Playing for the Yankees Has Perks. In-Flight Internet Is Not One of Them

March 16, 2023 7:20 AM

Tragically, one of the world’s most valuable sports franchises doesn’t provide complimentary Wi-Fi to its millionaire employees.

SI Senior Writer Stephanie Apstein tweeted, "I went to journalism school so I could provide you with this exclusive exposé".

posted by Etrigan (32 comments total)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by tommasz at 7:33 AM on March 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

I enjoyed this, it is reassuring to know that baseball players are part of Labor’s great struggle against Capital, and also that even if my disposable income were a thousand times higher, I’d still probably be anxious about paying for extra amenities like guacamole or in-flight Wi-Fi.
posted by skewed at 7:34 AM on March 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

I feel like if you're paying for in-flight wifi, the guacamole should come with it for free.
posted by flabdablet at 7:38 AM on March 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'm a lifelong BoSox fan, and it's that rather than the class struggle which is probably fueling my response: "boo hoo, ya snowflakes."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:18 AM on March 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

I mean, they're millionaires. They can actually afford the data charges.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:18 AM on March 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

Of the world’s problems, this ranks, obviously, near the top.

perfect.
posted by Mchelly at 8:29 AM on March 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

As a huge Yankees fan who literally watched every inning of every game last year (some on DVR delay), I offer up my TMUS number to get the free wifi.

Btw, Major League baseball players get $145 per day allowance when they are on the road. Take it out of that pot.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:03 AM on March 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

“It’s your fault,” longtime center fielder Brett Gardner told him. “Your contract is too big, so they can’t pay for the Wi-Fi.”

Of the world’s problems, this ranks, obviously, near the top. A couple dozen millionaires have to scrape together some $350 annually if they want full connectivity in the air. So you can understand why many of them have tried to work around the issue.

So Trivino instead uses the flights to engage in an almost anachronistic pursuit: He reads. Last year he tore through Thomas Sowell’s 704-page tome, Basic Economics. He recently turned his attention to a book about Christianity.

“I think most of our players can afford it,” he said.
This is a fair point. But the job of the press is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, so Sports Illustrated continued to pursue this important story. (In this case, the comfortable are afflicted.)

He wondered gravely whether the Yankees’ policy might cost them free agents. “We’re gonna have to get on that,” he said. Journalism changes lives.

Clearly the author of this is Having Fun.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:06 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

But one thing surprised him when he got to New York after signing a nine-year, $324 million deal before the 2020 season...

Imagine having that paycheck and wavering over $9 wi-fi. It's .0000001%. I feel like they should be offered counseling so they can understand that for the rest of their lives pocket change is essentially meaningless. They should carry a fistful of diamonds in their pocket instead and tip anyone who does the slightest thing for them.

I remember the Constanza storyline where he worked for the Yankees doing ??? and I can see him on a furious crusade to correct this inconsequential trifle.
posted by adept256 at 9:08 AM on March 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

it is reassuring to know that baseball players are part of Labor’s great struggle against Capital

Anytime someone complains about professional sports player salaries, I always think "But if they don't give it to the players, the owners just keep it for themselves. "
posted by hwyengr at 9:08 AM on March 16, 2023 [12 favorites]

But if they don't give it to the players, the owners just keep it for themselves.

How about they start paying for their own fucking stadiums? Maybe we should think about taxing them to pay for all that stuff.
posted by adept256 at 9:14 AM on March 16, 2023 [19 favorites]

How about they start paying for their own fucking stadiums? Maybe we should think about taxing them to pay for all that stuff.

Sure. Just convince states and municipalities to stop paying for them, and they will.
posted by hwyengr at 9:23 AM on March 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

The proper course of action, of course, is for local sports teams to be owned by their municipality or a collective of local citizens, but ever since the Green Bay Packers that form of ownership has been strictly banned by the leagues.
posted by hwyengr at 9:27 AM on March 16, 2023 [9 favorites]

Major League baseball players get $145 per day allowance when they are on the road. Take it out of that pot.

If they are paying their own food and accommodation out of that amount that is pretty low.
posted by Mitheral at 9:28 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

When I was a kid, our country club forced us to make our own sundaes.
posted by PlusDistance at 9:31 AM on March 16, 2023 [8 favorites]

Imagine having that paycheck and wavering over $9 wi-fi. It's .0000001%. I feel like they should be offered counseling so they can understand that for the rest of their lives pocket change is essentially meaningless. They should carry a fistful of diamonds in their pocket instead and tip anyone who does the slightest thing for them.

Almost every player in baseball spent a lot of time being very poor and riding buses in the minors before they get to the bigs. The miserly habits of poverty that are necessary for survival are probably hard to shake and manifest weirdly when you have money. I know I still have a lot of poverty quirks that still manifest now that I am financially OK.
posted by srboisvert at 9:33 AM on March 16, 2023 [21 favorites]

"Imagine having that paycheck and wavering over $9 wi-fi. It's .0000001%."

