The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- MLBTR’s early discussions for the upcoming Top 50 Free Agents post and the starting pitchers at the top of this winter’s market (1:00)
- The ongoing bankruptcy drama of Diamond Sports Group and how the upcoming offseason looks in terms of possible spending (11:45)
- The Red Sox seem poised for an aggressive offseason (20:35)
Plus, we answer your questions, including…
- Y’all have repeatedly talked about the Tigers being at the beginning a strong period and riding a youth movement to the ALDS (if not further). In addition to adding some talent from outside the organization this winter, can we expect to see some of the homegrown guys being extended? Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter seem like solid options beside the obvious Tarik Skubal. (24:30)
- Did the reduction in time of the average baseball game negatively impact stadium concession sales? If a Dodger game goes from 3 hours to 2 1/2 hours, are they selling less beer? (28:05)
Check out our past episodes!
- Buster Posey Takes Over In SF And The Cardinals’ Succession Plan – listen here
- Final Days In Oakland, The Surging Tigers, And If The Nats Will Pursue Juan Soto – listen here
- The Matt Chapman Negotiations, Dodgers’ Pitching Injuries, And Strengths And Weaknesses Of Playoff Contenders – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
lol Red Sox are poised for an aggressive FA? Remember full throttle last year?
They’ll re-sign Refsnyder and make an offer to Chris Martin. Well? That’s kind of aggressive.
Let – Ref is already signed for next year, but yeah nobody believes ownership until they actually follow through with actions.
sad – “Aggressive” translates to “being in” on many players, but ultimately not “aligning” with any of them.
The usual smoke and mirrors, just like the last trade deadline.
On beer sales, a small minor league crowd can’t compare to the lines I see at a Dodger game. It must effect sales
Ron – Yeah how could it not? Nobody drinks faster because the games are faster.
And I bet a lot more fans drive buzzed or drunk because the amount of time from the end of the 7th to the end of the game is shorter. But MLB doesn’t seem to care about that.
If a Dodger game goes from 3 hours to 2 1/2 hours, are they selling less beer?
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I’d make the argument that the extra 30 minutes of beer sales is likely fairly marginal, and considering security, lawsuits, DUI, etc., I’m not sure the marginal revenue v marginal costs are worth it. Kind of like when we were growing up. We probably seldom needed that last beer.
Agreed. If concession sales were a priority, they wouldn’t have adopted the ghost-runner, extra-innings rule. There’s a pretty broad waiver consent for ticket holders which shields teams from liability so I don’t think it’s much of a factor. Games were shortened to attract and keep new fans which outweighs any additional revenue from beer sales.
White Sox make for a record losing season with low attendance. I bet some after effects were closing concession stands & laying off workers during the season . Same in Oakland during their lean years
Let’s not about big market, small markets anymore or teams that spend. It’s more about building a roster today. The Chiefs and Bucs spend, the Royals and Rays don’t in the same market..
Aren’t the Chiefs and Bucs football teams?
Yes, and all football teams spend as much as the big market baseball teams! 60 million for QBs!
Different sports, different ways of revenue sharing. The NFL actually does it right.
Maybe the NFL model isn’t the right way, less parity in football! There are 12 teams that have never won the Super Bowl !
The point being that the Chiefs and Bucs have similar revenue streams as the large market teams, while the Royals and Rays primarily rely on their local market. There is no comparison.
Slider32 – Great point. If you look at recent teams that have won rings it’s always about quality talent selection not money spent.
Rangers – High payroll if you count two players who didn’t play in deGrom and Scherzer. 14th highest if you simply count the guys who played. Great farm players producing along with two key acquisitions of Seager and Semien the year before. Smart spending other than the Scherzer signing.
Houston – Many years of tanking and some very smart draft choices built a dynasty plus a little cheating. 8th most money spent mostly because the tanking was long ago and their draft choices earned high salaries 5 to 10 years later.
