John Henry has a lot of money. On Tuesday, though, he revealed that Major League Baseball took some of that money from him not too long ago for some comments he made about baseball’s economy.
Speaking on WEEI’s The Big Show, the Red Sox principal owner admitted that MLB fined him $500,000 for comments he made in 2009 to The Boston Globe about the game’s economic landscape.
Those comments, he admitted on Tuesday, cost him a little bit of cash.
“There’s not much I can say, because the last time I made a comment, I was fined $500,000,” he said on the show. “The large markets aren’t allowed to give their opinions. Did you know I was fined $500,000? … I made statements which turned out to be true, or at least there were various documents that were leaked after that. But anyway, the large clubs are not allowed to talk about that.”
Henry’s initial complaints in 2009 came from allegations that there were major league teams turning profits, but were still the beneficiaries of more than $1 billion from revenue sharing.
Henry’s comments on Tuesday stemmed from a question asked of him about recent comments from Yankees owner Hank Steinbrenner, also questioning the game’s current economic system.
Those comments, Henry said, led Major League Baseball to send out a letter addressing the situation.
Henry was also asked if the Red Sox were the Yankees’ “allies on the subject.”
“There’s no doubt about that,” he responded.
