Estimated TV Revenues for All 30 MLB Teams
The negotiations for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) will feature considerable back-and-forth between the players’ union and the league’s various ownership groups. This is only natural: those are the two parties which must ultimately agree upon the terms of a new deal. But it’s also not an entirely aimless point to make, because those negotiations won’t be the only ones taking place. The owners themselves could have some fairly contentious discussions in deciding their own strategy, particularly when it comes to sharing revenue among the teams. Big-market teams have long gained an advantage on revenues at the gate, but increasingly, the advantage has come from television revenue from local cable networks. Teams continue to sign billion-dollar deals that include an ownership stake, and determining how to divide that money could prove difficult.
Over the last few years, the Arizona Diamondbacks, Philadelphia Phillies, and St. Louis Cardinals have all agreed to new long-term local television deals with Regional Sports Networks (RSNs). It has been a few years at FanGraphs since Wendy Thurm documented the local cable television deals for all MLB teams, and this post aims to provide an update. The work she did helped inform this post as well as a few others to provide a base for research.
When we hear about television deals, we often think of them in terms of the average annual value they provide. That’s a familiar term in baseball, as most player contracts are structured to be paid evenly over the course of the contract. That practice is less common under other circumstances, however, with deals often paying a smaller sum at the beginning of a contract and increasing over time. Television contracts are often structured in this second way. To account for that practice, I have estimated 2016 television money by assuming a yearly 4% increase in money paid to teams in order to find a (hopefully) realistic estimate for how much teams are receiving this year. For example, the Phillies currently possess a 25-year, $2.5 billion dollar deal that begins this year. Instead of assuming they will receive $100 million every year, I am assuming they will receive around $60 million this year with 4% yearly increases over the course of the contract.
There is a full chart below with all the relevant information, but let’s focus on 2016 money first in the graph below.
I did my best to include only contracted revenue — i.e. to omit revenue generated from an ownership stake in a network. However, due to the lack of publicly available information, it’s best to regard these numbers as estimates. Note that, particularly with respect to the Chicago teams, as well as the Los Angeles Angels and Boston Red Sox, that the revenue estimates actually might include money from network ownership. It was difficult to parse those figures.
If the graph above leads one to believe that big-market teams are reaping most of the benefits while the small-market teams are left with a relative pittance, that view is supported by market information. The graph below shows the estimated 2016 local television revenue along with the number of households in a team’s market.
Given the number of other variables — like how long ago a team signed its contract, the team’s popularity, its regional appeal, and its ratings — a correlation coefficient of .64 is fairly strong. Especially for the simplicity of the categories utilized on the axes — that is, merely the number of households in the principal market and the 2016 television revenue estimates. Teams and networks make their money on getting their broadcasts to appear within the standard cable lineup and charging a per-subscriber fee, and the result is that more homes means more money to give to teams. And that’s the not only big-market advantage.
Teams also reap benefits from owning a stake in the network, assuming it’s profitable (the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers provide counter-examples). By and large, the bigger-market teams have been able to negotiate more favorable setups when it comes to ownership. The graph below depicts the ownership stakes teams have in the network that airs their team. (Note: I was unable to find the percentages for the Diamondbacks and it appears the Dodgers own 100% of the network in an unusual setup with Time Warner that does not show up in the graph)
The Toronto Blue Jays present an interesting case. They weren’t included in the graphs above. Several years ago, the Blue Jays received $36 million from their RSN, but it’s difficult to accurately discern how much they’ve received over the past few years. The Blue Jays are owned by Rogers, which entity also owns Sportsnet, the channel on which the Blue Jays appear throughout Canada. The Blue Jays are likely only receiving a portion of the television money while the rest stays with the parent company.
For the most part, the teams receiving an ownership share of the network are in the big markets. Only the San Diego Padres, and maybe the St. Louis Cardinals, are located in what would be considered a small market. The Cardinals might be in a small-market television-wise; they operate on a larger scale, however, due to attendance. Their deal with the ownership stake does not begin until the 2018 season.
