MLB '09

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

To me, though, in looking at the financial troubles of the NBA at present, I wonder how long it is before salaries price the average fan out of the ability to go to the game and the teams start to lose money. That salary will push up other salaries and eventually it becomes unsustainable. Or so I'd figure. I wonder when that point hits.

A few things. Baseball tickets remain dirt cheap compared to every other pro sport, so they've got a ways to go. The Dodgers continue to pull in record attendance #'s, and with Manny that won't stop. Even with this hefty contract, the Dodgers have significantly reduced their payroll this season over last. So if having a name like Manny continues to fill seats in a down economy, he's worth it.

In terms of Manny's more direct financial impact, two other factors haven't been mentioned. Merchandising. We went to the first game that Manny played in for the Dodgers. By the time we arrived at the park, every 4th person had some sort of Manny merchandise. A big $ player, especially one as charismatic as Manny, is a merchandising sales engine. People don't just buy one Manny-cornrows wig and leave it at that. The money just keeps coming in.

The other thing to consider is that Manny was, without argument, the difference between the Dodgers making the playoffs and winning the first round vs. finishing the season out of the playoffs. I don't know what the teams themselves make from that, but I know that the player bonus for making it to the 2nd round and losing was about $120K. With a 40 man roster, that's near $5 million. So I figure the team must receive a decent bonus as well, on top of the added merchandise and other revenue.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

A few things. Baseball tickets remain dirt cheap compared to every other pro sport, so they've got a ways to go. The Dodgers continue to pull in record attendance #'s, and with Manny that won't stop. Even with this hefty contract, the Dodgers have significantly reduced their payroll this season over last. So if having a name like Manny continues to fill seats in a down economy, he's worth it.

In terms of Manny's more direct financial impact, two other factors haven't been mentioned. Merchandising. We went to the first game that Manny played in for the Dodgers. By the time we arrived at the park, every 4th person had some sort of Manny merchandise. A big $ player, especially one as charismatic as Manny, is a merchandising sales engine. People don't just buy one Manny-cornrows wig and leave it at that. The money just keeps coming in.

The other thing to consider is that Manny was, without argument, the difference between the Dodgers making the playoffs and winning the first round vs. finishing the season out of the playoffs. I don't know what the teams themselves make from that, but I know that the player bonus for making it to the 2nd round and losing was about $120K. With a 40 man roster, that's near $5 million. So I figure the team must receive a decent bonus as well, on top of the added merchandise and other revenue.

All really good points. One of the problems for the NBA is certainly their ticket prices. Last year I took my daughter and 3 of her friends to a Suns game for her B-day. 3 rows from the top of the arena, $65 per ticket. Ouch. I had a former player of mine give me two 3rd row tickets to the Suns-Lakers game last Sunday. Face value was $225 each. Double ouch (except to me they were free).

[Alex]

There is a player statistic called Win Share that attempts to estimate how many wins a specific player contributed to the team. There are various flavors to the statistic but by one of them last year Manny Ramirez contributed a total of 11.3 wins to the Red Sox/Dodgers last season.

In about half a season, he contributed 6.3.

If you replace him with an average outfielder you'd expect that average person to have contributed about 2 wins (4 over the season). So, if you assume similar production the Dodgers might be expecting Manny to provide an extra 7 wins or so in a full season (assuming an average replacement was available).

In baseball, even though they play a lot of games, 7 is a HUGE number. Last year, only 2 of the 6 playoff teams would still have made the post-season if you subtracted 7 games from their win column (Angels would still have won division by 14 games and the White Sox might have become a wild card team). Of the 24 teams that did not make the playoffs, 8 would have if everybody else stayed the same and you gave them an extra 7 wins.

Whether that is worth $25 million I can't say but apparently it is to the Dodgers. Keep in mind, though, that while baseball is a for profit business that doesn't mean that the irrational desire to win at the expense of pure profit is completely removed.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Alex

Keep in mind, though, that while baseball is a for profit business that doesn't mean that the irrational desire to win at the expense of pure profit is completely removed.

