I have a hard time imagining that recipients of MLB revenue sharing, which is presently over $100m per team every year, are losing cash hand over fist. Operationally there are probably some clubs who operate at a loss but they've never been keen to open their books and prove it.
Also if there are "losses" a lot of owners have real estate and other "non-baseball" revenue streams associated around the team which makes up that difference.
That's why every owner wants a stadium district type thing around the park when building new stadiums like the A's
Isn’t this what the Cubs do? Point to the team as a struggle to break even (if that even is true) and completely ignore how much income they have from their other businesses that directly profit off the baseball team
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29257106/cubs-tom-ricketts-says-most-revenue-goes-right-back-team
> "Here's something I hope baseball fans understand," Ricketts said. "Most baseball owners don't take money out of their team. They raise all the revenue they can from tickets and media rights, and they take out their expenses, and they give all the money left to their GM to spend.
> "The league itself does not make a lot of cash. I think there is a perception that we hoard cash and we take money out and it's all sitting in a pile we've collected over the years. Well, it isn't. Because no one anticipated a pandemic. No one expects to have to draw down on the reserves from the past. Every team has to figure out a way to plug the hole."
I'm talking about the number of people who think that the Giants couldn't afford to spend $250M+ on players every year. There are a ton of people of that mindset. Also, Charles doesn't run the ownership group anymore, his son does. It is also a group of people making the decisions
It's revenue but even if every MLB team ran a 300 million payroll that would only end up being 9 billion in salaries. Would leave 2 billion to spend on everything else, or 66 million per team
The Braves are publicly traded so you can get a little insight from what they report. [Here's a breakdown of their 2021 financials](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-braves-made-some-money-in-2021/), with this paragraph I think being most relevant:
> To make that money, the team spent $457 million dollars, split between $377 million in “other operating expenses” and $80 million in “selling, general, and administrative expenses.” The exact split there doesn’t matter; that’s just the sum cost the Braves paid between salary and purchases. It also historically includes revenue sharing payments, but their exact status is in flux this year, and I won’t claim to know whether the Braves have debited future payments against their income or chosen not to count any revenue sharing costs, as they’ve only provided a top-line view of their financials.
$457M does seem crazy high considering their payroll that season I believe was about $172M. It's unfortunate they didn't provide a breakdown because I can't imagine what all composes the other $285M.
I want to bang these owners over the head and scream "*JUST BECAUSE YOUR EARNINGS ARE PAYING OFF OTHER CAPITAL EXPENDITURES DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOUR ENTERPRISE IS A POOR INVESTMENT!*" Am I supposed to sit here and imagine that the Cubs have an EBITDA close to 0??
It's the same trick DI NCAA football programs pull to pretend that they're unprofitable. Just crank up the expenses and pass off that shiny, new athletic center as part of your COGS.
Like, say, the Ricketts buying a Wrigleyville properties but with a separate investment group. That won't come up on the Cubs balance sheet, but obviously these are revenues generated by the Chicago Cubs baseball team and will go directly into the pockets of Chicago Cubs ownership.
How so? I understand the quote as Ricketts saying there is no money coming out of the Cubs, anything that would be considered profit is instead put back into the team to be spent. And they don’t even have a savings built up to be used in case of emergency since they never expected revenue to be cut off which is why they were so screwed by the pandemic.
My whole point is that the Ricketts talk about the Cubs as a break even operation. Regardless of whether or not it actually is, they’re still making a bunch of money off their ownership of Wrigleyville and Marquee Sports Network. So it’s disingenuous for them when they talk about Cubs finances to act like they don’t have other revenue streams bolstered by the Cubs.
Lol some of those media rights are literally enough to pay for expenses and have enough left over for a 300M dollar team. We haven't even touched tickets and concessions.
Nearly every commercial property owner (especially ones that also operate a business) has a separate holding company in which owns the property and the operating company (in this case the team) who leases the property. They are certainly not losing money, otherwise there wouldn’t be a frenzy of would be buyers for nearly every sports franchise when a prospective sale is announced.
All this could be solved by them opening their books, but strangely they don't for some reason. The fact that some of these people who literally would rather die than give up control of teams should show us everything.
Frankly, if I were an owner of one of the major market clubs I'd be furious at the small market clubs for putting slop on the field every season and coasting on my dime. "Poverty franchises" like Pittsburgh and (as much as I hate to say it) Cleveland et al whose valuations continue to balloon over time and get fat on my gate and valuable local broadcast rights. But I guess infighting between fellow cartel members is less productive than demonizing players as greedy.
No you wouldn't.
The Yankees are annoyed that the Rays pocket their money, of course, but they're far better off with that money in Stu's pocket than seeing it hurting them back on the field or contributing to a rise in player salaries.
Might be true for current Yankees, but George was a different [story.](https://reflectionsonbaseball.com/revenue-sharing-george-steinbrenner-soon-to-be-vindicated/)
Ehh, George was using that to argue against revenue sharing in general which is obviously the most preferable circumstance for big market clubs.
Once revenue sharing is a given, however, you're better off not having to compete against your own money.
I mean, it’s not like player salaries are the only expenses in running a baseball team - you have front office people, back office people, gameday staff, maintenance staff, training staff, transportation, security, and probably a ton of other expenses. I’m sure most of these teams make money but I doubt every team is pocketing hundreds of millions each year.
How many businesses can you think of that are worth billions, operate a legally sanctioned monopoly, and even manage to pass the cost of their place of business onto local taxpayers?
I'd argue the line is probably $150 million, even for the brokest of broke-ass teams like Oakland.
Every team is getting somewhere between $150-$200 million in revenue sharing even before the half of the local revenue they get to keep.
And even when they do operate at a loss they can write it off as a business expense. Absolutely no one should feel any shred of sympathy for the owners who cry poor.
"My team loses me tens of millions every year"
"Oh, I'll buy it off you...how much do you want since you paid $180 million for it 15 years ago?"
"Oh, how about $1.2 billion?"
"..."
Tbf a lot of sports ownership is a prestige thing rather than money making move. Billionaires clamor when a franchise is up for sale just to be part of the club rather than seeing it as a way to make more money. The ones who don't spend just don't want to put more money into their investment.
Sorry bro but no billionaire is going to sink billions of dollars into a business venture to *lose* money. If they thought that way they wouldn’t be billionaires.
They don’t lose money if they are not spending millions every year on luxury tax. The values will keep on rising and that’s where most of their money is. The funniest thing is I never said they lose money or that ownership is not profitable just that most of it is prestige and a hobby. There are only a few franchises around, so it’s an exclusive club to be part of.
That isn't true. A sports franchise is a hobby for a lot of these people. It's a status symbol and it doesn't matter as much if they make or lose, especially with rev sharing in baseball. They're part of the club and that's what matters
It's like buying a house... You spend a ton monthly on your mortgage and yearly on maintenance and then hope once you sell the appreciation covers enough to make profit.
Obviously with the recent increases in franchise values, every long time owner is swimming in appreciation.
It's embarrassing to be treated like this as a fan tbh.
Giving us actual dogshit on the field and knowing we'll slurp it up like good little piggies as long as they keep putting out articles about the farm system
And this is precisely why I stop watching when they don't make any effort. Call me a fairweather fan or whatever but I'm not continuing to buy a shitty product just because I'm a fan. Speak with your wallet. Stop putting your self worth in what teams you support and how you'll support them no matter what. That's how you end up with a shit organization that knows they don't have to try to earn your dollars. Would you keep buying video games from the same studio if they sucked every single time? No.
That's the unfortunate thing about the Orioles ownership. Cheap owners staring at a lot of potential with stars like Adley Rutschman. I like the Blue Jays, but I'd still like to see the Orioles succeed.
I really liked him last year. Can't say I'm too upset considering the upgrades the Mets made, but I am gonna miss his personality. He genuinely seemed like a cool person
It's like buying a house... You spend a ton monthly on your mortgage and yearly on maintenance and write as much off on taxes then hope once you sell the appreciation covers enough to make profit.
Obviously with the recent increases in franchise values, every long time owner is swimming in appreciation.
Assuming full dividend reinvestment, the S&P500 is only up 348% since 2000. Baseball teams are worth way more than 4.5x as much as they were 20 years ago
Not really sure where you’re getting your number, but the the S&P TR has returned 4.48x since 2000, and 6.83x since 2003/8.71x since 1997 if you don’t cherry pick a downturn.