Atlanta – Very well run organization and 10th highest payroll. Strong draft choices and effective free agents got them the ring.
Los Angeles – If Mookie wasn’t given to LA, their last ring would be 1988. How has that worked out since? The 2020 ring is a fluke due to the 60 game season not being long enough for the typical injuries from poor choices of injury prone players.
Washington – 7th highest payroll but big money went to stellar players like in Texas four years later. Short series roster construction won this ring.
Boston – After inheriting $40Million in dead contracts, Dombrowski built a winning team with the 5th highest spending but he did more than just win a ring he built continuity along the way leading to 3 division titles over the Yankees. His secret? Smart pick-ups at reasonable prices other than Price. JD replaced Papi. Sale’s contract was far below his market value. Timely pick-up of Eovaldi and Pearce. Fixing holes is an art and Boston benefited from an excellent artist.
Houston – Cheating was main reason for the win. This is an outlier. 17th highest payroll since the tanking was just beginning to show success through the development of the early round draft picks.
Chicago – 5th highest payroll because it was an all in year while seeking the first ring in a century. Many key acquisitions who got rotated out after winning the ring. A good farm system drove the rise and key acquisitions drove the payroll up to build an excellent short series roster.
Kansas City – 17th highest payroll. Young catcher who was a stud and a playing approach that varied from most turned out to be ideal for a short series. Truly a team win. Good choices not money spent won this ring.
10 years of ring winners and while many had high payrolls, they didn’t win from simply spending money. The Yankees and Dodgers kept their foot on the spending accelerator and came up with one bogus 3/8 season ring between the two top spending teams. Cashman and Friedman are revered in GM circles with the media but I say there are no two worse GMs in baseball unless making the playoffs is your only goal. I can’t remember two individuals who got more credit with more money and less success in bringing home championships. After the Yankee run to 1962 and their 50% win rate, the Yankees are embarrassingly bad during the last 60 years. Los Angeles with their new replicate Showtime approach to baseball has proven to be every bit as inept as the Yankees.
Slider32 is right. It’s not about the money, it’s about the baseball acumen to build a roster than can make the playoffs and win short series..
Smart management wins in any league. But more resources helps.
I saw a graphic that stated the Tigers total active WC series roster was only $18.8m (comparing it to Josh Hader alone accounting for $19m in salary.) Does anyone know if that’s true?
Elmedius – The DET payroll in 2024 was $98.5 Million.
True as you said for the wild card roster.
Manda and Baez left off the roster.
Their payroll as a team was less than Haders…gotta love baseball
Teams like the Rays and Jays had a window but they fell short. There is only one winner!
Saga – Is it just a coincidence the Red Sox got smarter and won championships in the years when they spent heavily?
It takes a blend of money and an intelligent front office to field a contending team on a consistent basis. One of the drawbacks of developing a talented team is the players become expensive to retain.
Regarding your “count only the players who played” approach with the Rangers, it takes lots of money to have enough depth to cover for injuries. It also takes money to gamble on acquiring talented players who are high health risks. Did the Rangers have concerns about deGrom? Did the Dodgers have concerns about Glasnow? Of course those teams did, but they could afford to take the financials risks by acquiring said players.
Fever Pitch Guy- The Rangers spent big on two SPs (Scherzer and deGrom) thinking their young core hitters and young pitching staff would carry them through any injuries. They won the World Series without either pitcher because they were so loaded with talent and many of them got hot at the right time and they had Seager to be leader and Mr. Clutch. My point was the huge payroll was nice and affordable with their new stadium seriously increasing their revenues but they would have won without spending $73.3 Million of their $250 Million payroll on deGrom and Scherzer. They spent 177 Million on the guys that actually won the ring. That’s less than Boston spent in 2018. They simply had enough talent hot at the right time to win. In 2024, many had off years and three top of the rotation SPs didn’t show up until very late in the year. 2025 should see a team that performs more like the 2023 team. The talent has been supplemented by the injured players. Seager and Semien need to lead the hitters and deGrom and Scherzer need to lead the pitchers while Rocker and Leiter need to take a step forward to fulfilling their potential.
