SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Baseball is back. It is the second official day of spring training for Major League Baseball, which means the regular season is just a few weeks away. And there are more than usual questions about who is going to come out on top, on the field and in revenue. NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan joins us now from Arizona. Hey, Becky.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Hey there.
DETROW: Is it true you are talking to me from the middle of a baseball game?
SULLIVAN: I am, yeah. I'm standing out - behind the outfield of the stadium in Surprise, Arizona, which is out on the edge of the Phoenix metro area. About half the Major League Baseball teams come out here for spring training. And so, yeah, right now I'm watching a game between the Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers. Both - for both teams, it's the first game of spring training. And it's a beautiful day, Scott - about 75 degrees, sunny, thousands of fans here with me. It's pretty great.
DETROW: I'm going to push past my deep jealousy and (laughter) ask the next question.
SULLIVAN: (Laughter).
DETROW: What are the big storylines shaping up the season?
SULLIVAN: Yeah. Well, I mean, as you alluded to, I think, in a way, the top two stories for me, I think, are about money. First, you've got the Los Angeles Dodgers, who won the World Series last year, of course, and then spent big in the offseason. Their roster was already star-studded, but they added - went and added even more stars. And so now their payroll is looking to be nearly $400 million, which is more than double about half the other teams in baseball.
And then you've got the trouble that a lot of other teams are having, which is maintaining TV revenue, which gives them the money that they need to get players, because there's been this huge shake-up in that business as people have been cutting the cord and turning to streaming.
DETROW: Yeah. How's that affecting teams?
SULLIVAN: Well, about half of Major League Baseball teams had TV deals with this provider known to viewers as Bally Sports. And, you know, just as that industry has changed, that company declared bankruptcy. And so as they've gone through that process over the past year or so, they had dropped a bunch of these small-market teams for some others to accept new deals that paid less. And then on top of that, news came out this week that Major League Baseball and ESPN have opted out of a broadcast contract.
So I think this kind of revenue is really a question mark for baseball right now. Meanwhile, you have these big markets like LA and New York that are still going strong, and it's all just fueling worries that there is this, like, widening gap between the haves and the have-nots....
DETROW: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: ...In baseball.
DETROW: And I feel like there's this physical representation of that this year with the have-nots. Two teams are going to be playing in Minor League...
SULLIVAN: Yep.
DETROW: ...Minor League stadiums. Remind us about that.
SULLIVAN: Yeah, exactly. So one of those teams is the As, who left Oakland after the end of last season, after years of failed negotiations between that team's ownership and the city of Oakland to replace this aging stadium there, as the team also just consistently had one of the cheapest payrolls in baseball. So the As are headed to Las Vegas, but that new stadium won't be ready until 2028, so for now they're going to have to play at this triple-A park in West Sacramento.
Then across the country, you have the Tampa Bay Rays, whose home stadium, Tropicana Field, was damaged last fall in Hurricane Milton. So this season, the Rays are playing at the Yankee's spring training stadium in Tampa.
DETROW: Speaking of the Yankees, really big news we got to talk about - they have reversed their team's - and I'm going to quote from the press release - their, quote, "long-standing facial hair and grooming policy."
SULLIVAN: Yep. Can you believe this had been in place for almost 50 years? Pretty famous. Basically, this was a ban on beards and long hair that was put in place by the longtime team owner George Steinbrenner back in the '70s - back when, like, shaggy hair and scruff was fashionable. So Yankees - they could have mustaches, but they couldn't have beards, and their hair couldn't grow past their uniform collars. Sparked lots of griping over the years, this policy did.
Well, George's son, Hal, runs the team now. He said today that they'll allow the beards as long as they're well-groomed. And basically, he's concerned that players were declining the Yankees because of the policy. So big changes afoot in baseball right now, Scott.
DETROW: You can have your pinstripes. You can have your beard. You can have it all. That's NPR's Becky Sullivan joining us from spring training in Phoenix, where it sounds like an inning just ended. Thanks so much.
SULLIVAN: You're so welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF HI-TEK AND JONELL SONG, "ROUND & ROUND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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