Yankees president Randy Levine lambasts Marlins and Rays for lack of attendance and reliance on revenue-sharing: "You can't have it" 

Randy Levine seemed to mince no words when criticizing the Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays for their lack of accountability. The Yankees president blasted the Florida teams for their generally lacking attendance figures and over-dependence on the revenue gained from the MLB's pool.

MLB rules state that all thirty teams in the league need to pool 48% of their revenue. Then, the total amount is distributed equally among the teams. This helps small market teams like the Marlins and Rays who do not have varied sources of income like the Yankees.

But that definitely doesn't mean that their entire reliance needs to be on revenue sharing. The Marlins and Rays rank in the bottom five of attendance figures. Miami had a figure of around 14,000, whereas Tampa Bay recorded a figure of just under 18,000. In comparison, even a team like the Oakland Athletics, who will be moving to Las Vegas soon, has had 10,000 average attendance.

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"A lot more focus has to be on individual teams to do better and not just rely on revenue sharing," Levine said. "You can't have two Florida teams averaging 15,000 fans. You can't have it. You don't go into an NFL stadium or an NBA arena and see that."

Not just Levine, in fact, the MLB Players Association had noted their grievances regarding the reliance of the Florida teams on revenue sharing. These were some major talking points during the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations.

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Not the first instance of Randy Levine hitting out at revenue-sharing

Earlier in 2016, Randy Levine had hit out at the MLB for the nature of the splits. He pointed out how the Yankees' sharing had become "burdensome" for the franchise as their counterparts in the same area had to pay ten times less. Yankees were worth $3.4 billion that year and earned $516 million after revenue sharing. They had to pay $90 million as per the collective agreement.

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