The ownership shares are incredibly important when it comes to revenue-sharing because any money gained as an owner of a network is shielded from revenue-sharing, as are the figures that MLB has provided when calculating the players’ share of revenue. The losses are not considered as well, which likely hurts the Astros, who struggled to get paid by Comcast on their deal, which is now with DIRECTV through ROOT SPORTS. This shielding of revenue is also where the dispute between the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals is relevant. The Orioles own a much bigger share of MASN than the Nationals, so every dollar that does not go towards the Nationals’ rights fees gets paid in a disproportionate share to the Orioles.
The Yankees used to have a much higher share of the YES Network, but have sold off most of it to FOX over the past few years for roughly $2 billion. It’s no surprise, then, that the Yankees are voicing their displeasure about revenue-sharing given that much of their revenue used to be sheltered from the rest of MLB through the network, but those sheltered revenues have been decreasing.
In all, MLB teams are receiving an estimated $1.5 billion on their local cable deals without considering ownership interests. The chart below shows the 2016 estimates, the total deal, if known, the start and end of the deal, the ownership stake, and a link with more information.
| 2016 Revenue | Deal | Deal Start | Deal End | Ownership | More Info | |
| Dodgers | $204 M | 25/$8.35 B | 2014 | 2038 | 100% | LINK |
| Angels | $118 M | 20/$3 B | 2012 | 2031 | 25% | LINK |
| Yankees | $98 M | 30/$5.7 B | 2013 | 2042 | 20% | LINK |
| Red Sox | $80 M | 2006 | 80% | LINK | ||
| Mariners | $76 M | 18/$1.8 B | 2014 | 2031 | 71% | LINK |
| Cubs | $65 M | 2004 | 2019 | 20% | LINK | |
| Phillies | $60 M | 25/$2.5 B | 2016 | 2040 | 25% | LINK |
| Astros | $60 M | 20/$1.6 B | 2013 | 2032 | No | LINK |
| Rangers | $56 M | 20/$1.6 B | 2015 | 2034 | 10% | LINK |
| Tigers | $55 M | 10/$500 M | 2009 | 2018 | No | LINK |
| Giants | $54 M | 25/$1.75 B | 2008 | 2032 | 30% | LINK |
| White Sox | $51 M | 2004 | 2019 | 20% | LINK | |
| Diamondbacks | $50 M | 20/$1.5 B | 2016 | 2035 | Yes | LINK |
| Mets | $46 M | 25/$1.3 B | 2006 | 2030 | 65% | LINK |
| Nationals | $46 M | Arbitration | 2006 | 2028 | 18% | LINK |
| Orioles | $46 M | 2006 | 2028 | 82% | LINK | |
| A’s | $41 M | 21/$1 B | 2009 | 2029 | No | LINK |
| Indians | $40 M | 10/$400 M | 2013 | 2022 | No | LINK |
| Padres | $39 M | 20/$1 B | 2012 | 2031 | 20% | LINK |
| Twins | $37 M | 12/$480 M | 2012 | 2023 | No | LINK |
| Braves | $35 M | 2008 | 2027 | No | LINK | |
| Cardinals | $33 M | 15/$1 B | 2008, 2018 | 2017, 2032 | 30% | LINK |
| Reds | $30 M | 2007 | 2016 | No | LINK | |
| Pirates | $25 M | 2010 | 2019 | No | LINK | |
| Brewers | $24 M | 2013 | 2019 | No | LINK | |
| Royals | $22 M | 12/$240 M | 2008 | 2019 | No | LINK |
| Marlins | $20 M | 15/$270 M | 2006 | 2020 | No | LINK |
| Rockies | $20 M | 10/$200 M | 2011 | 2020 | No | LINK |
| Rays | $20 M | 2009 | 2018 | No | LINK | |
| Blue Jays | 100% | LINK |
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
You guys should learn how to abbreviate “Tampa Bay” better. Kansas City is KCR. New York is NYY and NYM. San Francisco is SFG. San Diego is SDP. Yet, for some reason, Tampa Bay is TAM.
