They have a limit on foreign players and there is only so many teams. Yea im sure it stops many people, but that has never stopped basketball players from going to Europe. They have the same foreign player rules, but there's just way more teams and money.

Thats what im saying. Nobody wants to support a farm team or a glorified farm team. They dont get people going to the games to watch baseball, they get people by being a "fun" family friendly day out, not disimilar to going to the zoo. If the Saints were an independent team in a league that the teams payed decent and cared about winning it would probably be sold out every game for the same prices.

To be honest, this way of thinking is just so foreign to how I think. Maybe because I'm mainly a soccer fan. But soccer fans do not support minor league teams. Nobody will show up unless its an independent team. Even the biggest teams in the world, maybe a few dozen people are showing up for the reserve teams. I get the "entertainment" thing, but why would any serious fan care at all about a reserve team or a faux reserve team.

Why stop there?

Do you think it could be bigger if they started paying players more and getting better players or fans just don't give a shit about that?

They both play in a league with a tiny salary cap and wierd player rules trying to be farm teams in everything but name. I wonder how many fans they have? I bet they would get a lot more if they took themselves seriously.

Give me an example?

Because why would they pay more? They probably have zero fans that actually care if they win. Those leagues embrace the mickey mouse family event atmosphere. Look at the USL Championship in soccer. They pay more because they actually want to win and embrace fans that care. Those baseball teams are usually in little tiny towns with no people too.

Yes, thats exactly what what I'm saying. Now imagine the Japanese league, Korean league, Mexican league, an imaginary Canadian league and another American league all vying for those players. Now MLB would have to pay minor league players more to get them to sign. Also the MLS has great parity and their draft is meaningless. Its all to do with the salary cap, not the draft.

I just looked up the Japanese and Korean teams have a limit on the number of foreign players they can sign. I'm sure plenty of Milb players would happily go there for 100k-200k salaries, but those teams wont waste their limited spots on lower level players.

If it works like that in Basketball and Soccer, I don't see how Baseball as a sport is any different. Even if you did have a potential to play in the majors, would you rather make 20k a year in milb or 120k a year in Korea while you develop? The main problem is more that NPB and KBO have a limit on the number of foreign players they can sign. Now imagine an independent league that had teams in a bunch of large cities, not small towns throughout America. MLB would do everything to stop that from happening.

The best thing for player salaries would be more loss of affiliation. It's all stockholm syndrome. Imagine if there was actually competition for players and not just 1 entity. Minor league basketball players get payed more because they can play in Europe so the NBA has to pay them to keep them. Maybe more Americans need to go to Japan and Korea.

Exactly though. Making money off a club is considered bad form in the UK. Whereas in the US all the owners in every sports are making tons of money.

Football teams in Europe generally do not make very much if any money. Ticket prices are much lower than in the US. The rich Middle Eastern owners are known for pumping tons of money into the team to buy the players they want like pet projects. They don't care about making money.