Cuba will allow athletes to play overseas—but Major League Baseball is still off limits

Cuba will allow athletes to play overseas—but Major League Baseball is

still off limits

By Mike Jakeman December 28, 2013

Mike Jakeman is an editor with the Economist Intelligence Unit where he

focuses on Australia and Indonesia. He's also a sports writer and author

of a book on the future of cricket called "Saving the Test."



Until recently, it was impossible to make any real money as a baseball

player—or any other professional athlete—in Cuba. Under Fidel Castro,

sporting salaries and the reward they represent for individual

excellence were regarded as anti-socialist. Athletes, thus, were

regarded as state employees, just like teachers or agricultural

laborers, and were paid accordingly. Taking your skills abroad was off

limits and illegal. (Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez famously left on a

sailboat in 1998 with a group of ballplayers and docked in the Bahamas.)

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But the wage disparity between Cuba and the rest of the baseball world

has forced reform. Official data on athletes' wages in Cuba is

undisclosed, but they are quoted in the media at around $10-$20 a month.

In In Major League Baseball (MLB) in the US, the average monthly salary

at the worst-paying club, the Houston Astros, was $68,000.

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And so the defections from the Cuban National Series to the MLB

continue. Most notably, Aroldis Chapman received residency in the tiny

European country of Andorra en route to a $30 million contract with the

Cincinnati Reds in 2010, and Yasiel Puig received $42 million from the

Los Angeles Dodgers via a residency from Mexico. The final straw for the

Cuban authorities was Jose Abreu's signing with the Chicago White Sox

for $68 million in October. In the history of sporting transfers, these

are among the most politically charged. Footballer Luis Figo might have

had a pig's head thrown at him when he transferred from Barcelona to

Real Madrid, but he did not have to seek residency elsewhere.

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Faced with a player exodus, the Cuban Baseball Federation has recognized

baseball as a profession, doubled the basic wage and provided financial

incentives for award-winners. It now also permits players to sign

contracts with foreign teams without defecting, provided that they

remain available for the domestic season, which runs between November

and April. The authorities hope that Cuban players will not head en

masse for leagues in Japan and Mexico, but that the liberalizing

measures will give them reason enough to stay and slow the talent drain

from in the National Series. Similar concessions were granted to Cuban

boxers, whose access to international fights and wages have been loosened.

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The MLB, however, is still out of bounds. The Cuban authorities require

athletes to pay taxes on overseas earnings, while the US trade embargo

on Cuba prevents money exiting the US for that country. There is heavy

irony at play here. The major sports leagues in the US are more

egalitarian than their equivalents elsewhere in the West. Although

salaries at the very top of the MLB, NHL, NBA and NFL are huge—the

average annual New York Yankees salary is north of $7 million

annually—the leagues have all taken steps to maintain their competitive

balance, in a way that Castro might approve. The NHL has a fixed salary

cap whereby each team can only spend a proportion of the total revenue

of the league in the previous season. The NFL has the same system, but

also includes a minimum spend, too. The NBA also has a cap, but it is a

more permeable one: teams are allowed to exceed it in order to keep hold

of players that they had under contract before the agreement was signed.

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The rules governing the burgeoning Major League Soccer are tighter

still, especially when compared with the liberalism of top football

leagues in Europe. The MLS proscribes a set squad size, a cap on the

total wage of the team, and also on remuneration of individual players,

with the exception of one "designated" player, a loophole that permitted

David Beckham to play for LA Galaxy, despite his exorbitant wage

demands. In the Premier League, Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga,

teams operate without any of these restrictions.

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There is little consensus on whether salary caps work, partly because

there is also disagreement about what constitutes competitive balance.

How many different teams need to win a competition in a decade in order

for it to be considered exciting? Is the identity of the winner even

reflective of the strength of a tournament? In Cuba, these are questions

for the future. The first concern is keeping hold of the players that

draw the fans to the ballparks. The irony is that the model for the

Cuban authorities—the league in which all top baseball players want to

play but which keeps tight control over its team activities—the

MLB—remains a hostage to political fortune.

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Follow Mike Jakeman on Twitter @mikejakeman. We welcome your comments at

ideas@qz.com.



Source: Cuba will allow athletes to play overseas—but Major League

Baseball is still off limits - Quartz -

http://qz.com/160562/cuba-will-allow-athletes-to-play-overseas-but-major-league-baseball-is-still-off-limits/