Guys, you write about baseball for a living. Time to learn Tampa doesn’t have a baseball team. In the Snell article earlier today, Chris Mitchell writes “But he’ll be back as soon as there’s another opening in Tampa’s rotation.”
When you guys write Tampa, or abbreviate Tampa Bay as “TAM”, I will just assume you are referring to the Tampa Yankees. Let me know when you are referring to the Rays.
The struggle is real.
#StPeteLivesMatter
I’m anticipating some consternation when the Smyrna Braves begin play next season.
I believe they are talking about Texas A&M
You must learn how to shorten the “Tampa Bay”. Kansas City is the KCR. NIM NII York. San Francisco SFG. San Diego is the PDS. However, for some reason, Tampa Bay TAM.
These people, these articles about baseball Mazda. It is time to get on to Tampa is not a baseball team. A member today Snell, Kris Mitchell wrote, “but I will be back soon, because there are no other open Tampa rotation.”
When you write Tampa or Tampa Bay cut as “TAM” I think it will go only to the Yankees in Tampa. Tell me when you talk to the rays.
BAHAHAHAHAHA – nobody ever
Thumbing me down? I’ve read articles here about swinging strike percentages changing 1%. I don’t think it’s asking too much for the writers to know which city all 30 baseball teams are located in.
Start referring to Los Angeles as Los, San Francisico as San, New York as New, Kansas City as Kansas, and Saint Louis as Saint, if you are going to constantly refer to Tampa Bay as Tampa.
People are thumbing you down because this is just the pissiest of pissant complaints. You obviously know what team they’re referring to; we all know what team they’re referring to. And yet you feel the need to register your disdain about something that has zero (0) impact on the substance of the article. Absolutely none whatsoever. Not asked in a nice way, mind you, but whiny internet tough guy mode. First comment too, this pissant complaint not only had to be said, but fast!
This may help you better understand why you are getting down votes. Happy to help.
Not to mention, if we’re going to be Super-Ultra-Pedantic(tm), Tampa Bay is a body of water. Tampa is indeed the city in which the Rays are located.
Tropicana Field is in St. Petersburg
Hoisted by my own petard!
Jeff Sullivan, in the Drew Smyly article today. “With Tampa, he’s up at almost half. ”
Not a single damn writer here knows what city the Rays are located in.
To be fair, the team itself seems not to know.
Maybe that’s why there’s no fans there; they can’t find it.
While the complaint is a trivial, it is true that TAM isn’t a good abbreviation of Tampa Bay. TBR would be better. Or just TB. But apparently all the abbreviations have to be 3 letters now.
“While the complaint is a trivial, it is true that TAM isn’t a good abbreviation of Tampa Bay.”
In all honestly – are you getting them mixed up with another team? Is there even a moment’s confusion as to what team TAM refers to? Honestly curious.
People are thumbing you down because you are being kind of a condescending jerk about a nitpick that isn’t even necessarily an error, and you don’t even really seem to grasp the point you are trying to make. It doesn’t help that it was the first comment posted and has nothing to do with the discussion.
Firstly, the charts above use several nonstandard abbreviations, and they aren’t even consistent between the two charts. One uses TAM while the other uses TBR, one says CHI and the other says CHC, etc. There is no reason to single out the use of “TAM” as such a huge deal and extrapolate that the author doesn’t know what city a team represents.
Secondly, do you even know what city the Rays play for? The team is named after a body of water. It’s not like there is a municipality called “Tampa Bay” so you can’t say “Tampa” is the wrong city. The team represents all of the Tampa Bay of which Tampa is the largest city. While referring to the team as such might be imprecise and informal, team names are imprecise anyway, and one could just as easily be using “Tampa” as a shortened version of area itself or the team name.
Thirdly, and most importantly, is that there is no hard and fast rule about team name abbreviations or team names themselves. Different networks and sources vary on the abbreviations used (CHW vs CWS for example), and there isn’t any consistent formula for an abbreviation that you seem to think there is. KC, WSH, and STL could just as easily be KAN, WAS, and SL. Heck, in your own example you mention St. Louis, but by the convention you seem to think exists it should be SLC. STL and TAM are constructed the same way.