Not sure where I got my numbers? I said +348%, which is equivalent to your 4.48x figure. I really didn't mean to cherrypick. I was just using 2000 since its a round number.
Rockies are spending more money than 14-15 other teams this year. Not that Dick is a good owner but regardless of weird shit he says he’s not cheap and never has been.
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/
https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/breakdowns/payroll
Really the problem is both sets of owners are involved in baseball operations and don’t run the teams very well.
Wishfully hoping the same happens with Jim Crane but hasn’t really happened yet
Personally I enjoyed the Angels fully committing to the memes and drafting only pitchers in the 2021 draft. It was like they way overcorected to finally address their years of subpar pitching. Even better, the next year their pitching was a strength for the first time in what seemed like a decade. Of course that had nothing to do with the drafted players (shoutout to Chase Silseth) but it's funny to pretend they just decided over night to be better at pitching.
The problem is he spends it on Rendon and Pujols (I love the guy but 240 million could have been spent better to help the team) and Josh Hamilton, etc. plus he isn’t willing to spend past the luxury tax and the person he put in charge of the Team Operations came from marketing and not from baseball… god I am still pissed we are stuck with him as our owner
But don’t they look pinch pennies for everything that isn’t the major league roster? Like wasn’t there the Athletic article recently talking about how their front office employees do stuff extremely outside their job responsibilities because they don’t employ enough staff?
~~That was like 10 years ago so ~~kinda? It happened in the past but afaik it’s not happening now.
I’m not saying they’re well run but they’re not cheap. Even if they’re not spending $5M extra on FO, they’re not the Pirates spending $40M on payroll and pocketing $100M in revenue sharing
What I don't get (and maybe this is why I'm not rich) is if I had so much money that I was in the uber elite group of sports team owners, I would demand that they be successful. I'd treat it like a hobby. I spend money on my hobbies because I enjoy them. I don't expect them to be profit making ventures. Unless the team was hemorrhaging to the detriment of however I earned all that money in the first place, I'd spend whatever I can to field a competitive team and put butts in the my stadium's seats. What's the point of being the owner of the Pirates, A's or Reds? The teams are perennial laughing stocks. How do you take pride in owning a team that's a joke?
Because they are making shit tons of money, despite what they say.
I agree with you, though. Since I was a kid I have dreamed of buying one of my favorite teams and turning them into a perennial contender, regardless of cost. Im like a thousand bucks closer than I was 20 years ago, so I’m starting to think it might not happen :/
I have no problem with luxury taxes instead of a salary cap, but the MLB really needs to have a salary floor to prevent this sort of shit. If your owners can't afford or is too damn greedy to spend yearly at a league wide salary floor what in the actual fuck are they doing running an MLB team? Better on field product for every team and more money in the players' pockets.
Was just having this conversation with my dad yesterday. Owners want us to think these teams are bleeding them dry and they can't afford to spend anything. Do people really think if this was true these rich owners would continue to hold on to them for some reason? They're in the business of making money. If it hurt them as much as they claim, they'd sell. They're just cheap.
The value of the team is determined "mostly" by how much cash flow it generates. It's not dumb at all. The owners insult everyone's intelligence when they suggest owning a team isn't profitable, it's an insane proclamation.
Did the Chargers suddenly start generating a shitload of cash immediately after moving to Los Angeles and losing most of their fanbase? Because in 2014 their value was under a billion dollars. In 2016 it was 2 billion dollars, and now it’s almost 4. Did the Chargers become extremely popular and I missed it, or did their valuation jump massively simply by virtue of moving to a larger market?
Their value went up because the potential to make money is way higher playing at a brand new stadium in a top 2 media market than it is playing at an old stadium in a smaller market.
Yup. These owners all use investment banks non-stop, and the easiest way for an IB to reject an applicant is to ask “if we only had one statement to look at which should it be?” And that answer is 100% always “cash flow”
Yea that was my immediate thought, even though i like his sentiment, it does not tell you anything about how much money they are making. Plus then we need to know how much they need to break even (without counting player payroll).
I mean, it gives you an idea. Things that lose money don’t skyrocket in value consistently, even if there’s a group of billionaires using them as a dick measuring contest.
Amazon did and other companies have.
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be used but it cannot be the main or only criteria.
Lots of the value is in how rare it is to be able to buy a professional sports team.
The same people who make the value estimates also estimate the revenue and expenses, which I think are better number to use than just value when it comes to determining if the teams are making tons of money
I mean valuation is literally based on cash flow and earnings. Bankers use Discounted Cash Flow models and EBITDA to base their valuation models. They then apply a multiple to these models and that is their valuation. Not trying to come across as a dick.
Sports teams have been selling for way over the valuations produced by an audit for quite awhile now though. I remember the clippers going for 2.2 billion when the reports were it was valued at 720 million based on the standards used by accountants for similar businesses. So the valuation at some point became tied heavily to the exclusivity factor and not just the financials
Not really. It’s an asset. And we’re talking about billionaires here, these teams are not their only investments/revenue streams. If any of these owners were really losing money hand over fist and got into financial trouble, the value of their franchises would net then huge gains if they ever sold them. It’s definitely not dumb to consider value of the team.
I think the only owner that will lose money this year is Cohen, but that’s because in addition to the payroll he’s spending hundreds of millions on upgrading the stadium. Short term loss for tons of profit for years to come that will wipe out any losses this year.
Outside of that I don’t think any owner is losing money this year.
I know it would impossible to implement because the owners would never agree to it without a salary cap which the players would never go for, but a set percentage of what a team makes from their TV Deal, sponsorships, those awful patches on the uniforms, ticket sales, etc. should be forced to go towards the salary of the team or upgrades to the stadium. It is garbage that owners can earn hundreds of millions from the team and barely spend enough to field a team.
The Braves had to open their books a couple of years back and what the books showed was they were very close to break even outside of the extra money they made for winning the World Series that year and the real estate deals they have for the properties around the park. People grossly overestimate how big a profit the average MLB team makes per season. The big money in baseball is in the organizational value which accrues very quickly.
A team like San Diego is probably operating at a loss but the owner knows they will get back the money if they ever decide to sell. It is also worth noting most teams have an ownership group and not a single owner. When you have a group it is a much harder sell to not be profitable every season.
In society, we want the rich to spend and pay for everyone else, but suddenly, in baseball we want more capitalism? If teams can't spend up to the Mets' level, why do we want them to spend and still be non-competitive, and possibly later get contracted like the Expos, rather than save, and at least be there on the schedule to fill out dates for our entertainment?
It's not really how money works though, Bassit. Nobody would be willing to leverage the team itself to get a loan for a player contract. So the "value" of the team doesn't matter at all. Revenue is all that matters.
Agreed. There are people on both extremes -- those who think just because a team is worth over a billion it means they have the money to pay huge contracts but also those who think revenue is the only thing that matters when by that logic no business would ever invest in itself through outside financing.
Revenue is everything when it comes to payroll though. Payroll is not an “investment”. It doesn’t appreciate in value. It is an expense. If you’re taking out debt for reasons other than cash flow to cover payroll, you’d better start making more revenue soon or you’ll wind up bankrupt (which for an MLB owner just means selling the team for more than the purchase price, so she’s no tears).
If you spend money on the team you send the money to fans that the team is worth caring about. That’s a part of why the A’s attendance and revenue is so low; the owners have shown that they don’t care about the team, so why should the fans?
Contrary to popular belief, the A’s have not always had poor attendance. In the late 80s and early 90s they came close to averaging a sellout, and in the early 2000s they were solidly middle of the pack, despite having much greater competition for fans from the Giants (new ballpark and the biggest name in baseball). But as it became clear the ownership did not care about the team, the fans started not to care as much. Their attendance was on the rise 2012-2014, but then they refused to spend money on the team, and fans stopped caring.
And idk the numbers, but I would bet A’s merch sales are at an all time low.
Obviously there is more to it than that, but that’s a part of it. Giving fans a consistently good product with players fans can get attached to and more fans are more likely to support the team.
