11/21/24
April 20, 2006
Forbes.com: The Business Of Baseball: Baseball owners continue to slam the ball out of the park. Team values increased an average of 15 percent for the second consecutive year, to $376 million, in our 2006 survey of Major League Baseball's 30 franchises. Overall operating income increased to $360 million ($12.1 million per team) from $132 million ($4.4 million per team) the previous year, as revenue increased faster than player salaries. The YANKEES are actually worth over $1 Billion, that is kinda cool.
What's interesting, and this has been noted about a billion times before, is that small market teams gain a profit through revenue sharing, because they don't invest it in the product. Meanwhile the Sox and the Yanks are supposed losing a lot of money because they're trying to get the best players possible. (This is overstated, since these finding typically don't report other sources of income, like YES and NESN.) There needs to be some way for the small market teams to compete, and all revenue sharing is doing right now is allowing owners to pocket it for a profit. Something needs to change.
posted by uglatto at 09:35 PM on April 20, 2006
once again......baseball owners and players show just how STUPID they are....shortsighted even. the health of the game is in peril. they should look to the NFL to see how a league should work. revenues should be shared more evenly and teams should be forced to spend a percentage of said revenues on players.......level the playing field and gee, even fans in kansas city and pittsburgh would have a reason to be excited about their ballclubs after the opening week of the season. scouting and drafting would take precedence over the big fat wallet. i cannot tell u who's gonna win the next super bowl, or even who's gonna be in the playoffs....but i can name 6 of the eight playoff teams in baseball right now. any halfway intelligent baseball fan could do the same.
posted by tommybiden at 09:48 PM on April 20, 2006
if the NFL parity works so well, tell me when the Jets, Saints, Lions, 49ers, Packers, Cardinals, Bills, Texans, and Raiders are going to make the playoffs, or if they even have a chance. The bottom line is that personnel directors and coaches make the difference in any sport. Look at Oakland and Minnesota in baseball to see that. The so called parity in football is not created by revenue sharing, % spending, or those other incentives. It is falsely created by weighted scheduling that gives weaker teams a soft schedule and allows them to move up in the ranks. That simply is not possible in baseball with 162 games.
posted by joecab at 10:06 PM on April 20, 2006
Money? I get "the chance" to catch a Cards game, in the new digs, in "a room". Fourth inning, a young girl pulls in a rack of Cardinal "shtuff" The red logoed Cardinal golf shirt, available at a local Schnuck's grocery for $14.99 is "on the hook" for $69.99!!! Hmmm......PASS!!!
posted by wolfdad at 10:14 PM on April 20, 2006
level the playing field and gee, even fans in kansas city and pittsburgh would have a reason to be excited about their ballclubs after the opening week of the season. In the past 10 seasons, 13 different teams have made it to the World Series. In the past 10 seasons, 14 different teams have made it to the Super Bowl. Considering MLB only allows 8 teams to make the playoffs each season, and the NFL allows 12, I have to say that MLB probably has a better level of parity than the NFL. It wouldn't make a difference how much money the KC Royals got to use, they simply have the most incompetent management in MLB. The reason they are going to lose 100 games this year is not because they couldn't spend enough money, but because they don't know how to spend the money they have. but i can name 6 of the eight playoff teams in baseball right now. any halfway intelligent baseball fan could do the same. Really? Go ahead. Name 6 teams that are guaranteed to make the playoffs this year. Remember, you can't get ANY of them wrong. We'll check back on this thread in October and see if you got all 6 right.
posted by grum@work at 11:05 PM on April 20, 2006
Thank you, Grum, for putting facts to my observations above.
posted by joecab at 11:25 PM on April 20, 2006
the health of the game is in peril. posted by tommytrump Oh yeah, they're really hurting. i cannot tell u who's gonna win the next super bowl, or even who's gonna be in the playoffs. Well, what grum said, not to mention new england has won 3 of the 7 superbowls since 2000, so they've been a pretty safe bet. World Series? Last 6 since 2000 all different teams.
posted by justgary at 11:40 PM on April 20, 2006
What grum said. And that's from a Lions fan.
posted by commander cody at 12:07 AM on April 21, 2006
As much as I think that the MLB's revenue sharing has been taking advantage of by certain franchises, I don't think that the NFL method is much of an approvement. Any NFL team can make a profit simply by existing. Any NFL franchise will get enough viewers to pay the bills, because it's football.