And as I said, team names are frequently imprecise anyway. It’s not “represented municipality + mascot”. The Yankees aren’t called the “New York City Yankees” even though that is the actual name of the city they represent. The Rangers don’t represent the whole state of Texas, but it makes for a good team name since a Texas Ranger is a real life thing and a DFW Metropolitan Area Ranger is not a thing. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul team has the cities in the second part of its name: the Twins. And the Golden State Warriors break all conventions by being named after the NICKNAME of the state where the San Francisco Bay area is (despite sharing the state with three other NBA teams).
That was way longer than I meant to go, but I feel like I should be thorough in explaining why you are getting voted down and why you sound so ridiculous talking down at the writers here.
*all of the Tampa Bay area
You want to read about Bruce Harper? Mark Trout? San Francisco Athletics? The Yellow Sox?
No? You prefer accuracy?
Tampa doesn’t have a baseball team. Tampa accounts for for very, very little of the Tampa Bay region. The Tampa Bay region has 4 counties, and 4,310,524 people. Tampa has a population of 346,000.
This is a math site, right? What percentage of 4 and a half million people is 346,000?
Stop calling it effing Tampa. It’s not!
a) I have never seen anyone on this site refer to the Tampa Bay region as “Tampa”. I have seen uses of “Tampa”, “Tampa Bay”, and “the Rays” all used as a short form of “the Tampa Bay Rays”. I’m sorry if this confuses you or defies your personal rules for referring to teams, but it seems pretty clear to everyone else. When someone says a player plays for Corpus, I know it means the Corpus Christi Hooks. When someone calls a team “Francisco”, I know they are talking the Giants and not an imaginary team from Francisco, Indiana. Feel free to correct someone next time they say the Rays have a game in Tampa if you feel that is misleading, but keep in mind saying that a game is in Tampa Bay is just as wrong.
b)Again, the word “Tampa” isn’t even in this article. I don’t know what you’re crying about. One chart uses an abbreviation using “TAM”, the first three letters of the team name (does the same thing with “CHI”, which a certain fan base might actually find offensive), and then another abbreviates it “TBR” using letters from every word of the team name (similarly with “CHC” in the same chart). How do you not see that you are being crazy?
I think a girl from Tampa broke this guys heart
“Tampa doesn’t have a baseball team.”
What manner of abject dumbassery is this?! Do they play in Tampa proper? They do not.
However, are they known as Tampa (or Tampa Bay) by every single website, writer, sportscaster, newspaper, and commenter? They are. Can you cite examples of where people are commonly calling them the St. Pete Rays? Anyone at all? Even a single credible example? No? OK.
You must find more appropriate hills to die upon.
Yes. This hardly deserves 1 comment, much less 20, but I can’t refrain from confirming your point that he didn’t mention TOR, BAL, BOS, SEA, STL, PHI, CHI, WAS, TEX, ARI, DET, OAK, CLE, MIN, ATL, CIN, PIT, MIL, MIA, COL, or HOU as an issue.
Greetings from New York, New York.
Very late to the party here, but as a native New Yorker I have to tell you that the name of the city is New York. New York City and NYC are commonly used (as are New York State and NYS), especially to disambiguate, but we are the City of New York as Boston is the City of Boston and Chicago is the City of Chicago, and so on. We are not New York City like Kansas City or Oklahoma City.
Well said, Jason B. I would love to be able to view the comments and actually find some interesting ones. Eliminating the stupid, hateful, or just plain pointless posts, unfortunately eliminates a very high percentage of the total. Nit-picking over the abbreviation of one of the MLB teams qualifies as both stupid and pointless. (At least it’s not hateful.)
Trying to navigate through the swill is why I don’t often even bother trying to read the comments section.
This was your take away from the article?
I wonder what the Royals next T.V. contract will look like. When they signed their current deal back in 2008, they were in a poor position to negotiate a T.V. deal. The Royals were in the midst of another decade of futility having not had a winning season since 2003….and before that since ’94 (the strike year). Attendance had been low and rating were terrible. The current contract expires in 2019. I guess it will depend upon how competitive they are in 2018 and their outlook going forward. But I think it is a safe bet that they will bring in a lot more whenever that new contract begins….which should bring in more cash to sign FA’s as well as current players.
