James - Revenue vs. Expenses

[nysteinbrenner]

James,

I was just wondering if you had a chance to look over MLB's revenue vs. expenses breakdown from 2000, which they submitted as part of Bud Selig's recent congressional testimony?

It has a generalized breakdown of both local and national, regular- and post-season revenue streams, as well as expenses. I think the .PDF can still be found on MLB.com with a little digging, but if not let me know and I'll e-mail you an Excel spreadsheet with the breakouts.

Even though these numbers have been somewhat excoriated by the media as being inaccurate, they are the closest I think we'll see to baseball's actual, complete financial picture for quite some time - maybe BBM/BBMO can take advantage of them!

[James Grove]

Thanks for pointing that out!

I'll go to MLB and see if I can find it. But I'd love it if you could email me the spreadsheet, too!

-James

james@sportsmogul.com

[dturkenk]

I think using these numbers might be worse than nothing unfortunately. I find it hard to beleive that MLB as a whole lost over $200 million before considering the paper losses of amortization of player salaries.

I'd put a lot more weight in Forbes version of the data because although they don't have the access to the actual expenses/etc, at least they don't have the same motivation in presenting the results in the worst possible light.

[nysteinbrenner]

Originally posted by dturkenk
I think using these numbers might be worse than nothing unfortunately. I find it hard to beleive that MLB as a whole lost over $200 million before considering the paper losses of amortization of player salaries.

I'd put a lot more weight in Forbes version of the data because although they don't have the access to the actual expenses/etc, at least they don't have the same motivation in presenting the results in the worst possible light.

Turk:

Perhaps, but with the exception of what they call "shared party" transactions (a/k/a $ from TV deals like what the Braves and Cubs have), I don't know if I'd doubt the revenue figures all that much; they seem pretty much in step with what everyone's estimates of them have been.

[nysteinbrenner]

James,

Try: http://cached.mlb.com/hearings/overview.html

That link should give the numbers they presented at the hearings.

[dturkenk]

Right, but I think those shared revenues can have a big effect on certain teams.

Check out this article http://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/20011212pappas.html