It most definitely is an investment in the team. Running a higher payroll to be more competitive brings in more fans, more revenue, more sponsors, etc. A team can try being more competitive without higher payroll but even that has its risks in not having star players who bring in revenue despite being a good team overall (e.g. Rays).
I’m not going to argue semantics, but if you’re adding payroll to grow revenue that’s no different than what I said above. If you’re going into debt to add payroll, it better result in enough additional revenue from fans, sponsors, or whatever to make up the difference at some point or you go bankrupt.
Sports are the only business venture where it's seen as acceptable not to use debt to risk growing the brand. Even taken at face value, owners are effectively saying that they feel leveraging their product is not worth it because they either think they cannot grow revenues or do not think it's wroth it to attempt to grow revenues. Of course, in reality, they're not operating at a loss because they can just choose not to.
Basically, owners are justifying not spending because they don't want to risk anything to improve the company. This would fly at literally no company in America other than sports. If it was a publicly traded company, shareholders would be calling for their heads. It's very clearly a money pump for the owners with zero risk. The perfect investment, and they know it. Of course the consumers and employees are going to be pissed about it.
Don’t bother, this sub is utter delusional about how much money is actually in baseball.
Meanwhile more than half the TV networks carrying MLB games are all going bankrupt at once.
Which is why owners are mad at the Padres now, because it makes owners like Bob Nutting sound like they’re full of shit. Of course, Bob Nutting also makes Bob Nutting sound like he’s full of shit.
I'm happy for SD, but they aren't a fair reference point for a lot of cities. They're spending and improving the team, which is great. Their attendance has improved significantly, also great. However the city also just recently lost it's NFL team and the best live sport available in town is baseball.
Cleveland had a similar stretch in the 90s. The Indians were extremely good and the browns left. We opened a new stadium and sold out 455 straight regular season games. Then the browns came back, and baseball attendance has been down ever since.
Even in 2017 we finished bottom 10 in attendance. That was coming off a game 7 WS loss and setting a regular season win streak record.
I wish Cleveland showed up better for the Guardians, but winning and regularly being in the playoffs isn't enough there clearly.
The Pirates make hundreds of millions more each year than they spend, from TV deals and revenue sharing, ticket prices, merchandise, and advertising and choose not to
Every team received over 100$ mil from revenue sharing alone in 2022, so not including gate prices and merchandise, yes hundreds. And they turn down locking up Brian Reynolds for 8 years at 17$ mill aav…
https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Revenue_sharing
> In Major League Baseball, 48% of local revenues are subject to revenue sharing and are distributed equally among all 30 teams, with each team receiving 3.3% of the total sum generated. As a result, in 2018, each team received $118 million from this pot.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2022/04/07/how-major-league-baseball-could-crack-11-billion-in-revenues-in-2022/?sh=6be8167d7f63
https://www.blessyouboys.com/2021/12/16/22831008/mlbs-revenue-sharing-problem-and-how-to-solve-it
Teams also receive a share of national revenues, which were estimated to be $91 million per club in 2018, and they still have kept 52 percent of their own local revenues. And their payroll is how much?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/290067/income-distribution-of-mlb-regular-season-tv-audience/
https://twitter.com/cdgoldstein/status/1488619502787088384
> starting in 2022 every MLB team will receive a guaranteed $60.1 million via national TV deals (averaging out the money from the life of those deals). Likely every local tv deal averages >$40m per year. So every single team is getting $100m+ guaranteed before selling a ticket.
https://twitter.com/cdgoldstein/status/1488621060706738193
> That's before revenue sharing for smaller markets, too. Doesn't include national gambling deals (MGM), or sponsorships (FTX) or any of that stuff.
Cool, the usual suspects.
That BBRef wiki page is just inaccurate. Use [this write-up](http://www.captainsblog.info/2020/03/07/looking-under-the-hood-of-mlbs-revenue-sharing-plan-yankees-baseball-red-sox-mets-how-does-baseballs-revenue-sharing-work/25425/) as a much more accurate digestion of the Byzantine revenue sharing schema described in the [CBA](https://www.mlbplayers.com/_files/ugd/b0a4c2_95883690627349e0a5203f61b93715b5.pdf).
The Maury Brown MLB aggregate revenues article does not touch on individual team splits at all, so I’m not sure what I’m supposed to read into that.
That SBNation BlessYouBoys article is citing the same flawed BBRef blog post above. See my prior rebuttal on that one.
The Goldstein tweets are correct. Revenue sharing Payees like the Pirates will get aa bit over $100M/year from TV (well, they did until their RSN went kaput this week). Forbes tracks all that and [estimates](https://www.forbes.com/teams/pittsburgh-pirates/) the Pirates’ EBITDA at $64M. That’s what Nutting pocketed for 2021 after expenses. That’s the number to get upset about. Not some made-up “hundreds of millions” that I was disputing above.
> CBA explicitly states that “each Club shall use its revenue sharing receipts…in an effort to improve its performance on the field.” So, when the Pirates, for example, cut payroll, but report an operating profit that’s about equal to its revenue sharing receipts, there’s good reason to question whether the team is living up to its obligation
Hilarious to quote a source that calls out your own team for suspicion of not even using the revenue sharing money for it's stated purpose.
> As a reminder, the model upon which this analysis is based has inherent flaws. Without access to the precise inputs that go into the formula, we can’t definitively calculate exactly how much each team is contributing to or drawing from MLB’s revenue sharing plan.
Great source.
>The Goldstein tweets are correct. Revenue sharing Payees like the Pirates will get aa bit over $100M/year from TV (well, they did until their RSN went kaput this week).
https://dodgerblue.com/mlb-teams-receive-at-least-100-million-annually-from-tv-rights-contracts/2022/02/12/
> From the financial side, the (national TV) revenue will be split to give each team $60.1 million annually.
> Along with the TV deals, MLB teams also receive extra money through revenue sharing. Each team pools 48% of the revenue they earn and the total amount is then split evenly (3.3% of the total) and given to each team. Teams receive more than $110 million through revenue sharing.
And then the 2nd Goldstein tweet:
> That's before revenue sharing for smaller markets, too. Doesn't include national gambling deals (MGM), or sponsorships (FTX) or any of that stuff.
We're at $170M in shared revenue before any of the "stuff" Goldstein mentions, or the YouTube/Apple streaming deals (which are small potatoes compared to the national TV deals, but still), and the other 52% of local revenue.
The Pirates' all-inclusive, CBT hit payroll for 2022 was $75,399,389.
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/pittsburgh-pirates/payroll/2022/
We'll never know what the Pirates' actual financials were for 2022. But come on.
> Hilarious to quote a source that calls out your own team for suspicion of not even using the revenue sharing money for it’s stated purpose.
I wonder if the grievance from that very behavior the union filed back in 2018 will ever be resolved. It’s been five years. Where’s the judgement?
Anyway, nice deflection. The point was that revenue sharing isn’t a flat pool+split arrangement like that bogus BBRef wiki page. Are you under the impression I'm happy with the Pirates' payroll? I'm not. But I don't suffer bullshit either. We don't need to lay out bogus arguments.
> Great source.
Another deflection. Again, the point is not the numbers they overlayed on Article XXIV from Forbes, the point is there is a complex calculation for revenue sharing distribution that is absolutely *not* “every team just gets $180M”. Revenue sharing is not a flat pool no matter how many lazy journalists or hapless Redditors reading their inaccurate writings try to insist otherwise.
> We’re at $170M in shared revenue before any of the “stuff” Goldstein mentions, or the YouTube/Apple streaming deals (which are small potatoes compared to the national Al TV deals, but still), land the other 52% of local revenue.