The Astros do not have any ownership in Root Sports Southwest. The network is wholly owned by AT&T/DirecTV.
Thanks. Fixed.
Why do you have the title say all 30 teams when you don’t have an estimate for the blue jays?
Rogers Communications writes checks to themselves in invisible ink. Craig’s just going by the available records.
* cheques
right…. so he could say 29 teams then
Boy you got him there.
It seems like a reasonable point to me.
If you want to take the $36 M from 2012 and then add in raises each year, we could say $42 M, although I felt it was a bit of a stretch to do so. Plus, the situation is different from other teams in that the parent company is essentially just deciding how much to give the team. It’s why the Blue Jays merited specific discussion in the piece.
{Craig nicely saying “chequemate!”}
Could Rogers make more from the Jays if they sold the TV rights to Bell?
I really doubt it. The Jays represent a whole lot of easy(and at the moment, very popular) content that Rogers basically pays nothing for. Sportsnet has essentially become “Jays TV” over the past couple years.
Its nearly impossible to determine how much the Jays are worth to sportsnet but I would guess its probably more then Bell would pay for the rights.
According to The Globe and Mail, the Jays avg rating this year is 861,000. That is nearly double what the Raptors game 3 playoff game did on TSN.
The Jays get by far the most viewers in MLB per game, thanks to the games being carried across the country. Smallish percentage of a very big market. Its really hard to move the numbers between two different TV ratings mechanisms, but to me looks like most MLB teams get between $100 and $200 per view ( avg views / game vs $$ in chart above) So Jays on the open market COULD be between $80 and $160 Million a season ( using your early season avg numbers of 861,100)
Sportsnet paid $5.2B for 12 years of hockey rights, and the Jays ratings absolutely dwarf their hockey ratings (late August they were getting much higher ratings than the Stanley Cup *FINALS*). So what does that say about the value of the Jays broadcast rights to Sportsnet?
Rogers wouldn’t make more but the Blue Jays sure would. Blue Jays get shafted with a mediocre TV deal that doesn’t come close to the actual value it provides.
If their TV deal was on the open market its in the Dodgers territory in value.
How much is a viewer worth?
~200M would mean rogers would need to get like $2 a viewer per game.
Considering Rogers pays about 400m per season for the rights to air nearly every single NHL game I dont see the Jays getting 200m by themselves.
Yes. For context, Sportsnet recently paid $5.2B for 12 years of hockey rights, which is about $433M/year. And the Jays are currently drawing ratings that dwarf Sportsnet’s hockey ratings (we’re talking multiple x viewership).
Not sure where you are getting numbers from but it doesnt seem like the Jays numbers are dwarfing the NHL at all.
According to Yahoo (Dec 19th, 2015), Wednesday night Hockey on RSN was averaging 849,000 viewers and Hockey Night in Canada averaged 1.9 million viewers. And those numbers are largely considered disappointing.
As stated above the Jays are averaging 861,000 viewers so far this year.
https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/eh-game/rogers-still-struggling-to-get-tv-ratings-up-for-nhl-221517546.html
SGB I am willing to bet that he was looking at an individual hockey game, and not adding up all the hockey games together.
The NHL deal is for the entire NHL, they can show whatever they want (and leave Columbus vs Nashville to TSN, as broadcast by whatever local feed “hockey” people they have there).
The Jays deal that we don’t know about is just for the Jays. One game. Sure, the single-game Jays probably beats a single-game regular season NHL game, but all of them? That’s a lot of hockey and a lot of viewers.
No, because they save more by being able to hide their revenues from MLB revenue-sharing on the one hand and from the players union on the other. And probably from Revenue Canada to some extent as well.
If neither media company owned the Jays, the bidding want between Rogers and Bell would be interesting. Canada has 13.3 million households, more than double the number available to the Dodgers. The Jays TV ratings are more than the Mets and Yankees combined. Rogers is currently paying about $400M/yr for near exclusive NHL rights in Canada. It’s more games than a Blue Jays season, but probably not more total viewers.
