Professional baseball is a very successful enterprise. Since the merger of the AL and NL in 1903, the only work stoppages have occurred because of labor strikes and the largest terror attack experienced in North American history. The World Series was only canceled once, in 1994, due to the longest labor strike the game had experienced.
At the minor league level, some lower class leagues have folded, but three AAA leagues, the International League, Pacific Coast League, and the American Association thrived for around a century, until 1998, when the American Association decided to split and merge two fragments with the two other Triple-A leagues. This merger facilitated the creation of a Triple-A World Series.
Baseball is remarkably successful, but seeing the World Series stretch into November has invited the perennial comparison in TV ratings with the NFL.
Rhode Island's Providence Journal features an editorial that posits football is America's national pastime:
Game Four on Sunday night was watched by 22.8 million viewers – a 47 percent increase from last year’s Game Four, which attracted 15.5 million.
***The Falcons-Cowboys game Oct. 25 drew a TV audience of 28.4 million. The Giants and Redskins attracted 25.1 million viewers on Sept. 13. The following week, the Giants and Cowboys were watched by 24.8 million. A stunning total of 23.9 million watched the Patriots humiliate the Titans, 59-0, two weeks ago. The Steelers and Bears also were seen by 23.9 million Sept. 20.
***
On Aug. 9, the Bills and Titans played in the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. The Bills and Titans, mind you. Playing the first of five preseason games. By the second quarter, there would be guys playing most fans had never heard of, nor likely ever would see again.
That same Sunday, the Red Sox and Yankees – the best rivalry in baseball, if not in all of sports – were playing a nationally-televised game on ESPN with important ramifications on the A.L. East race.
The Sox and Yanks were watched by 4.7 million. As for the Bills and Titans -- how about 7.9 million?
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In aggregate, I assume the statistics are very different. Total 162 games versus 16, and I suspect baseball wins out in attendance and TV viewership. ^_^
The Freakonomics Blog approached an MLB versus NFL match-up very differently, with player salaries butting heads. The blog rounded up several opinions, and I'll excerpt one:
Pro football teams engage in a “national” business, with national broadcast rights making up the largest portion of their revenue stream.
As such, about 80 percent of the nearly $7 billion of the N.F.L.’s annual revenues are divided evenly among all 32 teams. Before the New York Giants or Kansas City Chiefs ever play a game, they’re each entitled to about $150 million in annual revenue. According to a Forbes estimate, all but one N.F.L. team brought in between $182 and $255 million in 2006 (only the Redskins exceeded $300 million). With the Jets and Giants in the middle of the pack, earning less revenue than Tampa Bay, Carolina, or Denver, it is clear that market size has little impact on the revenue base of an N.F.L. club.
By contrast, an M.L.B. team is essentially a local business. Less than 25 percent of all revenues are distributed evenly among the 30 teams. More than three-quarters of the $6 billion in annual revenues are earned and kept at the local level, with a disproportionate share going to teams in large markets with strong team brands and greater on-field success.
( Read more...Collapse )Alright, so what does any of this have to do with winter ball? Well, the head-to-head ratings rankings was the most relevant part. Obviously, if the World Series loses to early regular season NFL games, a winter league will always be helplessly behind. But that doesn't really matter much. For, if the aim is to be a "tweener" in the middle of Triple-A and the majors, salaries (most of the overhead) should hang around the minimum salary for the 40-man roster. For 25 guys, we established that this was $7.5m for the whole team. Subtract the team sponsorship and the ad shoulder patch, and we have a tiny hurdle to climb. All we want is a series of regional TV contracts. FOX Sports Regional, Comcast Regional, and local terrestrial broadcasts.
Now, we know college football sometimes seems as big as the NFL, so I was surprised to see revenue grabs so small. I suppose because so many universities are public, the government has a website tracking data.
Here's what I found for the University of Oklahoma:
Football: $40,922,446
That's revenue. Compare with expenses: $18,863,323
The joke must still stand. Oklahoma has the highest paid athletes in amateur sports. Clearing $22m in profit in one sport sounds impressive for an institution of learning.
And the Wall Street Journal reports that only football and basketball turn profits in the NCAA. And that would be men's basketball.
I thought that was worth mentioning, because the two profitable college sports would play in the season of winter baseball, and it would be embarrassing to boast of being "major" if college programs were boasting more revenue.