Texas was fortunate to arrive at a pinnacle a year early but it backfired the next year because losing deGrom is like losing Sale. Hard to win without a true ace. Nate Eovaldi, like in Boston, was thrust into the #1 spot and did his best to keep the team competitive against other #1 pitchers but sliding the whole staff down one spot with deGrom back would have made a huge difference. That’s why 2025 should be excellent for Texas.
The playoffs are outlier, the Rangers and D-Backs in series last year proves it.. What stands out this year to me is that the top Closers are blowing games, and that the first few games the stars were quiet, but yesterday Lindor and Betts came up big.. Still waiting on Ohtani and Judge to put their stamp on the playoffs.
@Sagacity
To me, it starts at ownership not at the GM/FO level. Are they in the game to win it? IE do they give a damn, care about the fan base and want to put on the field the best product possible. Guys like Steinbrenner, Reinsdorf and Moreno don’t seem to get this. They need to remove themselves from the game and quickly.
Jeff – Steinbrenner and Moreno have a history of sacrificing profits in favor of acquiring talent, there’s no question they want to win.
FPG; thanks for the get back. I thought each had deep pockets. Did not realize either was in danger of sacrificing profits. Hmmm.
I do feel Steinbrenner is way to content with how things are going. Show your fanbase something. For me, Cashman has been there way too long.
Jeff – Yeah last year the Yanks generated $679M in revenue but made only a $2M profit because Steinbrenner spent $291M on payroll. The fact he’s willing to just break even rather than spend $70M less is to his credit.
Fever – No disrespect but those numbers seem to be missing a major segment of revenues and profits. Maybe an extremely successful franchise run by George’s family is willing to walk away without profits OR maybe Forbes numbers are there to help owners pretend there is NOT much profitability in baseball. That would keep the small owners from complaining, the fans from complaining and the commissioner from looking into the impact of a completely imbalanced revenue set-up so he doesn’t consider moving to a more fair system like in other sports.
Just a thought.
Knowing what I know about rates of returns demanded by boards of directors, I think what you are suggesting that Forbes reported is media manipulation. That seems to be commonplace in the world today. Find a credible source and distort the numbers while keeping them highly confidential.
Isn’t that the way of the world today?
Sagacity: Yeah. I don’t believe the Yankees made only $2M profit last year.
Sag – Excellent post, really appreciate it.
Perhaps Forbes doesn’t reveal all the details behind their numbers for proprietary reasons, but we do know all revenue has to be revealed for revenue sharing purposes and of course all player-related payroll has to be revealed.
Of course it wasn’t the Yankees plan to basically break even last year, their goal was to spend enough to generate large regular season crowds and postseason revenue. Neither happened last year for them, a rarity.
I have to disagree with your theory that Forbes is in cahoots with MLB to give the impression teams don’t make that much money.
First of all, it is public knowledge MLB revenue was up 10% to an all-time record $11.34 BILLION.
Secondly, when you have teams like the Mariners, Athletics and Pirates making huge profits that’s a really really bad look for MLB.
The A’s in 2022 were 60-102 with the 2nd-worst record in MLB, yet they made the 5th-highest profit at $62.2M ….. not something Forbes/MLB would want to publicize if they had any control in the reporting. And the large market owners surely are not happy about passing on their revenue to teams that are simply pocketing it.
Yes of course the media is constantly manipulating information, but it’s impossible to manipulate numbers …. the media is reporting the exact same numbers that Forbes provided.
Fever Pitch Guy – So I think we are talking about two different things and that’s why we don’t agree. If I’m not mistaken the Forbes data relates to baseball revenues and costs. In corporate terms, that’s the gross profit of a subsidiary or a division of a company. Here are the items listed in an article about baseball.