However, as Rogers does own the Jays, they would never sell their broadcast rights. Selling the rights to Bell would mean sharing a lot more revenue with the players and other owners. The more pertinent question is why Rogers only has to declare $36M in broadcast revenue when they are easily worth much, much more.
Interesting read. Thanks for trying to make some sense from what must have been very murky data.
Any chance you could expand upon how you came up with number of households in a market or what your principle market boundaries were? Also it would be intresting if you could label the teams in your market size vs cable TV revenue graph. I know some of them are intuitive, but it gets tougher to guess in the middle. Thanks again.
I used Nielsen’s info, which uses the market area for a city. Generally lines up pretty close to metro area population.
So you just did the city the team is located in? The metro area (this is huge for a team like the Rangers. Arlington vs the DFW metroplex).
Also, did you factor in broadcast footprint? St. Louis’ RSN covers a massive area that also includes cities like Memphis and Oklahoma City. St. Louis itself is a small-medium sized market. However, their TV “market” is YUGE!
No. I used the metro area. Rangers get Dallas-Ft Worth. These numbers should be close, although I might have used a slightly older version. http://www.tvb.org/media/file/2015-2016-dma-ranks.pdf
That’s good, but again, what about total TV territory? The Cards’ territory touches something like 10 different states. It’s a little misleading to only use metro area when teams like the Cardinals can market to such a huge area. It might not all be densely populated, but adding in Memphis, Oklahoma City, etc to that total market of viewers isn’t insignificant.
I’ve always thought the Cardinals were a larger middle market club because of how huge their TV market is. A “market” is simply consumers interested in a product. The Cards market, in large part due to their TV territory, is huge. It’s not the 30s anymore where it’s hyper local.
It’s a fair point that primary metro area isn’t exactly precise, but it’s a generally good enough metric for the analysis that Craig has here. (Very good post, Craig, BTW).
Analyzing each team’s true “local broadcast revenue area” would turn into a series of posts that would likely require nearly 30x the effort of this post. For example, here in Austin (about 750k TV households) the dominant cable provider has Fox Sports Southwest (Rangers) in its standard channel lineup . I think that San Antonio (about 900k households) is similar (because Fox Sports Southwest also has local rights to the Spurs).
Similar analysis also applies to other teams. For example, the Red Sox are a regional team beyond Boston, the New York teams and the Phillies divide up New Jersey, etc.
MLB’s designated market areas only provide so much helpful information on this one. Iowa is rather famously in the market areas of something like 5 teams, but cable subscribers there are certainly not paying for 5 RSN’s. (Indeed, to take my own example, the Rangers and Astros both have blackout areas that cover all of Texas plus part of Louisiana. In Austin, however, the Astros on Root Sports Southwest isn’t available on some of the larger providers – despite the fact that Houston is closer than Dallas.)
Anyway, a lot of words to make the point that “real local broadcast market size” is very complicated to determine by team – but does matter and is mentioned by Craig as factor (“regional appeal”).
Hmmm, this is kind of disheartening knowing how much money is still with local TV. As a cord cutter, this doesn’t show things are going in the right direction.
I currently share MLB TV with a few friends and I have to pay for a VPN to watch my local team. I think it would be wise for MLB TV to remove these ridiculous blackouts but now I can see that is not where the money is.
Think of MLB.tv as nothing but a liquidation outlet for undesirable content. National games, and local games are already sold at top dollar. They aren’t going to mess with that.
Sling TV mang. Well, in select markets.
Curious, why is it disheartening? MLB remains very much a regional sport, so local TV money is going to play a substantial factor compared to other sports. Yes, it’s a national sport and a national game, but fans still focus locally.