posted by uglatto at 12:45 AM on April 21, 2006
Now who said baseball (and other major sports) is not about the money! Wow. We've really blown the cover off of professional sports. "Professional" baseball, like all other "professional" sports, were created to be business, have ALWAYS been operated as a business, and will always BE operated as a business. Anyone who thinks there is a single operator in Major League Baseball, or any other professional league, who makes a single decision that favors the "balance of competition" at the expense of profits is kidding themselves. "Best interest of the game" means keeping the business at a legitimate level (e.g. irradicating the gambling element) and maximizing legitimate profit. Parity, shmarity -- if baseball's business people thought for one moment that it was in their best business interest for Kansas City to become a competitive team, believe me they would see to it.
posted by BullpenPro at 07:20 AM on April 21, 2006
These guys get paid millons to play a game. They basically enterainers and whats sad is we pay to watch or go or to buy sportswear. These teams will never be equal. Money is the bottom line in everything. The people working 40 hours a week just to make ends meet that usally don't. They have to save up to go to a game. It's a sad world we live in.
posted by smitty at 07:44 AM on April 21, 2006
Oh, it's not that sad. It's really not. It's baseball. You can still afford to go to a game. Tickets aren't that prohibative. That said - there is no reason, anytime, for any government support for new stadiums.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 08:03 AM on April 21, 2006
If MLB is to have revenue-sharing, then they need to have a salary floor. Teams shouldn't be able to use that revenue sharing in order to make a big profit. The entire justification of revenue sharing is to enable small market teams to compete. And, I couldn't agree with you more Weedy. It is a travesty that cities are subsidizing this huge, money-making business.
posted by bperk at 09:08 AM on April 21, 2006
As for the number of different teams in the Super Bowl and the World Series, the NFL fields 32 teams to MLB's 30. So, the 14 NFL teams and 13 MLB teams represent just about the same percentage of the full complement. As well, statistically speaking, the fact that the NFL pool includes 50% more playoff teams is huge. Look at it this way: in ten years, 120 NFL teams have made it into the playoffs and 14 have made it to the Super Bowl-- a little less than 12%. In MLB, 13 of 80 teams have made it -- over 16%. This translates into a 40% greater chance for an MLB playoff team to make it into the Series than an NFL playoff team has to make it to the Super Bowl. If you're interested in "parity", there's another meaning to the term: What are the chances that I'll see my team win when I go to the game? Here the NFL is dismal. "On any given Sunday", your underdog team is going to lose. Consider this: In the past 16 seasons, at least 30% of the NFL teams have won or lost more than 65% of their games -- i.e W-L percentages above .650 or below .350. In 10 seasons over 40% were dominantly good or dominantly bad. There were 6 seasons where over 50% of the teams met the standard. In two seasons, over 60% did. During those 16 seasons, 481 teams played seasons in the NFL. 108 of them had super-dismal seasons where they lost more than 65% of their games. During those 16 seasons, an average of almost 7 teams each season lost more than 65% of their games. This is just as true in the NBA, where 453 teams played and 94 lost more than 35% of their games. Of course, the NFL is hampered by the fact that they only play 17 games per season, so the chances to catch up are less. But, hey, they make the rules. In MLB, the comparable numbers are 458 seasons played, 9 sub-.350 seasons. Total. For the whole 16 years. In baseball, a 100-win season is only worth a W-L pct of .617. Kansas City is going to beat the Yankees some nights. The Raptors will never beat the Pistons and the Lions are never going to beat New England. If you want the promise of "on any given day, any team can beat any other team", try baseball. This doesn't mean the NFL ain't fun. But it sure ain't a level playing field.
posted by hexagram at 03:34 PM on April 21, 2006
i believe his point was that picking who will be the top teams in baseball is a lot easier than choosing the top teams in football. how can you disagree with that? the sox, the sox, the yanks, the cards, the braves... its a lock. yes you could choose five nfl teams, get 3-5 of em right....but how many playoff spots are left? 1 vs. 7 i think... all those mlb teams fighting for one spot really, just to have a chance. all those nfl teams fighting for 6-7 spots....isnt that a more realistic chance? part of it is simply 16 games vs. 162, a lot more can go wrong, and cant be corrected in that short season, but guys and gals... u must realize that football gives more teams a chance... a fact that glows like burnin coal... get a cap. forget management, even before that, all things should be even. management has nothing to do with a salary cap being good or bad. hiring good management should be rewarded, but when they have different budgets how can they be compared. give me your shining examples against this, they are against the trend, the average. get a cap before its the yankees vs. the National League and Bud calls it a tie.
posted by Pabo at 04:12 PM on April 21, 2006
Now who said baseball (and other major sports) is not about the money! At the end of the day, it's all about the bottom line, steroid accusations and all!