You’re double-counting a bit. The national TV and sponsorship revenue is an even split. That includes [$550M/year from ESPN](https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2021/05/14/espns-7-year-392-billion-renewal-with-mlb-starts-in-2022/), Apple and Peacock [add another $115M annually](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2022/03/09/mlb-deals-with-apple-and-peacock-worth-115-million-annually-combined/). Fox and Turner dwarf those with their [$729M/year](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2018/11/mlb-fox-deal-extension-2028/) and [$470M/year](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2020/06/mlb-tbs-deal-extension-lcs-division-series-2028/) respectively which includes the Postseason (no wonder the owners wanted expanded playoffs). I haven’t found any reporting on the value of the YouTube deal, but that’s likely relatively small given the Apple and Peacock sums. Let’s just go with MLBTR’s [total estimate](https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/03/mlb-apple-friday-night-baseball-streaming-deal.html) of $1.96B for TV + streaming revenue. Divide by 30 and you’re at Goldstein’s $65M per club. That’s the even share of national TV money in total. But wait! We need to account for [sponsorship revenue](https://frontofficesports.com/newsletter/mlb-generates-1-2b-in-sponsorships/), which is also evenly distributed 30 ways to the tune of just shy of $40M per club. Now we're at $105M Central Fund revenue sharing for all the teams. That's a far cry from "$170M in shared revenue before any of the “stuff” Goldstein mentions". It's $105M *after* all the stuff he mentions.
Now for local revenue. There’s conflicting reporting, but the highest number for the Pirates came from the [recent story](https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2023/02/24/rsn-breaking-news.aspx) about WBD informing the Pirates, Astros, and Rockies they would be exiting the RSN business in a month. $60M in local TV. Gameday revenue is local of course, which for the Pirates are estimated to be a paltry $21M. Who knows that the local sponsorships look like, but let's go nuts and say the Pirates' local revenues total $100M, 48% of which is subject to revenue sharing. The Pirates surely get it back on net, but what they get on top of that is their weighted cut per Article XXIV of the CBA.
So we're somewhere around $205M *total* revenue accounted for, which is less than Forbes' estimates, but we haven’t guessed what the Article XXIV receipts are. Want to dispute they're roughly another $50M? That's a number we just don't have the inputs to calculate using the formulas in Article XXIV. We're right back at Forbes' $258M estimate for the Pirates after revenue sharing is accounted for.
What's the point of all this? I'm not trying to prove the Pirates can't spend more than they do. They can surely afford to roughly double their current payroll without spilling red ink. But so what? That's not what I was disputing way up there at the top of the thread. The original bunkum claim made was that "the Pirates make hundreds of millions more each year than they spend", to which I responded, "Tens, sure. Hundreds?" and here we are, way down here, proving me right with detailed sourcing. The Pirates "made" $64M more than they spent in 2021 according to Forbes, and while those are just estimates, I really doubt they're off by enough to validate the original claim.
This was the third result under the exact search I gave you
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2023/01/10/mlb-sets-new-revenue-record-exceeding-108-billion-for-2022/amp/
There’s nothing in that article supporting your claim that “the Pirates make hundreds of millions more each year than they spend”, but if we’re citing Forbes, their [most recent estimates](https://www.forbes.com/teams/pittsburgh-pirates/) for the Pirates *total revenue* after debt payments was $258M (that includes all the different revenue streams you mention). Most importantly to your made-up point, Forbes estimated the operating income at $64M. That’s the revenue left unspent on expenses including payroll. So like I said, tens not hundreds.
So yeah, plenty of money there to pay a Bryan Reynolds what he’s asking and then some. But there’s not “hundreds of millions” sloshing around unspent on marquee free agents.
You guys also seem to think you need the 350 mil in the bank when you sign a guy which is not true. Nutting probably doesn’t have half a billion in the bank but to sign someone like machado, you only need 30 mill every year, it’s not a lump sum payment.
Edit: classy Reddit reporting me to the suicide hotline for no reason
Exactly.
Trust me, don't try to point out the way finance works in here. I've been in finance and accounting for as long as the average Redditor has been alive (30 yrs), and they can't think beyond "spend now, earn later," which is not a long-term viable business model whatsoever. And the Forbes valuation that Bassitt is referring to always causes a deluge of misinformation. It's not worth it.
Sports teams are a weird case though. You actually can over spend based on your current revenue and end up making a killing, but it depends on winning. I mean look at the astros, they went from a shithole organization to a top org in baseball. Their valuation in the last decade went from 26th in the league at 530 mil to 13th and worth 2 billion. That’s a pretty solid return on investment, especially since the astros have turned an operating profit every year since then.
The issue is that it’s a risk, cause if you shell out money to try and be the next astros, you might just crash and burn and lose hundreds of millions in the process. Most of the cheap owner just aren’t willing to take that risk.
>Trust me, don't try to point out the way finance works in here. I've been in finance and accounting for as long as the average Redditor has been alive (30 yrs), and they can't think beyond "spend now, earn later," which is not a long-term viable business model whatsoever.
I love how you try to flex that you are superior to everyone here because everyone other than you are stupid kids that don't know how things work, then immediately turn around and attempt to gaslight everyone by saying that spending money is not a viable business model in sports as though all the highest spending teams in the world aren't the most valuable.
In other words: take your complex and shove it right next to where you take it from the owners.
This insipid moral narrative of spending is a horse bit in people's mouths. Baseball teams should not be private property at all. Stop praising these parasites.
I have a hard time imagining that recipients of MLB revenue sharing, which is presently over $100m per team every year, are losing cash hand over fist. Operationally there are probably some clubs who operate at a loss but they've never been keen to open their books and prove it.
Also if there are "losses" a lot of owners have real estate and other "non-baseball" revenue streams associated around the team which makes up that difference. That's why every owner wants a stadium district type thing around the park when building new stadiums like the A's
Isn’t this what the Cubs do? Point to the team as a struggle to break even (if that even is true) and completely ignore how much income they have from their other businesses that directly profit off the baseball team
The cubs only break even? That has to be made up Edit: I know that's what you're saying but that is a real "I think you're dumb" kinda lie
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29257106/cubs-tom-ricketts-says-most-revenue-goes-right-back-team > "Here's something I hope baseball fans understand," Ricketts said. "Most baseball owners don't take money out of their team. They raise all the revenue they can from tickets and media rights, and they take out their expenses, and they give all the money left to their GM to spend. > "The league itself does not make a lot of cash. I think there is a perception that we hoard cash and we take money out and it's all sitting in a pile we've collected over the years. Well, it isn't. Because no one anticipated a pandemic. No one expects to have to draw down on the reserves from the past. Every team has to figure out a way to plug the hole."
> The league itself does not make a lot of cash. The league made almost 11 billion dollars last year, they really do think every fan is dumb
Have you seen this sub? Plenty are dying to defend the billionaires
That’s especially true in the Cardinals’ sub. I just can’t wrap my head around it. With fans like that, the owners don’t need PR firms.
"The Cardinals Way" has included fans carrying water for ownership's bullshit for decades
Go to the Giants sub... It's terrible
Yeah, it's full of Giants fans 🤢
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What are you talking about. Everybody hates Charles Johnson. I've never seen him mentioned without palpable loathing seeping from every word.
I'm talking about the number of people who think that the Giants couldn't afford to spend $250M+ on players every year. There are a ton of people of that mindset. Also, Charles doesn't run the ownership group anymore, his son does. It is also a group of people making the decisions
Yup, the amount of people blaming the FO and manager while saying nothing about ownership is staggering. Surely you wouldn't be part of that group.
Did it “make” 11B or was that the revenue?
It's revenue but even if every MLB team ran a 300 million payroll that would only end up being 9 billion in salaries. Would leave 2 billion to spend on everything else, or 66 million per team
$66 million for all non-player-salary expenses sounds like a really tight budget.
It would be, but of course 0 teams ran a $300m payroll. Only 6 teams are even over 200.
There were only 6 teams above even $200m last year. The hypothetical stands.
Except...not every team runs a 300M payroll, do they?
The Braves are publicly traded so you can get a little insight from what they report. [Here's a breakdown of their 2021 financials](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-braves-made-some-money-in-2021/), with this paragraph I think being most relevant: > To make that money, the team spent $457 million dollars, split between $377 million in “other operating expenses” and $80 million in “selling, general, and administrative expenses.” The exact split there doesn’t matter; that’s just the sum cost the Braves paid between salary and purchases. It also historically includes revenue sharing payments, but their exact status is in flux this year, and I won’t claim to know whether the Braves have debited future payments against their income or chosen not to count any revenue sharing costs, as they’ve only provided a top-line view of their financials. $457M does seem crazy high considering their payroll that season I believe was about $172M. It's unfortunate they didn't provide a breakdown because I can't imagine what all composes the other $285M.