*Looks at Angels’ TV revenue*
*Looks at Gentry/Nava/Ortega manning left field*
*Looks at Mike Trout*
*Cries*
*Looks at Albert Pujols contract*
*Looks at Josh Hamilton’s contract*
*Looks at CJ Wilson’s contract*
*Looks at Jered Weaver’s contract*
*Looks at performance team is getting from said contracts*
*understands why Angels don’t sign yet another high-priced dud*
Their entire payroll cost is $168M with an estimated TV revenue of $118M. When you compare a teams Payroll/TV Revenue, they rank:
Royals 6.23
Rockies 5.71
Cardinals 4.51
Pirates 4.24
Marlins 3.59
Tigers 3.49
Rays 3.22
Orioles 3.21
Nationals 3.20
Giants 3.20
Rangers 2.91
Twins 2.86
Mets 2.84
Reds 2.68
Padres 2.67
Brewers 2.66
Cubs 2.58
Braves 2.53
Red Sox 2.52
Indians 2.45
Yankees 2.33
White Sox 2.28
Athletics 2.10
Diamondbacks 1.98
Mariners 1.91
Phillies 1.74
Astros 1.66
Angels 1.42
Dodgers 1.22
Ok, that’s interesting, but doesn’t change my point, which was that they have been very inefficient in recent years handing out long-term deals (all of which I listed were free agents, except for Weaver, who they re-signed off their own roster). They’ve been burned so many times lately, so it appears they are learning to proceed in a different manner.
Also, TV revenues are just one part of the revenue equation. But since the Angels seem to do better than average attendance-wise, that might not move them up your list much at all.
I’m under the assumption that the lower you are on this list, the better. If it’s payroll/TV rev, then a lower number means a larger portion of payroll is paid by TV rev.
The Royals at the top need 6.23x their TV rev just to cover payroll expense. The Angels near the bottom only need 42% of TV revenue on top of TV revenue to pay for theirs.
The lack of recent spending and the bad contracts are related, but they have nothing to do with the team learning any lessons or trying another way. They are very likely to hand out another terrible contract next offseason.
Arte Moreno is all style over substance. He thinks fans will come to see “stars” like Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton. Those guys flopped, but he has Mike Trout so he doesn’t need anyone else. He also wants to make a lot of money too.
Look deeper, all the money is going into the Pujols / Hamilton / Trout / Wilson / Weaver contracts. They don’t spend in the draft, they don’t spend internationally, they don’t spend on their minor league system and they don’t spend on the rest of the roster.
It’s not just the great TV deal, it’s 3 million fans every year, and a team whose value has increased 17% year over year since he bought the team in 2003. They also have $0 debt.
I’m not totally up on how TV revenues work, but do MLB teams split international TV revenues and national ones equally?, or is it like it is over here for the premiership where how often you appear on those broadcasts is factored into your share?
p.s. interesting read otherwise
Read this on revenue sharing. National revenue is split evenly. Some sharing on local revenue.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/marlins-mlb-revenue-sharing-syste/
Thanks, gives me something extra to read while bored at work
Got some additional info from twitter on Orioles and Nats so I’ve updated the post in addition to the Astros change referenced above. If anybody else has anything else, let me know.
Given that the dollar amounts for both the O’s and Nats are supposed to be set at market rates every five years, care to speculate on how much each team WOULD be taking in were they getting an actual market rate?
The linear trendline in the second chart…?
this is just back of the envelope, but $3 per cable subscriber times 4.5 M homes plus 15% in ads gets $186 M in revenue. If you split the money evenly, you could argue 60-70 M per after expenses.
Also got word from @fanoflaundry on some discrepancy in the Angels numbers likely to do with how much of the ownership stake is included for expected revenues. Could be as low as $1.6 B for 17 years starting in 2016 with the 25% ownership. That would put the Angels at $68 M in 2016 with 25% ownership stake potentially coming close to doubling that amount.
Hello Craig. The Dodgers channel Sportsnet LA is owned by AMP(American Media Productions)which is a company created by the Dodgers ownership group. They own 100% of Sportsnet LA and license the television broadcast rights, and a myriad of other crap to Time Warner Cable.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/532747b8e4b0c44d90acb703/t/537bfcb9e4b00847c53e2202/1400634553708/TWC_LAD_012813.pdf
Thanks!
