These past few years I have been one of many fans wondering about how much money the Pirates were making and what they could be spending. Recently though I have been happy to focus on not making stupid baseball mistakes, you know resembling a competent organization. That was something that has been missing for many, many years here.
Today I read two very interesting articles that has me thinking a great deal about the amount of money that the Pirates may indeed be making. Both are written by two of the more respected baseball writers out there on a national level in Jayson Stark and Ken Rosenthal. In both they talk about the apparent money woes that the teams are crying about and the collusion watch that the union is on.
In the middle of it all is our old friend, Scott Boras. Granted there are times when I wish Scott Boras did something else with his life, but this is one time that I appreciate him. Boras is making a call to anyone who will listen that something is fishy out there with the books for baseball, and Scott Boras is not one to make such pronouncements without a leg to stand on. You may argue if it is the right leg to be standing on, but he does have something backing him up.
Boras points from many sources of his, and he has a research firm of his own, that many teams are making almost $80 million before even opening the gate, and he accuses the Pirates of being one. Of course Frank Coonelly immediately denied the report, but if you read over those articles it makes sense. Revenue sharing, plus extra funds for being in a smaller market, plus local media contracts, well it all adds up rather quickly.
This not only involves the Pirates, but also all of baseball, as the CBA is coming up after next season and the commish has plenty of things he wants done and the union seems to want to stop many of them. It may lead to some sort of labor strife, but it might be a good thing if we can move ever more closer to fixing the game.
3 comments:
Sorry, but Boras is a credible as MLB on this one.
Until someone in baseball lays out the details, opens the books, it's all rhetoric and can't be trusted.
I tend to believe the $80 million figure when you add everything up, but I don't know that it necessarily supports that great a major league payroll. You drop about $35 million total on pension and benefit money, draft and international signings, and player development and the minor league system.
A team like the Pirates only bring in about $25 million in ticket revenue, plus a bunch in concessions and merchandise. When you subtract out all the front office staff, coaching, lower level employees, stadium maintenance, etc. you probably end up with a break even point in the low-mid-$60 million range of major league payroll. Without drawing significantly more fans there's no way a team like the Pirates could support anything near $80 million.
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