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I want to bang these owners over the head and scream "*JUST BECAUSE YOUR EARNINGS ARE PAYING OFF OTHER CAPITAL EXPENDITURES DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOUR ENTERPRISE IS A POOR INVESTMENT!*" Am I supposed to sit here and imagine that the Cubs have an EBITDA close to 0?? It's the same trick DI NCAA football programs pull to pretend that they're unprofitable. Just crank up the expenses and pass off that shiny, new athletic center as part of your COGS.
Also establish a few dozen entities that all profit directly from the mlb team, but leave them off of your calculations.
Like, say, the Ricketts buying a Wrigleyville properties but with a separate investment group. That won't come up on the Cubs balance sheet, but obviously these are revenues generated by the Chicago Cubs baseball team and will go directly into the pockets of Chicago Cubs ownership.
Ugh, and they all did plug the hole when there was no home attendance? What was it, by transmutation or something?
I shared that quote for the claim that no cash actually makes it back to the Rickett’s pockets and is all spent on various aspects of the team.
But his own quote contradicts that.
How so? I understand the quote as Ricketts saying there is no money coming out of the Cubs, anything that would be considered profit is instead put back into the team to be spent. And they don’t even have a savings built up to be used in case of emergency since they never expected revenue to be cut off which is why they were so screwed by the pandemic. My whole point is that the Ricketts talk about the Cubs as a break even operation. Regardless of whether or not it actually is, they’re still making a bunch of money off their ownership of Wrigleyville and Marquee Sports Network. So it’s disingenuous for them when they talk about Cubs finances to act like they don’t have other revenue streams bolstered by the Cubs.
Lol some of those media rights are literally enough to pay for expenses and have enough left over for a 300M dollar team. We haven't even touched tickets and concessions.
Nearly every commercial property owner (especially ones that also operate a business) has a separate holding company in which owns the property and the operating company (in this case the team) who leases the property. They are certainly not losing money, otherwise there wouldn’t be a frenzy of would be buyers for nearly every sports franchise when a prospective sale is announced.
All this could be solved by them opening their books, but strangely they don't for some reason. The fact that some of these people who literally would rather die than give up control of teams should show us everything.
Frankly, if I were an owner of one of the major market clubs I'd be furious at the small market clubs for putting slop on the field every season and coasting on my dime. "Poverty franchises" like Pittsburgh and (as much as I hate to say it) Cleveland et al whose valuations continue to balloon over time and get fat on my gate and valuable local broadcast rights. But I guess infighting between fellow cartel members is less productive than demonizing players as greedy.
No you wouldn't. The Yankees are annoyed that the Rays pocket their money, of course, but they're far better off with that money in Stu's pocket than seeing it hurting them back on the field or contributing to a rise in player salaries.
Might be true for current Yankees, but George was a different [story.](https://reflectionsonbaseball.com/revenue-sharing-george-steinbrenner-soon-to-be-vindicated/)
Ehh, George was using that to argue against revenue sharing in general which is obviously the most preferable circumstance for big market clubs. Once revenue sharing is a given, however, you're better off not having to compete against your own money.
Cleveland doesn’t put slop on the field. We are one of the five winningest teams in the last decade.
Rockies fan checking in.
There is no way any team spending less than 100 million is losing money.
I mean, it’s not like player salaries are the only expenses in running a baseball team - you have front office people, back office people, gameday staff, maintenance staff, training staff, transportation, security, and probably a ton of other expenses. I’m sure most of these teams make money but I doubt every team is pocketing hundreds of millions each year.
How many businesses can you think of that are worth billions, operate a legally sanctioned monopoly, and even manage to pass the cost of their place of business onto local taxpayers?
I'd argue the line is probably $150 million, even for the brokest of broke-ass teams like Oakland. Every team is getting somewhere between $150-$200 million in revenue sharing even before the half of the local revenue they get to keep.
And even when they do operate at a loss they can write it off as a business expense. Absolutely no one should feel any shred of sympathy for the owners who cry poor.
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A larger media market team hit the sale rack and then the owner was like "ehhhh, maybe not" lol. But sure, they're losing tons of money.
Owning a team is unprofitable! Says Manfred employee of the owners
"My team loses me tens of millions every year" "Oh, I'll buy it off you...how much do you want since you paid $180 million for it 15 years ago?" "Oh, how about $1.2 billion?" "..."
Tbf a lot of sports ownership is a prestige thing rather than money making move. Billionaires clamor when a franchise is up for sale just to be part of the club rather than seeing it as a way to make more money. The ones who don't spend just don't want to put more money into their investment.
And yet the value of teams just keeps going up!
Sorry bro but no billionaire is going to sink billions of dollars into a business venture to *lose* money. If they thought that way they wouldn’t be billionaires.
They don’t lose money if they are not spending millions every year on luxury tax. The values will keep on rising and that’s where most of their money is. The funniest thing is I never said they lose money or that ownership is not profitable just that most of it is prestige and a hobby. There are only a few franchises around, so it’s an exclusive club to be part of.
That isn't true. A sports franchise is a hobby for a lot of these people. It's a status symbol and it doesn't matter as much if they make or lose, especially with rev sharing in baseball. They're part of the club and that's what matters
You don’t understand how some of these guys think. Did you not just witness Elon Musk spend 44b on Twitter?
Usually billionaires aren’t complete and total idiots though. “Usually”
If you're a billionaire you're probably not stupid, unless it's strictly inheritance. Lacking in morals probably but not stupid
nah they pretty much usually are. They're just evil and willing to step on anyone to get and hoard as much wealth as possible.
That doesn’t make them an idiot. That makes them assholes.
He did that because he was forced to and also because he's a complete fucking nincompoop
A professional sports team is a license to print money for the owners
Once again, toobyfaire is used to defend an untenable position on reddit, I can’t put into words how much I hate that mealymouthed phrase.
This is a flat out lie. You probably also carry water for union busting as well.
It's like buying a house... You spend a ton monthly on your mortgage and yearly on maintenance and then hope once you sell the appreciation covers enough to make profit. Obviously with the recent increases in franchise values, every long time owner is swimming in appreciation.
Lol, this is a terrible analogy
Thank you. And thank you for your detailed rebuttal.
Honestly, didn't think you would understand it.
Cough... orioles... cough
It's embarrassing to be treated like this as a fan tbh. Giving us actual dogshit on the field and knowing we'll slurp it up like good little piggies as long as they keep putting out articles about the farm system
And this is precisely why I stop watching when they don't make any effort. Call me a fairweather fan or whatever but I'm not continuing to buy a shitty product just because I'm a fan. Speak with your wallet. Stop putting your self worth in what teams you support and how you'll support them no matter what. That's how you end up with a shit organization that knows they don't have to try to earn your dollars. Would you keep buying video games from the same studio if they sucked every single time? No.
Your ownership is still probably traumatized from the Chris Davis contract tbf
I think anytime you hit 50 HRs you should get $150M no questions asked
That's the unfortunate thing about the Orioles ownership. Cheap owners staring at a lot of potential with stars like Adley Rutschman. I like the Blue Jays, but I'd still like to see the Orioles succeed.
Another Chris Bassitt W
A very common Chris Bassitt W. Seems like an awesome guy
I really liked him last year. Can't say I'm too upset considering the upgrades the Mets made, but I am gonna miss his personality. He genuinely seemed like a cool person
Our rotation had amazing vibes and chemistry
Guy is a competitor. I was really pleased with him. I was a little surprised he signed elsewhere, but I don't know all of the details.
Whris Wassit
Average Chris Bassitt
gee he must be talking about steve cohen smh those broke-ass mets
Its crazy to think you could run a 100m a year loss and still sell the team in 10 years for a billion dollar profit.
Kinda like what Ted turner did with the Braves for a while
It's like buying a house... You spend a ton monthly on your mortgage and yearly on maintenance and write as much off on taxes then hope once you sell the appreciation covers enough to make profit. Obviously with the recent increases in franchise values, every long time owner is swimming in appreciation.
Now what if I told you, investing in the S&P500 during the past 15-20 years would have been many multiples better return than buying a baseball team.
Assuming full dividend reinvestment, the S&P500 is only up 348% since 2000. Baseball teams are worth way more than 4.5x as much as they were 20 years ago
Not really sure where you’re getting your number, but the the S&P TR has returned 4.48x since 2000, and 6.83x since 2003/8.71x since 1997 if you don’t cherry pick a downturn.