It's an field level vs back of house thing. The players coaches and staff generally put winning first while the back of the house, based on my experience with MLB, puts profits first. Of course for the most part winning equals more profits so both sides remain united but when they don't, it's not the folks on the field calling the shots.

[Ghoulish Delight]

These numbers might be off a few dollars as I didn't look to hard at whether these were for the most recent seasons, or the prior season, but I doubt any of them changed significantly in relation to each other:

League-Wide Average Ticket Prices:
NFL - $72
NHL - $49
NBA - $48
MLB - $25

So yeah, MLB is still the best deal of the bunch from that perspective. Of course with double the games in a season as basketball and more than double average seating capacity...

Approx. Total Season Attendance (again might be off a bit depending on which year came up first in my search):
NFL - 17 million
NHL - 21 million
NBA - 22 million
MLB - 79 million

So baseball makes it up in volume.

[Alex]

In fact, in some baseball stadiums that actually have the problem that there are so many tickets available for sale that it actually suppresses ticket sales.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Is that, as I've heard, due to league parity rules, trying to keep those teams from drastically out-revenuing the others?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Oh yeah, two more details in the Dodgers' favor. Almost half of that $45 million contract is going to be deferred payments over 5 years, without interest. And, having already cut their payroll, signing Manny means they can shop Juan "How the Fvck Do You Field a Fly Ball" Pierre and his remaining $28.5 million contract around. They aren't going to get anyone to pay that salary for them, but Juan will accept a deferral or other agreement that gets him somewhere that will let him play (if he's lucky he'll be playing at a field like Fenway or Wrigley where there's an outfield he stands a chance of covering).

Man, the Dodgers are looking at a lineup with #7 & #8 hitters that each had a slugging percentage of .460 last year. If they can get hold of enough duct tape to keep their pitchers' arms together for the season, it's going to be a good one.

[Alex]

No, it is because of shopper behavior. Very Broad Example:

Scenario 1:
There is a game on July 16. The stadium seats 100,000. History suggests that 60,000 people will attend.

Before the season starts you are thinking about going to the game on July 16. You don't really care where you sit so long as you're at the game.

Do you buy the ticket now or wait and buy it at the gate? You probably wait.

Then on July 16th it is unusually cold or you have a sniffle or something else comes up and you decide not to go to the game. Team loses a sale.

Scenario 2:
There is a game on July 16. The stadium seats 65,000. History suggests that 60,000 people will attend.

Before the season starts you are thinking about going to the game on July 16. You don't really care where you sit so long as you're at the game.

Do you buy the ticket now or wait and buy it at the gate? Maybe you decide to gamble, but while there's a good chance of tickets being available you can easily imagine something making it a sellout (they announce that Bono will sing the national anthem at that game, the team is on a 19 game winning streak, absolutely perfect baseball weather). So you decide to buy the ticket before the season even starts.

Then on game day if you don't show up for whatever reason the team still has your money.


The Athletics actually did this and it impacted my behavior. They never sell out games and so long as I can sit in a certain range of seats I was happy. Since that range was, for almost any game guaranteed to be available on game day I never pre-purchased tickets.

Then a few years ago they completely closed the third level for all games. Reduced capacity by something like 15,000 seats (from average to the smallest in the majors). So now if I am interested in any specific game that I think will be at all popular I make sure I pre-purchase tickets since I don't want to risk getting there on game day and ending up out by the BBQ pit or behind the foul pole or something.

This is taken to extremes in the NFL where they can frequently say, "hey, you want guaranteed access to one game? Well you've got to buy all 8."

[Ghoulish Delight]

Supply, demand, scarcity. Gotchya.

Originally Posted by Moonliner

Word on the street in these parts is that T.O. is coming to the Redskins. Bleh.

No such luck