As a TBR fan, what are realistic expectations in terms of a new deal? The team does seem to draw decent TV ratings. Is something in the $50-$60m AAV unrealistic?
Any tv contract could be hamstrung by rumors of moving, but something like 10/400-500 seems reasonable.
DON’T YOU MEAN SPR?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
HOW CAN YOU CALL YOURSELF A FAN IF YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE THE TEAM PLAYS!!!!!!!!!!
/s
4 articles today that refer to the Tampa Bay Rays. 3 of them refer to them as the Tampa Rays. It’s not me who is incorrect.
That begs a question.
@hittfamily… are too many people on your lawn? Need me to bring you prune juice? Lighten up.
What’s up with the sorting on that last table? It doesn’t seem sorted at all, to me. Also, why not make it a sortable table?
forgot to click that box. Now it is in 2016 order and sortable.
I will be very interested to see the next deal negotiated as an idea of how these contract values inflate. The Tigers, next up in 2018 (Reds too but….Reds..) are a team that has a tremendously high local TV rating…top 5 or so for years if I remember. Add to that an owner who is burning cash with no care at all to his P/L in an attempt to beat the Reaper at the wire…a club full of big deals who will have another in JD Martinez to be decided upon before the TV deal gets re-set and may have a long deal with Melvin’s brother to wolf down. Will there be more 25 year deals? I don’t see it….there has to be an upper limit to the TV contract growth given the very prominent cord-cutting trend, the aging of the average baseball fan/the pull of soccer etc to current youth, as well as the Average Fann mayyyybe finally being heard to ask that if the club is getting say $120-$250MM a year just in broadcast fees, why am I and why should I go on paying $800 for a family of 4 to go to a Wednesday game against that team from Northwest FL that can’t be geographically recognized due to misnomerage and internet fussbudget pedanticism?
Grammatical fussbudgetry will commence as to the usage of non-words like pedanticism and fussbudgetry in 3, 2, 1….
Craig, fascinating and excellent work pulling all of this together, although now it has me wondering what the goal is here. Is it a simple, straightforward attempt to show the revenue disparity amongst teams?
MLB clubs such as the Dodgers, Angels, Yankees, Red Sox obviously have access to much greater revenue because they’re in major markets, although I’m not convinced we can properly capture how much. I’ll use the Yankees as an example, because they may have the most opaque model compared with other teams, a model that in essence allows them to shield money from revenue sharing.
The NY Yankees baseball club has a TV licensing deal with the YES Network. I’d almost call it a for-show deal, because it doesn’t appear to truly represent the value of the broadcast rights. That revenue from YES, by my understanding, is subject to MLB’s revenue sharing plan. Yet the New York Yankees baseball club is owned by an entity called Yankee Global Enterprises, which in parallel owns the Yankees investment in YES as well as the Yankees concessions business, including other Yankees-related branding. A good percentage of the profitable parts of the Yankees are under Yankee Global Enterprises, not the ball club, and thus not subject to revenue sharing. The Yankees, through Yankees Global Enterprises, still own 20% of YES, but I’m not sure anyone knows how much revenue is going from YES directly to Yankee Global Enterprises. At the minimum, it’s probably 20% of YES’s advertising profit, which is NY would be quite substantial.
Anyway, good stuff. Hmmmm? Does MLB even know what the major market teams truly make?
Where does the 56M come from for the Rangers? 1.6 billion divided by 20 years equals 80M a year not 56M.
That’s explained in the third paragraph.
You’re making an assumption despite the fact the article you link with it specifically mentions making 75-80M per year and nowhere mentions loading the backend of the the deal.
Isn’t the 2016 revenue for the Orioles/Nationals misleading? Both are marked at 46M because they both are on MASN. However, while I’m not sure if MASN rev is 46 or 92 for 2016, the 82/18 split doesn’t seem to be in place which as a result shows both teams with the same revenue up top.
Only revenue subject to revenue sharing is included in the chart. The ownership stakes are noted and do provide quite a bit more money to the teams, potentially doubling the amount.
Makes sense. Thanks for the reply, Craig.