Not sure where I got my numbers? I said +348%, which is equivalent to your 4.48x figure. I really didn't mean to cherrypick. I was just using 2000 since its a round number.
Sadly, the Rockies are stuck with Dick Monfort. No hope for the foreseeable future in Colorado.
Rockies are spending more money than 14-15 other teams this year. Not that Dick is a good owner but regardless of weird shit he says he’s not cheap and never has been. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/ https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/breakdowns/payroll
Ditto for Moreno. Angels have been top ten spenders since he took over.
Both have terrible farm systems which is the biggest difference
Really the problem is both sets of owners are involved in baseball operations and don’t run the teams very well. Wishfully hoping the same happens with Jim Crane but hasn’t really happened yet
Angels have had a combo of bad luck, horrible contracts, and just nonsense moves.
the angels have a farm system?
Personally I enjoyed the Angels fully committing to the memes and drafting only pitchers in the 2021 draft. It was like they way overcorected to finally address their years of subpar pitching. Even better, the next year their pitching was a strength for the first time in what seemed like a decade. Of course that had nothing to do with the drafted players (shoutout to Chase Silseth) but it's funny to pretend they just decided over night to be better at pitching.
The problem is he spends it on Rendon and Pujols (I love the guy but 240 million could have been spent better to help the team) and Josh Hamilton, etc. plus he isn’t willing to spend past the luxury tax and the person he put in charge of the Team Operations came from marketing and not from baseball… god I am still pissed we are stuck with him as our owner
They should be top 2 spenders just to win once with trout
But don’t they look pinch pennies for everything that isn’t the major league roster? Like wasn’t there the Athletic article recently talking about how their front office employees do stuff extremely outside their job responsibilities because they don’t employ enough staff?
~~That was like 10 years ago so ~~kinda? It happened in the past but afaik it’s not happening now. I’m not saying they’re well run but they’re not cheap. Even if they’re not spending $5M extra on FO, they’re not the Pirates spending $40M on payroll and pocketing $100M in revenue sharing
That was 2020.
Dicks not going to live forever. We will rise from the ashes like a phoenix one day. Just look at the 2012 Astros.
What I don't get (and maybe this is why I'm not rich) is if I had so much money that I was in the uber elite group of sports team owners, I would demand that they be successful. I'd treat it like a hobby. I spend money on my hobbies because I enjoy them. I don't expect them to be profit making ventures. Unless the team was hemorrhaging to the detriment of however I earned all that money in the first place, I'd spend whatever I can to field a competitive team and put butts in the my stadium's seats. What's the point of being the owner of the Pirates, A's or Reds? The teams are perennial laughing stocks. How do you take pride in owning a team that's a joke?
Yeah I don’t get it either. If you can’t afford to spend big sell the team to someone who can
Because they are making shit tons of money, despite what they say. I agree with you, though. Since I was a kid I have dreamed of buying one of my favorite teams and turning them into a perennial contender, regardless of cost. Im like a thousand bucks closer than I was 20 years ago, so I’m starting to think it might not happen :/
im sure if we all went in like...what 20 bucks each? we could put together a good offer
BOB NUTTING (Pirates) is the worst owner in baseball, MLB should force him to sell.
Phone for you, it's a John Fisher who says he is prepared to sue you over saying someone else is the worst owner in baseball.
Miss you, King 👑
I like Chris Bassitt
I have no problem with luxury taxes instead of a salary cap, but the MLB really needs to have a salary floor to prevent this sort of shit. If your owners can't afford or is too damn greedy to spend yearly at a league wide salary floor what in the actual fuck are they doing running an MLB team? Better on field product for every team and more money in the players' pockets.
Was just having this conversation with my dad yesterday. Owners want us to think these teams are bleeding them dry and they can't afford to spend anything. Do people really think if this was true these rich owners would continue to hold on to them for some reason? They're in the business of making money. If it hurt them as much as they claim, they'd sell. They're just cheap.
I’m looking at you Cincy
Phil “where you gunna go” Castelleni in absolute shambles right now.
I was listening to a radio broadcast of spring training and no shit I heard more ads by that loser than actual baseball.
I miss him dude.
This post should have opened: Dear Bob Nutting
Bassitt hound comin atcha! You poor ass millionaires.
I’m not saying teams shouldn’t spend money but using the value of the team is dumb.
Why? We use market value and aav for players who are literally in a cartel, we should use the other side of the cartel.
Single downvote + no response = admission that you're right
The value of the team is determined "mostly" by how much cash flow it generates. It's not dumb at all. The owners insult everyone's intelligence when they suggest owning a team isn't profitable, it's an insane proclamation.
Did the Chargers suddenly start generating a shitload of cash immediately after moving to Los Angeles and losing most of their fanbase? Because in 2014 their value was under a billion dollars. In 2016 it was 2 billion dollars, and now it’s almost 4. Did the Chargers become extremely popular and I missed it, or did their valuation jump massively simply by virtue of moving to a larger market?
Their value went up because the potential to make money is way higher playing at a brand new stadium in a top 2 media market than it is playing at an old stadium in a smaller market.
Yup. These owners all use investment banks non-stop, and the easiest way for an IB to reject an applicant is to ask “if we only had one statement to look at which should it be?” And that answer is 100% always “cash flow”
Yea that was my immediate thought, even though i like his sentiment, it does not tell you anything about how much money they are making. Plus then we need to know how much they need to break even (without counting player payroll).
I mean, it gives you an idea. Things that lose money don’t skyrocket in value consistently, even if there’s a group of billionaires using them as a dick measuring contest.
Amazon did and other companies have. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be used but it cannot be the main or only criteria. Lots of the value is in how rare it is to be able to buy a professional sports team.
If ownership won’t open the books, we don’t have much else to go off of
The same people who make the value estimates also estimate the revenue and expenses, which I think are better number to use than just value when it comes to determining if the teams are making tons of money
I mean valuation is literally based on cash flow and earnings. Bankers use Discounted Cash Flow models and EBITDA to base their valuation models. They then apply a multiple to these models and that is their valuation. Not trying to come across as a dick.
Sports teams have been selling for way over the valuations produced by an audit for quite awhile now though. I remember the clippers going for 2.2 billion when the reports were it was valued at 720 million based on the standards used by accountants for similar businesses. So the valuation at some point became tied heavily to the exclusivity factor and not just the financials
Not really. It’s an asset. And we’re talking about billionaires here, these teams are not their only investments/revenue streams. If any of these owners were really losing money hand over fist and got into financial trouble, the value of their franchises would net then huge gains if they ever sold them. It’s definitely not dumb to consider value of the team.
I’m not saying you’re a boot locker but I’m seeing a trail of saliva on the floorb
It's not bootlicking to point out that a person with no financial knowledge is using an irrelevant number
No one with financial knowledge would discount the value of the asset
I think the only owner that will lose money this year is Cohen, but that’s because in addition to the payroll he’s spending hundreds of millions on upgrading the stadium. Short term loss for tons of profit for years to come that will wipe out any losses this year. Outside of that I don’t think any owner is losing money this year.
Bob Nutting in shambles
I'm pretty surprised a player would have this view
I know it would impossible to implement because the owners would never agree to it without a salary cap which the players would never go for, but a set percentage of what a team makes from their TV Deal, sponsorships, those awful patches on the uniforms, ticket sales, etc. should be forced to go towards the salary of the team or upgrades to the stadium. It is garbage that owners can earn hundreds of millions from the team and barely spend enough to field a team.
Yea but why try to spend and win championship when you can not spend and not try to win a championship, has he thought of that?
Many business owners lie and say they don’t make money but in the next breath they’ll have you believe they’re financial geniuses.
I’ve never hated Chris Bassitt, but now I really like him!
Based Bassit
Thank you! Who doesn’t like teams playing winning baseball!
The Braves had to open their books a couple of years back and what the books showed was they were very close to break even outside of the extra money they made for winning the World Series that year and the real estate deals they have for the properties around the park. People grossly overestimate how big a profit the average MLB team makes per season. The big money in baseball is in the organizational value which accrues very quickly. A team like San Diego is probably operating at a loss but the owner knows they will get back the money if they ever decide to sell. It is also worth noting most teams have an ownership group and not a single owner. When you have a group it is a much harder sell to not be profitable every season.