I work for actual billionaires, and it's surprising how small some of their money concerns can be. It is absolutely not worth their time to be worried about a $200 p/a expense, for example. But then, they didn't get to be billionaires by giving it away, and it's true that if you take care of your pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves.

This is not that. This is so not that.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:59 AM on March 16, 2023

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot not comping a human’s in-flight wifi – for ever.
posted by Mchelly at 10:05 AM on March 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

Almost every player in baseball spent a lot of time being very poor and riding buses in the minors before they get to the bigs.

Is it really a lot of time? I have a cousin who was drafted and did his time in the minors before realizing it wasn't going to happen and quit to go back to school. He's doing fine now, but the family didn't realize that you have something like an 8% chance of ever playing in the majors if you get picked.

My limited reading suggests if you spend four years in the minors and don't make it, you should probably figure out what you're going to do instead. Four years of low income sucks, but if you're a baseball player, you just finished spending four years of high school riding around in a bus being poor and up to four years of college riding around in a bus being poor.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 10:09 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

It seems kind of weird that you can sign a deal with Delta for private jet service with poker tables and all that, probably as part of a sponsorship deal, and they don’t just include unlimited WiFi.
posted by smelendez at 10:49 AM on March 16, 2023 [10 favorites]

They should carry a fistful of diamonds in their pocket instead and tip anyone who does the slightest thing for them.

In the majors, they have "clubbies" usually teenagers to 20s people who work in the clubhouse and visitors clubhouse who among many duties run errands and do things for the players. They DO get tipped handsomely. Usually a couple of hundred dollars for a 3 game series by most of the players.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:54 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

The cost of a beer and a hot dog at every MLB ballpark

Yankee Stadium
$6 for a beer
$3 for a hotdog
3 million fans per year
for 9 years = 243 million

So during your 9 year $324 million contract you could buy every fan a beer and a hot dog and have $81 million left over. Or, you could pay the wifi tax 27 million times.

Every fan gets a beer and a hotdog on your tab at every game for nine years. It's a wacky way to blow your fortune, but you will be a legend in baseball folklore for the rest of time.
posted by adept256 at 11:37 AM on March 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

Mod note: Comment removed. It's ok to not like or care about a post, but please refrain from posting a comment that solely states you don't care about the post.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 11:44 AM on March 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

Almost every player in baseball spent a lot of time being very poor and riding buses in the minors before they get to the bigs.

Is it really a lot of time? I have a cousin who was drafted and did his time in the minors [...]

I know a mid-30's guy who has spent pretty much all of his adult life in the minors. He made it to the majors a couple of times, but mostly keeps bouncing around MiLB and independent teams. I think he still harbors hopes of going back up, and being a left-handed reliever it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility. I knew another left-handed reliever who did pretty much the exact same thing, but 20 years earlier. I think some of these guys go up until the last day of their contracts thinking they still got a shot.
posted by slogger at 12:54 PM on March 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Slogger, is that a reference to Jim Morris? That was a helluva story (and movie).
posted by Ber at 1:34 PM on March 16, 2023

What if the coach doesn't want them on the internet during flight.

Then the manager can see who signed in

and why.
posted by clavdivs at 2:20 PM on March 16, 2023

Is it really a lot of time? [...] Four years of low income sucks, but if you're a baseball player, you just finished spending four years of high school riding around in a bus being poor and up to four years of college riding around in a bus being poor.

That's adding up to roughly half your life time till that point, and all your earning years so far, which is a lot of time being poor.
posted by Mitheral at 5:50 PM on March 16, 2023

Four years of low income sucks, but if you're a baseball player, you just finished spending four years of high school riding around in a bus being poor and up to four years of college riding around in a bus being poor.

I think you are missing just how poor minor leaguers are.

As previously mentioned, MiLB players can make anywhere from $4,800 to $14,700 annually. The high-end of this scale is still below the minimum wage in the United States, which as of 2022, is an annual salary of $15,080 for a full-time worker making the Federal Minimum Wage of $7.50.

I'm sure it's fine for some who have family support but if you don't that's pretty grim. I suspect street beggars clear more.
posted by srboisvert at 4:29 AM on March 17, 2023

I know I'm supposed to be sad about the minor league players, but they are doing a thing they love, and as the right has taught us, THEY SHOULD BE PAID LESS THEY'D DO IT ANYWAY!!! I mean, it worked for teachers.
posted by evilDoug at 5:51 AM on March 17, 2023

Someone in my family worked as a flight attendant for a season or two for a major league baseball franchise (not the Yankees). She had...stories. (A lot of the stories involved pornography. So maybe a small barrier to entry on Wi-Fi is helpful.)
posted by vunder at 1:09 PM on March 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I can't fathom having that kind of money and still wanting internet, seems bleak. Maybe it's a different, cooler internet then the one I get access to?
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 4:53 PM on March 17, 2023

Ber: nope, never heard of that one I was referring to Josh Judy (my bad, he’s a righty) and Jeff Tabaka .
posted by slogger at 4:17 PM on March 18, 2023