TV money, advertising, selling soap, that drives sports players revenues, combine it with savvy sports attorneys and agents, a union led by the same and boom instant multi millionaires..

BTW this same pay to play model is coming to the NCAA, courtesy of social media, Jay Bilas constant pounding on the pay for likeness plan.

Amature sports will soon be gone as the top players start getting paid to play by alumni who have the deep pockets. Watch the Pac10 rebound to the glory days of UCLA with all the tech money going to pay for players to come to LA...

No more houses and cars for momma at Duke, they'll need cash...

quote:

Originally posted by zipriderson:

quote:

The stadiums would be filled and vendors could still make money.

It's not about filling stadiums. It's about TV. Nobody wants to watch a bunch of no names who aren't as athletic and competitive. And no company wants to spend advertising dollars on that product.

The XFL and whatever other iterations of pro football there has been is proof of that.

Ahhh but you see...those others you mention were "in addition to"...not "instead of".

If there was nothing but XFL...people would go.

You under estimate the people who really just want to watch the game. The better players would gain followings in their own time.

Its amazing to me that pro sports still gets the support it does. Another example of how blindly loyal our population has become.
Money corrupted sports years ago and the current SJW / PC culture has magnified the rot.
I stopped going to MLB games when it cost me 150 bucks to take a kid to an afternoon game.
And now the NCAA want to monetize college sports.

I can see it now- The Somewhat Super Bowl.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I can see it now- The Somewhat Super Bowl.

The Semi-Super Bowl...

The Almost-Super Bowl...

The Above Average, Watch It For The Commercials Bowl

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Think about it. Simple math. 30,000 fans @ $50/head average is $243m in revenue for the 162 game season. I'll guess total operation expenses, facilities, support salaries, fees, taxes, etc., Is about half so that leaves $121.5M. You need a profit, and we'll assume 10% for the owner. That leaves $2.7m per player on a 40 man roster. Ticket sales can't cover their player salary budget.

Also bear in mind the reason college athletes drive as hard as they do has a lot to do with chasing that pro salary.

I think you are vastly overestimating the pay for stadium workers, lease, and maintenance. A cousin used to work at Turner field for Braves games in 2015, and made $8/ hour, and said there were only about 180 people between security, maintenance, janitor crew and ticket boot per event. Even if you jack that up to 200 people making $10/ hour for 6 hours (all high from what I was told) and multiply times 82 games, it is less than $1 million. As for concessions, they are manned by the vendors that have rented that space, and are not stadium employees.

When if comes to stadiums, very few team actually pay for their stadiums annually. An LA Times article from last year shared that eight teams in the NFL pay rent of more than $500,000 a year, and only three pay more than $999,999 a year. As of 2006, sixteen team paid less than $250,000 a year for rent/ use of property.

Chew on that for one second, the most expensive rental/ lease/ usage fee in the NFL is the Chicago Bears, who pay $6.3 million annually for Soldier Field (oldest in the NFL), and they keep 95% of ticket sales, and signed a 25 year lease. That lease comes up in 2028, where they will demand a new stadium. In their 25 year lease, The Bears will have paid just $106 million toward the improvements that cost $632 million (not inflation adjusted from 2002 dollars), so yeah the taxpayers got the shaft. The same thing happened in Charlotte, Atlanta, Minneapolis, LA, and Seattle.

In Charlotte, the Panthers pay almost nothing (but did contribute $4 million toward $87.5 million worth of renovations in 2013). Taxpayers footed the balance of the bill. IF you assume 10 homes games (8 reg season +2 pre season), and they employ 200 people making $20 an hour for 6 hours a game and add in 100 janitorial staff working 6 hours making the same after the game, the cost per game would be under $40,00, and that is fairly conservative. The cost for 10 games would be less than $500,000. The Panthers pay less than $500,000 for rent, so their annual cost for the stadium and games is maybe $1 million.

BofA Stadium has 75,000 seat, 85% are PSL (you either pay for season tickets or forfeit your PSL). The cheapest ticket is $64, and there are 15,800 "club level" seats that start at $300 per game. I think you could easily say the average ticket is north of $125, meaning they fetch $9.4 million a game, or $94 million a season.

Many stadiums get nailing rights money that goes to the team, not the owner of the stadium. The Milwaukee Brewers are the most recent to hitch the gravy train - starting next year they will receive $4 million annually for a Stadium built with public funds, on public land, financed with public tax dollars.

College players are also paid with sports scholarships, which also constitute value.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Competetive infrastructure rebuilding .

Kids in highschool would
Learn drywalling after school,
Or
Foundation laying and compete against other schools.

Huh? How in the hell do you do that with a smartphone? You can't honestly be suggesting today's kids learn how to do 'real' work.