Wait, you mean billionaires pocket money and make up bullshit about why it can't be spent?
Need a salary cap
In society, we want the rich to spend and pay for everyone else, but suddenly, in baseball we want more capitalism? If teams can't spend up to the Mets' level, why do we want them to spend and still be non-competitive, and possibly later get contracted like the Expos, rather than save, and at least be there on the schedule to fill out dates for our entertainment?
It's not really how money works though, Bassit. Nobody would be willing to leverage the team itself to get a loan for a player contract. So the "value" of the team doesn't matter at all. Revenue is all that matters.
Be crazy if having a good product on the field optimized that revenue.
Agreed. There are people on both extremes -- those who think just because a team is worth over a billion it means they have the money to pay huge contracts but also those who think revenue is the only thing that matters when by that logic no business would ever invest in itself through outside financing.
Revenue is everything when it comes to payroll though. Payroll is not an “investment”. It doesn’t appreciate in value. It is an expense. If you’re taking out debt for reasons other than cash flow to cover payroll, you’d better start making more revenue soon or you’ll wind up bankrupt (which for an MLB owner just means selling the team for more than the purchase price, so she’s no tears).
If you spend money on the team you send the money to fans that the team is worth caring about. That’s a part of why the A’s attendance and revenue is so low; the owners have shown that they don’t care about the team, so why should the fans? Contrary to popular belief, the A’s have not always had poor attendance. In the late 80s and early 90s they came close to averaging a sellout, and in the early 2000s they were solidly middle of the pack, despite having much greater competition for fans from the Giants (new ballpark and the biggest name in baseball). But as it became clear the ownership did not care about the team, the fans started not to care as much. Their attendance was on the rise 2012-2014, but then they refused to spend money on the team, and fans stopped caring. And idk the numbers, but I would bet A’s merch sales are at an all time low. Obviously there is more to it than that, but that’s a part of it. Giving fans a consistently good product with players fans can get attached to and more fans are more likely to support the team.
It most definitely is an investment in the team. Running a higher payroll to be more competitive brings in more fans, more revenue, more sponsors, etc. A team can try being more competitive without higher payroll but even that has its risks in not having star players who bring in revenue despite being a good team overall (e.g. Rays).
I’m not going to argue semantics, but if you’re adding payroll to grow revenue that’s no different than what I said above. If you’re going into debt to add payroll, it better result in enough additional revenue from fans, sponsors, or whatever to make up the difference at some point or you go bankrupt.
Sports are the only business venture where it's seen as acceptable not to use debt to risk growing the brand. Even taken at face value, owners are effectively saying that they feel leveraging their product is not worth it because they either think they cannot grow revenues or do not think it's wroth it to attempt to grow revenues. Of course, in reality, they're not operating at a loss because they can just choose not to. Basically, owners are justifying not spending because they don't want to risk anything to improve the company. This would fly at literally no company in America other than sports. If it was a publicly traded company, shareholders would be calling for their heads. It's very clearly a money pump for the owners with zero risk. The perfect investment, and they know it. Of course the consumers and employees are going to be pissed about it.
Man, your entire profile is a font of awful takes.
Don’t bother, this sub is utter delusional about how much money is actually in baseball. Meanwhile more than half the TV networks carrying MLB games are all going bankrupt at once.
Those are TV networks tho
They’re the TV networks that represent the single most reliable (until now) source of local revenue for every team in baseball.
But they're going bankrupt because people are tired of getting assfucked by cable providers, not because baseball
And you can be damn sure the Pittsburgh Pirates don't have 350 mil on hand to put in escrow for Machado.
This reads like a comment about the Padres from about 5 years ago.
Which is why owners are mad at the Padres now, because it makes owners like Bob Nutting sound like they’re full of shit. Of course, Bob Nutting also makes Bob Nutting sound like he’s full of shit.
Bob Nutting is both full of shit and in no position to carry a $300M+ payroll.
I mean he could double his payroll and not come close to $300M. He’s got a LONG way to go before he can complain.
I'm happy for SD, but they aren't a fair reference point for a lot of cities. They're spending and improving the team, which is great. Their attendance has improved significantly, also great. However the city also just recently lost it's NFL team and the best live sport available in town is baseball. Cleveland had a similar stretch in the 90s. The Indians were extremely good and the browns left. We opened a new stadium and sold out 455 straight regular season games. Then the browns came back, and baseball attendance has been down ever since. Even in 2017 we finished bottom 10 in attendance. That was coming off a game 7 WS loss and setting a regular season win streak record. I wish Cleveland showed up better for the Guardians, but winning and regularly being in the playoffs isn't enough there clearly.
The Pirates make hundreds of millions more each year than they spend, from TV deals and revenue sharing, ticket prices, merchandise, and advertising and choose not to
Hundreds, you say? Tens, sure. Hundreds? You’re spinning yarns.
Every team received over 100$ mil from revenue sharing alone in 2022, so not including gate prices and merchandise, yes hundreds. And they turn down locking up Brian Reynolds for 8 years at 17$ mill aav…
Source?
[first link I found from google](https://dodgerblue.com/mlb-teams-receive-at-least-100-million-annually-from-tv-rights-contracts/2022/02/12/amp/)
https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Revenue_sharing > In Major League Baseball, 48% of local revenues are subject to revenue sharing and are distributed equally among all 30 teams, with each team receiving 3.3% of the total sum generated. As a result, in 2018, each team received $118 million from this pot. https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2022/04/07/how-major-league-baseball-could-crack-11-billion-in-revenues-in-2022/?sh=6be8167d7f63 https://www.blessyouboys.com/2021/12/16/22831008/mlbs-revenue-sharing-problem-and-how-to-solve-it Teams also receive a share of national revenues, which were estimated to be $91 million per club in 2018, and they still have kept 52 percent of their own local revenues. And their payroll is how much? https://www.statista.com/statistics/290067/income-distribution-of-mlb-regular-season-tv-audience/ https://twitter.com/cdgoldstein/status/1488619502787088384 > starting in 2022 every MLB team will receive a guaranteed $60.1 million via national TV deals (averaging out the money from the life of those deals). Likely every local tv deal averages >$40m per year. So every single team is getting $100m+ guaranteed before selling a ticket. https://twitter.com/cdgoldstein/status/1488621060706738193 > That's before revenue sharing for smaller markets, too. Doesn't include national gambling deals (MGM), or sponsorships (FTX) or any of that stuff.
Cool, the usual suspects. That BBRef wiki page is just inaccurate. Use [this write-up](http://www.captainsblog.info/2020/03/07/looking-under-the-hood-of-mlbs-revenue-sharing-plan-yankees-baseball-red-sox-mets-how-does-baseballs-revenue-sharing-work/25425/) as a much more accurate digestion of the Byzantine revenue sharing schema described in the [CBA](https://www.mlbplayers.com/_files/ugd/b0a4c2_95883690627349e0a5203f61b93715b5.pdf). The Maury Brown MLB aggregate revenues article does not touch on individual team splits at all, so I’m not sure what I’m supposed to read into that. That SBNation BlessYouBoys article is citing the same flawed BBRef blog post above. See my prior rebuttal on that one. The Goldstein tweets are correct. Revenue sharing Payees like the Pirates will get aa bit over $100M/year from TV (well, they did until their RSN went kaput this week). Forbes tracks all that and [estimates](https://www.forbes.com/teams/pittsburgh-pirates/) the Pirates’ EBITDA at $64M. That’s what Nutting pocketed for 2021 after expenses. That’s the number to get upset about. Not some made-up “hundreds of millions” that I was disputing above.