Each team has revenues broken out by tickets and TV so for example the Dodger had $131 Million of ticket revenue and $222 Million of TV revenue for a total of $353 Million in baseball revenue. That number topped all teams with the LAA finishing second with $100 Million and $177 Million for a total of $277 Million. The Dodger payroll in this year was $202 Million so their Net Profits are reported as $152 Million.
This same report shows $2.26 Billion in tickets revenue, $4.308 Billion in TV revenue for a Total Revenue in Baseball of $6.568 Billion. Obviously, it’s several years old.
Baseball payrolls equaled $4.166 Billion so MLB Net Profits $2.402 Billion. I believe these are the annual numbers you are referring to. I believe this is what you call Baseball’s profitability. I worked for a corporation that owned the St. Louis Cardinals. So much is left out of these numbers.
Just look at the columns in the spreadsheet. Lets start with profit centers not mentioned in the published MLB profits:
1 – Merchandising
2 – Concessions
3 – The internet activities
Also, lets look at other baseball related costs.
1 – Depreciation
2 = Dept additions and retirements
3 – External Ventures
An article when Ohtani signed his contract suggested the Dodgers might make $1 Billion in merchandising from the signing. It’s not considered a baseball revenue in the articles you quoted so where do MLB teams detail the items listed above.
I quickly looked up the 2022 article by Forbes when the commissioner stated MLB GROSS Revenues approaching $11 Billion. The numbers i used were from before COVID.
The article had this very important phrase in it =
Forbes is unable to independently verify whether the revenue figure made by Manfred is correct.
So, that’s why I am a skeptic about reported numbers. First, the numbers are nowhere near representative to the revenues received by a baseball organization. Second, the costs that reduce NET PROFITS are also not reported in the numbers by Forbes. So what good are the Forbes numbers?
They are like modern metrics. They show an estimate of 3 very key aspects of baseball:
1 – TV Revenues
2 – Ticket Revenues
3 – Payroll
Just like modern metrics, the data is inconclusive because so many assumptions are wrong about the content of a NET PROFIT number for each club.
It’s not that I don’t trust Forbes it’s that I don’t think Forbes or the commissioner is being transparent about the numbers.
I believe teams like the Dodgers and Yankees are grossly understated and their actual profitability is triple to ten times what is reported in Forbes. The Red Sox I would estimate to be less under-stated but $300 Million to $500 Million is the range I would guess. A company named Statista tried to do a more complete estimate and for 2024 Boston was at $500 Million.
How does that change your perspective on spending a few extra million at the deadline to have a shot at the playoffs. Granted the money needs to be spent wisely, but clearly there is no shortage of funds available they simply aren’t usable for some reason.
Let’s hope that changes soon. Your Forbes numbers were very accurate. I believe you did an excellent job representing what they wrote.
Sagacity: Can you post the links to the articles you are looking at for MLB and the Red Sox? Thanks.
Sag – Forbes provides Operating Income, not Gross Profit.
Gross Profit would be operating revenue minus player payroll.
Operating income would be operating revenue minus all operating expenses including non-player payroll, travel expenses, rental expenses, utilities, etc (much of which is referred to as SG&A which stands for selling, general and administrative).
EBITDA is basically everything except ITDA (interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization).
Net Income includes absolutely everything.
There are far too many questions to be asked regarding what you wrote. For instance you said each team has revenue broken out by TV, but not all teams have the same TV situation. Some receive revenue from broadcast agreements with regional sports networks, while others own their regional sports network. Therefore you can’t count all the revenue generated by let’s say NESN because NESN doesn’t just broadcast Red Sox games, they also broadcast all the Bruins games and they have lots of other programming.
As for concessions, again sticking with what I know best (Red Sox) the concessions revenue is split between the Red Sox and Aramark, the company that provides the concessions and employs the concession workers.
