the scope of revenue sharing among clubs to include more locally generated income. Only the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals, two so-called low-revenue teams, voted against the deal.

In a business known more for avarice than a commitment to the common good, Wellington T. Mara's decision more than 40 years ago on how the NFL should distribute its spoils remains not merely an anomaly in professional sports, but also continues to be the legacy that allows the league to flourish. Mara, the co-owner of the New York Giants, who agreed in the early 1960s that the league should equally divide money from the sale of television rights, died yesterday from cancer at his home in Rye, N.Y. He was 89. Mara's decision helped ensure that all NFL franchises, including ones from small markets, such as Green Bay, would have an opportunity to compete with teams from much larger markets, such as New York, on an even footing.

KOHLER, Wis. -- Grim-faced men in suits passed through the doors of the Ellison Bay room of the American Club here yesterday with steely determination to come up with a workable revenue-sharing plan in plenty of time to see their baseball teams play this weekend.But as the second day's marathon meetings continued, representatives of the 28 major-league teams were no closer to settling their differences than the day before.However, Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig, head of the ruling Executive Council, sounded an optimistic note that the matters dividing the two groups of owners could be settled before midnight CDT."

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The 28 major-league owners finally took the first step toward the economic restructuring of baseball last night when they ended a lengthy stalemate and agreed unanimously on a plan to redistribute revenue.The long-awaited revenue-sharing plan is designed to help struggling small-market teams remain competitive in the face of spiraling costs and dwindling receipts, but the issue had taken on even greater significance as it divided the owners into big-revenue and small-revenue factions and delayed the start of collective bargaining with the Major League Baseball Players Association.

WASHINGTON -- Stalled in their attempt to reach a new labor agreement, NFL owners yesterday tackled the growing disparity in shared revenues and came away with nothing more than a long-range plan. There was no compromise on a new formula to distribute more of the league's wealth, but there was a mandate from commissioner Paul Tagliabue. The 32 owners will meet once a month for the next five months with the goal of finding a compromise and an extension of the collective bargaining agreement by October.