Bud Selig: ‘Remarkable’ Brewers Run Can’t Mask MLB’s Money Divide

The Brewers’ first owner and Major League Baseball’s commissioner emeritus is enthralled with the Milwaukee team’s exploits this season, but he doesn’t believe success changes the broader economic imbalance in the sport. 

Bud Selig, the Brewers’ owner from 1970 to 2004 and the league’s commissioner from 1992 to 2015, has been keeping close watch of his hometown team’s rise this season to MLB’s best regular-season record. That ongoing march by the Brewers, despite competing in MLB’s smallest media market and with the No. 21 payroll, continues Wednesday as they look to close out the Cubs and clinch a spot in the National League Championship Series. 

“I don’t think people understand just how remarkable this story is,” Selig tells Front Office Sports. “If I had told you on March 27, when the season started, they’d have the best record in the league and be where they are, you’d have thought the old guy had flipped. It’s just a wonderful story, and it’s a huge credit to what [owner] Mark [Attanasio] and his team have done.”

Selig also lauded the Brewers’ day-to-day leadership, notably president of business operations Rick Schlesinger and GM Matt Arnold, for building an organization that more than holds its own, both on and off the field, against larger-market competitors.

“They’ve done an exceptional job and the people here, throughout the city and the state, are just wild about what’s happening right now,” Selig says. 

Bigger Worries

Despite all of that, Selig characterized the Brewers’ success as an outlier to broader trends in the game. A growing fiscal disparity—as seen in part by the Dodgers spending nearly five times as much this year on payroll as the Marlins—has increasingly concerned many around baseball.

Selig is among them. Appearing in August on a podcast with former MLB Most Valuable Player Mo Vaughn, Selig noted the successful use of salary caps in most other major U.S. pro sports leagues. While commissioner, Selig sought a salary cap, with that move leading to a players’ strike that cut short the 1994 season.

Speaking to FOS, the 91-year-old Selig continued on a similar theme.

“The economic problems are still there. Does any of what’s happening now [with the Brewers] lessen any of those problems? No, and [Attanasio] would be the first to say that,” Selig says. “The same things we talked about a decade ago still exist.”

That dynamic will be central in labor talks set to begin next year between MLB and the MLB Players Association. Current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said last month at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit that no bargaining positions have been finalized, but union leaders are openly fearing that owners will again pursue a cap.