> CBA explicitly states that “each Club shall use its revenue sharing receipts…in an effort to improve its performance on the field.” So, when the Pirates, for example, cut payroll, but report an operating profit that’s about equal to its revenue sharing receipts, there’s good reason to question whether the team is living up to its obligation Hilarious to quote a source that calls out your own team for suspicion of not even using the revenue sharing money for it's stated purpose. > As a reminder, the model upon which this analysis is based has inherent flaws. Without access to the precise inputs that go into the formula, we can’t definitively calculate exactly how much each team is contributing to or drawing from MLB’s revenue sharing plan. Great source. >The Goldstein tweets are correct. Revenue sharing Payees like the Pirates will get aa bit over $100M/year from TV (well, they did until their RSN went kaput this week). https://dodgerblue.com/mlb-teams-receive-at-least-100-million-annually-from-tv-rights-contracts/2022/02/12/ > From the financial side, the (national TV) revenue will be split to give each team $60.1 million annually. > Along with the TV deals, MLB teams also receive extra money through revenue sharing. Each team pools 48% of the revenue they earn and the total amount is then split evenly (3.3% of the total) and given to each team. Teams receive more than $110 million through revenue sharing. And then the 2nd Goldstein tweet: > That's before revenue sharing for smaller markets, too. Doesn't include national gambling deals (MGM), or sponsorships (FTX) or any of that stuff. We're at $170M in shared revenue before any of the "stuff" Goldstein mentions, or the YouTube/Apple streaming deals (which are small potatoes compared to the national TV deals, but still), and the other 52% of local revenue. The Pirates' all-inclusive, CBT hit payroll for 2022 was $75,399,389. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/pittsburgh-pirates/payroll/2022/ We'll never know what the Pirates' actual financials were for 2022. But come on.
> Hilarious to quote a source that calls out your own team for suspicion of not even using the revenue sharing money for it’s stated purpose. I wonder if the grievance from that very behavior the union filed back in 2018 will ever be resolved. It’s been five years. Where’s the judgement? Anyway, nice deflection. The point was that revenue sharing isn’t a flat pool+split arrangement like that bogus BBRef wiki page. Are you under the impression I'm happy with the Pirates' payroll? I'm not. But I don't suffer bullshit either. We don't need to lay out bogus arguments. > Great source. Another deflection. Again, the point is not the numbers they overlayed on Article XXIV from Forbes, the point is there is a complex calculation for revenue sharing distribution that is absolutely *not* “every team just gets $180M”. Revenue sharing is not a flat pool no matter how many lazy journalists or hapless Redditors reading their inaccurate writings try to insist otherwise. > We’re at $170M in shared revenue before any of the “stuff” Goldstein mentions, or the YouTube/Apple streaming deals (which are small potatoes compared to the national Al TV deals, but still), land the other 52% of local revenue. You’re double-counting a bit. The national TV and sponsorship revenue is an even split. That includes [$550M/year from ESPN](https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2021/05/14/espns-7-year-392-billion-renewal-with-mlb-starts-in-2022/), Apple and Peacock [add another $115M annually](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2022/03/09/mlb-deals-with-apple-and-peacock-worth-115-million-annually-combined/). Fox and Turner dwarf those with their [$729M/year](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2018/11/mlb-fox-deal-extension-2028/) and [$470M/year](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2020/06/mlb-tbs-deal-extension-lcs-division-series-2028/) respectively which includes the Postseason (no wonder the owners wanted expanded playoffs). I haven’t found any reporting on the value of the YouTube deal, but that’s likely relatively small given the Apple and Peacock sums. Let’s just go with MLBTR’s [total estimate](https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/03/mlb-apple-friday-night-baseball-streaming-deal.html) of $1.96B for TV + streaming revenue. Divide by 30 and you’re at Goldstein’s $65M per club. That’s the even share of national TV money in total. But wait! We need to account for [sponsorship revenue](https://frontofficesports.com/newsletter/mlb-generates-1-2b-in-sponsorships/), which is also evenly distributed 30 ways to the tune of just shy of $40M per club. Now we're at $105M Central Fund revenue sharing for all the teams. That's a far cry from "$170M in shared revenue before any of the “stuff” Goldstein mentions". It's $105M *after* all the stuff he mentions. Now for local revenue. There’s conflicting reporting, but the highest number for the Pirates came from the [recent story](https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2023/02/24/rsn-breaking-news.aspx) about WBD informing the Pirates, Astros, and Rockies they would be exiting the RSN business in a month. $60M in local TV. Gameday revenue is local of course, which for the Pirates are estimated to be a paltry $21M. Who knows that the local sponsorships look like, but let's go nuts and say the Pirates' local revenues total $100M, 48% of which is subject to revenue sharing. The Pirates surely get it back on net, but what they get on top of that is their weighted cut per Article XXIV of the CBA. So we're somewhere around $205M *total* revenue accounted for, which is less than Forbes' estimates, but we haven’t guessed what the Article XXIV receipts are. Want to dispute they're roughly another $50M? That's a number we just don't have the inputs to calculate using the formulas in Article XXIV. We're right back at Forbes' $258M estimate for the Pirates after revenue sharing is accounted for. What's the point of all this? I'm not trying to prove the Pirates can't spend more than they do. They can surely afford to roughly double their current payroll without spilling red ink. But so what? That's not what I was disputing way up there at the top of the thread. The original bunkum claim made was that "the Pirates make hundreds of millions more each year than they spend", to which I responded, "Tens, sure. Hundreds?" and here we are, way down here, proving me right with detailed sourcing. The Pirates "made" $64M more than they spent in 2021 according to Forbes, and while those are just estimates, I really doubt they're off by enough to validate the original claim.
Source? Use google and look up MLB revenue sharing 2022
lol, ok, source is “just trust me bro”
This was the third result under the exact search I gave you https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2023/01/10/mlb-sets-new-revenue-record-exceeding-108-billion-for-2022/amp/
There’s nothing in that article supporting your claim that “the Pirates make hundreds of millions more each year than they spend”, but if we’re citing Forbes, their [most recent estimates](https://www.forbes.com/teams/pittsburgh-pirates/) for the Pirates *total revenue* after debt payments was $258M (that includes all the different revenue streams you mention). Most importantly to your made-up point, Forbes estimated the operating income at $64M. That’s the revenue left unspent on expenses including payroll. So like I said, tens not hundreds. So yeah, plenty of money there to pay a Bryan Reynolds what he’s asking and then some. But there’s not “hundreds of millions” sloshing around unspent on marquee free agents.
Found Nuttings account.
Dude in this sub, it's not worth pointing out how it works. I've tried.
You guys also seem to think you need the 350 mil in the bank when you sign a guy which is not true. Nutting probably doesn’t have half a billion in the bank but to sign someone like machado, you only need 30 mill every year, it’s not a lump sum payment. Edit: classy Reddit reporting me to the suicide hotline for no reason
Exactly. Trust me, don't try to point out the way finance works in here. I've been in finance and accounting for as long as the average Redditor has been alive (30 yrs), and they can't think beyond "spend now, earn later," which is not a long-term viable business model whatsoever. And the Forbes valuation that Bassitt is referring to always causes a deluge of misinformation. It's not worth it.
Sports teams are a weird case though. You actually can over spend based on your current revenue and end up making a killing, but it depends on winning. I mean look at the astros, they went from a shithole organization to a top org in baseball. Their valuation in the last decade went from 26th in the league at 530 mil to 13th and worth 2 billion. That’s a pretty solid return on investment, especially since the astros have turned an operating profit every year since then. The issue is that it’s a risk, cause if you shell out money to try and be the next astros, you might just crash and burn and lose hundreds of millions in the process. Most of the cheap owner just aren’t willing to take that risk.
We're in agreement
>Trust me, don't try to point out the way finance works in here. I've been in finance and accounting for as long as the average Redditor has been alive (30 yrs), and they can't think beyond "spend now, earn later," which is not a long-term viable business model whatsoever. I love how you try to flex that you are superior to everyone here because everyone other than you are stupid kids that don't know how things work, then immediately turn around and attempt to gaslight everyone by saying that spending money is not a viable business model in sports as though all the highest spending teams in the world aren't the most valuable. In other words: take your complex and shove it right next to where you take it from the owners.
This insipid moral narrative of spending is a horse bit in people's mouths. Baseball teams should not be private property at all. Stop praising these parasites.
We get it, you're against horses because one bit you and you have a parasite on your property or whatever.
You just be an insufferable person in real life
Lower ticket prices
Came up into pro hall as a White Sox prospect. Came to prominence pitching for the A’s. Pretty good indictment.
Ever try to build an underground apocalypse city on a budget, Chris?
Hey Dickhead Monfort and the Rockies front office what this guy says.
Red Sox fans: this mothahfuckah spittin’