I think there comes a point in time when, if you don’t have “official” numbers, you have to resort to logic. Which leads me back to my original assertion, if MLB was conspiring with Forbes to publish incorrect numbers they absolutely would not show teams that are among the lowest payrolls in MLB as having among the biggest Operating Income. It’s a really, really bad look because teams receiving revenue sharing should not be pocketing so much money.
I don’t believe the Forbes numbers. If the A’s are really much more profitable than the Yankees, why is the Yankees franchise worth way more than the A’s?
All
I initially referenced this one
forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2023/01/10/mlb-sets-ne…
This one is the one that shows numbers from Statista
statista.com/statistics/193645/revenue-of-major-le…
The listing of the Ticket Revenue, TV Revenue and Payroll was pulled directly from the article I was looking at so I wouldn’t have to send a link. If Fever Pitch Guy is trying to argue that what I copied verbatim out of a Forbes article is wrong then he should take it up with Forbes because it was copied and referenced by me..
All – I hope I responded with enough information.
Fever Pitch Guy – You make the suggestion that it’s not in the best interest of baseball to make public the full set of numbers as a sinister plot. I was simply pointing out that the numbers aren’t available, it wouldn’t be in the interest of baseball to publish them nor would it be in the best interest of Forbes. This isn’t a “deep throat” situation with people from the MLB and Forbes meeting in dark garages, it’s simply two huge organizations doing what’s in their best interest not the fans or the public’s best interest.
You also may want to review your accounting books on how complex corporations are set up from an accounting standpoint. Net Income exists at many different levels depending on the organization structure. I tried to stay general with my comments so this wasn’t an accounting seminar. The financial structure of the overall corporation that owns the Red Sox and other entities has many layers to it. The trick is to find all costs and revenues directly and indirectly related to Baseball Operations. The Net Income of the Baseball Division may not be all encompassing of the non Baseball Division’s related incomes and costs. You made valid points about the structure being complex with the splitting of NESN revenues among the several teams covered but I didn’t address the topic. I simply reported what Forbes reported without a bibliography of all their sources. I assumed the Red Sox revenues were pro-rated but that could be wrong which further supports the idea that we have no clue what the real numbers are.
I believe that was the substance of my comment. We don’t have a clue as to the accuracy of any numbers presented publicly.
Fever Pitch Guy –
Here is an article that shows the table I referenced and a much more detailed explanation of revenues and cost than I found in the Forbes articles I read.
morssglobalfinance.com/major-league-baseball-finan…
It breaks down TV contracts by team and shows the component parts. This the most comprehensive set of numbers I’ve seen. Nowhere, however, is their a complete list of revenue sources. I wish someone would go on record by including all components of revenue used in the financial statements for each ball club.
Sag – What part of the Forbes article that you copied do you think I disagree with? You’ve posted many things, it’s impossible to address each one without turning my response into a book. LOL!
I did not make that suggestion, all I did was respond to your stated belief that MLB is in cahoots with Forbes to intentionally underestimate MLB net income.
You stated you believe the true team revenue figures are between 3 and 10 times greater than what Forbes provided, that is simply not logical. And staying on the topic of logic, what motive would MLB have to manipulate Forbes into grossly underestimating revenue? Maybe I missed it in one of your posts, but did you ever explain why MLB would want everyone to think it’s less profitable than it actually is? Which of course would also impact team valuations. Remember MLB is a partnership of 30 teams, there is no MLB entity that controls all the teams. The commissioner was hired by the owners and works for the owners.
On one last note, you believe Forbes is intentionally grossly underestimating both revenue and Net Income …. so you therefore must also believe they are grossly underestimating team valuations. Not only would MLB not have a motive for this, if you look at recent team sales you’ll see the selling prices were spot on with Forbes’ valuations.
Look at what the Orioles valuation was by Forbes at the end of 2022, and then look at their actual sale price when they began the sale process in 2023 and the sale was finalized early this year. Forbes simply cannot be so very wrong with their revenue and net income estimates, and yet be so accurate with their valuations. It’s simply not logical.
