A Return for Baseball Would Require a New Debate Over Players' Pay

NY Times ^ | April 18, 2020 | Tyler Kepner

[Svartalfiar]

Assuming 25000 attendance at $40 a seat is $1 million per game. Those numbers are below the actual average attendance and ticket price for the last few years, but you get the point.

Not to mention the additional revenue from beers, concessions, souvenirs. Multi-millions per game.

But that's not even all of it. Why would any sponsors be paying for advertising if there's no one attending the games? Total MLB sponsorship revenue was $940MM in 2018. I don't know how much the league takes, but that's about $30MM per team on average. And, I'm guessing, doesn't include any TV rights / TV advertising, which I'm sure more than dwarfs that amount. I have no idea how much ad revenue is made in-park per game, but I'm sure it's a decently significant amount as well.

[Svartalfiar]

Whatever the losses in tickets, parking and concessions, it is dwarfed by the revenue of national and regional tv money.

True, but that money is likely already paid out for the year due to being part of a years-long contract.

Also, playing in empty stadiums doesn't affect TV stuff hardly at all. They could still run games just fine for broadcast.

[Starcitizen]

Totally agree. I was leaving that out as I didn’t have numbers on it. But that’s a 2x to 10x multiplier.

This Communist Chinese Coronavirus is costing the 1200 front office staff of MLB their jobs, and their livelihoods. All furloughed in stages until May 31. I was furloughed in round 1. Hundreds of stadium employees out of work, hundreds of club employees out of work. Minor league baseball devastated. They really only depend on gate receipts. That’s well over 250 clubs

Went from $11k a month to 0k a month. Being an American software engineer, it’s virtually impossible to find other employers who do not use H1Bs or that are dominated by Indian body shops and placement agencies.

Any non-Software Engineering job I’ve been looking at that I’m qualified for (Multiple MSc degrees and PhD work in the computer science/ information systems field means you have a basically a high school diploma outside of the field) pay far, far less than even enhanced unemployment will this time.

I can’t schlep boxes in a warehouse for $10 to $15 an hour due to medical reasons. But that’s the hundreds of thousands of jobs Walmart and Amazon are offering. Back-office IT and staff jobs from both companies are either outsourced to India already or reserved for H1Bs

[OrangeHoof]

Lets get going one way or the other.

Amen. They will also need a minimum three-week spring training so, if they got going May 1st, the earliest start would be just before Memorial Day. I'd like to see the regular season start by June 1st. Arizona isn't that badly infected to begin with.

[OrangeHoof]

Owners are not going to lose money on purpose.

Owners would bite the bullet just to salvage the season and the sport.

They should be thankful. A lot of business owners have no choice but to kill off their companies right now. Baseball gets guaranteed money for the extended future. They should suck it up and be thankful they still have a product to sell.

[Svartalfiar]

Minor league baseball devastated. They really only depend on gate receipts. That’s well over 250 clubs

Really? I would think the gate receipts would be mostly staying in the ballpark - the team itself would be funded from their major affiliation?


Being an American software engineer, it’s virtually impossible to find other employers who do not use H1Bs or that are dominated by Indian body shops and placement agencies.

Yup, I've got several buddies in IT directly, and several/myself that deal with those departments. It's hard to find much unless you're willing to work with a small startup-type company, they tend to be much more non-Indian friendly, but they definitely do prefer hiring other younger programmers. What part of the country are you in? I've got a buddy that's VP-level in his company, last I heard they were decently slammed but not sure if they're hiring or not, maybe on a temp basis.

[Starcitizen]

No baseball, no gate receipts.

I’m in Denver. But willing to relocate. Just had my lease cancelled due to no longer having a full-time job, so I’m flexible (although I can still afford the rent, go figure, but the landlord wanted me out as soon as I told her I was furloughed.