Saga – Thank you for the link. As you previously stated, TV revenue is a huge question mark with teams that own their own RSN. Perhaps the Red Sox calculate how much revenue would have been earned from NESN if they didn’t own them, and then that amount is inter-companied between NESN’s books and the Red Sox books? Who knows.
The ticket breakdown is kind of meaningless when you consider the huge disparity between teams in average ticket prices. The average ticket prices for the Red Sox that year was more than double the website’s $32.99 calculation, which aligns with their actual gate receipts of $199M being more than double the website’s.
Sagacity: Thanks for the info. I’m not doubting you. I think it will be interesting to read. BTW, info not being available has not stopped Fever Pitch Guy from reaching conclusions in the past, especially conclusions that are very critical of the Red Sox.
Fever Pitch Guy: “…did you ever explain why MLB would want everyone to think it’s less profitable than it actually is?”
==============
To keep player salaries suppressed. Minimum salaries and free agency rules are renegotiated every 4-5 years when the Collection Bargaining Agreement is renegotiated.
Fever Pitch Guy – I built a five year financial model at Anheuser Busch and I observed how the totals rolled up.
The interesting part was how each subsidiary rolled into the whole. There are many choices as to how things roll up and people much smarter than me found ways to make the profitability meet hurtles that were established as success markers. I believe Forbes is GIVEN information by team or by the commissioner that represent specific components of what I would call the baseball operation. From what I can find those aspects are Revenues related to Tickets and Television. Have you ever seen details that included specifics like Merchandising, Internet Revenue, Concessions or write-offs? All the corporate taxes are assembled for all divisions with one set of books being used to calculate NET PROFITS of the organization. If a subsidiary is out of country they too have things that are shared divided into the amount allocated to the subsidiary. A division of the company like the Red Sox contributes numbers that are not part of the allocations. So as you mentioned, NESN needs to be allocated. Merchandising needs to be evaluated by it’s sources. Some will be allocated if associated with multiple teams and others will be specific deals for the Red Sox only. These are the numbers I don’t see in any Forbes articles. Merchandising is a big number when players like Ohtani and Judge are involved. That’s why it’s so hard to believe the Yankee Net Profit number. Their payroll isn’t big enough to overshadow their TV, Ticket, Merchandising Revenue, Internet Revenue and any other revenues related to the Yankee team but maybe not related to the specifics of the ball club. The franchise rights to sell Judge gear or Yankee gear or Yankee Stadium memorabilia etc. has to be accounted for somewhere so which revenue number is it in? I don’t see it there that’s why I brought all this up. I believe Forbes gets good data on the value of the franchise and validates against outside information they might gather from other sources than the Yankees but shouldn’t it be just as easy to list all the revenue sources by team and compare and contrast which franchises have unique sources that others don’t have? Years ago we all knew YES or WGN provided revenues to the Yankees and Cubs but since then there have been so many new inventions for assembling revenues from new media sources, internet sources, electronic game sources. I simply can’t believe the Net Profits being reported are anything more than a division Net Profit or subsidiary net profit and that there are other corporate revenues that are being categorized differently so the money isn’t apparent to the public, the commission or any company that isn’t their accountants who can not disclose that information without a warrant from a judge. So, call me a skeptic but I think there is a hidden stash of revenue sources being recategorized elsewhere in the corporation that hits the bottom line of the corporation but not the bottom line of the Red Sox. It is absorbed the corporation.
Ahhhh, maybe I’ve just watched All The President’s Men one too many times!!! At heart I admit I am a conspiracy theorist.
Saga – Very interesting post, thank you!!
And I agree 100% that revenue is often diverted, sometimes legally and sometimes with questionable tactics. Not just with MLB teams, but within corporate America. If for any other reason than to benefit on corporate taxes. I know this for a fact.
For instance when FSG has concerts in Fenway, does the advertising revenue for those concerts go on the Red Sox books or on the books of one of what I’m sure is many legal entities that fall under the FSG umbrella?
And when FSG uses Red Sox funds for investing purposes, does the investment income get booked on the Red Sox financials? Doubtful, probably all the funds from all FSG entities are consolidated under a separate legal entity.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s just taking advantage of loopholes and audit weaknesses to maximize their financial position. No different than very wealthy individuals who often manage to pay little or no income tax ;O)
Fever PItch Guy – I think we are on the same page now!!
IMO, it is not just both, but also a 3rd factor-revenue. The owners can only spend what the fans supply I can’t blame TB, FL, and Oakland for not spending. They don’t have a fraction of what NY and LA have to spend.
Sagacity;
Yes.
However, pro baseball baseball media has been paid by clicks (Internet and video (Internet) and cable TV) for pretty much 20 years now. So playing up to: 1) the Industrial Northeast which includes NYC, Boston, Philadelphia; 2) the Midwest being Chicago; and 3) the LA/Orange Country market in the West is how “journalists” ultimatly get paid. It’s in their interests to write or discuss professional sports teams in those markets.
It’s a positive that MLB coverage has gotten away for Yankees and Red Sox as we saw for decades after free agency started – whereby those teams were constantly battling for and sighing the top FA’s almost every year…as well as making one-sided salary dump trades .
The poster above you mentioned spending by MLB and NFL teams in 2 small markets – Tampa Bay and KC. In those cases the NFL teams have pretty much total revenue sharing, while the MLB teams take in a fraction of the revenue of the big markets. MLB has been slowly changing their revenue sharing combined with equalizing the money franchises can spend on draft picks as well as penalties for excessive payrolls. That will continue, They’re slowly adding the TV revenues into that as people around the country are cutting cable…which is going away. MLB is backstopping the Diamond / Bally mess, and has been selling off individual games to streaming services such as Apple TV, Amazon TV, and Peacock – many from large market teams……taking that revenue and distributing it equally to all MLB teams. Again, these are graduated moves that in time will pretty much equalize revenues for MLB teams so that as in the NFL and NBA all franchises will be on equal footing in regards to money available for payrolls and a pseudo-cap so that the wealthier owners can’t radically outspend others. At that point coverage we see and read will be more in-line with the way the NFL and NBA are covered by the national spots media.
Samuel – Excellent commentary. Big pet peeve of mine is the influence big market owners have over the commissioner and the other owners preventing an equitable system for payrolls in the MLB. If so many other sports can make it happen, baseball should be able to. Clearly the need for it existed when NY won half the world series before 1962. The other teams shouldn’t have to depend on poor choices by the wealthy teams to be competitive. It always comes back to sport vs business and the MLB can’t blend it as effectively as other sports.
Sagacity;
Great, thorough comment of yours above by the way…
I saw something a few years ago that’s always stuck with me:
An owner or observer made the comment at a league wide meeting to the effect of:
When we sit to vote, there are far more mid-market and small-market owners than large-market owners.
A lot of politics involved, but it’s been moving in a direction for over 10 years and slowly speeds up.
While you and Sagacity make valid points, there is another consideration. When I finally get around to buying a baseball team, I can pay $5B or so for the RS, or $2B or so for the Royals. If I buy the RS, and you buy the Royals, I am not going to be inclined to share my revenue with you.
In fact, since I will be paying $300M or so in interest every year, I cannot share my revenue with you.
Joe;
You missed the point…..
It doesn’t matter that you don’t want to share your revenue. You would be one of maybe 6-8 franchise owners out of 30 partners that feel that way.
Again, the movement has been gradual. It’s been going on for I would guess a little over 20 years now.
The other side of the coin in your example is: Why would I want to spend $2b to buy the Royals when I have no chance of putting a sustainable elite team in my market……as the NFL Chiefs currently are. Or as one upset owner stated a few years ago: “I didn’t buy in to be the Washington Generals to your Harlem Globetrotters”.