As someone who played baseball from little league, to high school, and in college, and who's coached kid's baseball for over 10 years, I absolutely love the game. When it comes to sports, I really know nothing else. To me there is nothing better to do on a sunny Saturday afternoon. That said, I absolutely hate what the players and owners have done to the game. Some of my favorite memories with my son were spent in MLB stadiums around the country. Now he's grown and no longer a fan, and given the current state of the game, I feel no compelling desire to spend any more time or money on the sport.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Not sure about other sports, I assume they are similar. Ticket prices a a tiny fraction of revenue. Most comes from licensed merchandise sales, advertising, and Televised events.

It's why most teams aren't batting an eye at playing without fans. Remember your ticket revenue also covers all of the security and support staff required for those live fans.

Think about it. Simple math. 30,000 fans @ $50/head average is $243m in revenue for the 162 game season. I'll guess total operation expenses, facilities, support salaries, fees, taxes, etc., Is about half so that leaves $121.5M. You need a profit, and we'll assume 10% for the owner. That leaves $2.7m per player on a 40 man roster. Ticket sales can't cover their player salary budget.

Also bear in mind the reason college athletes drive as hard as they do has a lot to do with chasing that pro salary.

That average number of fans per game is way high, especially for the Padres caliber of team.

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
MLB's problem isn't that it's "too big to fail", it's that it's "too big to not be this big." If ALL the money isn't coming in from all the revenue streams, it's a losing venture.

As bad as no season would be for the dyeing sport (killed, more than died), I keep picturing the scenario where they have a much shorter season, and the fans LOVE it! Then clamor for the leagues do cut them down, which they can't because they need the money. I mean they could, if EVERYONE was willing to make a lot less money, but that surely won't happen.

Interesting observation, cas:
If ALL the money isn't coming in from all the revenue streams, it's a losing venture.
Sad, but I think you're right. Which is why there's not likely to be a 2020 season.
The player's union isn't likely to agree to terms that allow the owners to make money and at least 6 of the owners have now come out in favor of scrapping the season.

two quarters of football and a two hour half time show .

quote:

When if comes to stadiums, very few team actually pay for their stadiums annually.

But you left out the fact they get a cut from concessions, parking and a few other areas.

quote:

Originally posted by rscalzo:

quote:

When if comes to stadiums, very few team actually pay for their stadiums annually.

But you left out the fact they get a cut from concessions, parking and a few other areas.

The team, yes they do get a cut from concessions, but most of the parking near stadiums are not controlled by the municipality, it is controlled by the private enterprise, meaning the people who paid for the stadium (residents) rarely benefit from it.

Atlanta's new stadium gets a cut from concessions (no idea how much, but it was made public by chick-fil-a), but Charlotte, Washington, Baltimore, Buffalo, New England, Tennessee all get none. The only others I have seen that get cuts from concession are Minneapolis, Chicago, Miami, and Dallas. I would assume that LA would as well as it is part of the new model.

If you are suggesting those 10-12% cuts from concessions make up the difference, I got news for you. The average concession expenditure in Charlotte in 2018 was $16.00. (they posted that a family of 4 pays on average $340 per game). By my math, that is 4x$64 ($256) for tickets $20 for parking, leaving $64 left over and divide that by four to get $16 per person.

75,000 people spending $16 on concessions/ trinkets would be $1.2 million. If the City keeps 12%, that would be $144,000 a game. Multiply by eight to get a whopping $1.15 million. That won't even pay a month of debt service for a cheap $200 million dollar MLS stadium.

To find real baseball, one has to go back half a centiury, to the time before free agency, steroid usage, and the designated hitter rule- three things which diminished and corrupted the game.

I don't see any overpaid, pissing prima donnas in this clip, do you?

Just listen to the sounds of the crowd at the beginning of the clip and the lack of excessive jabbery by the announcer after the home run.



I grew up playing baseball, loved to put my glove over my face and smell the leather. I loved watching the game when I was growing up, but now, there's nothing left to love. It's all gone. All gone.

I do not support any professional sports teams in any way. I have friends who live and die by their teams.

I just don't get it.

The last time I was REALLY into baseball was following the early 70s L.A. Dodgers. Davy Lopes, Ron Cey, Bill Buckner, Tommy John, etc. Never followed the sport after the 70s. I think I took a glance at the World Series perhaps 4-6 times in the last 40 years.

I was hooked big time on the NBA and NFL in the 80s, then that all petered out by the start of the 90s, the last gasp being Jordan. I used to following pro cycling, then PEDs chased me away. Haven't watched the Super Bowl and NBA Finals in decades.

The only live sporting events I have been to in a long time are rodeos and high school football, both in the last few years.

Rays-Dodgers Opener on Fox Is the Least-Watched World Series Game of All Time.

Suck it.

https://www.thewrap.com/world-...er-dodgers-rays-fox/

9.195 million total viewers is not just the smallest-ever audience for an opener, it’s the worst for any World Series game

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:

Rays-Dodgers Opener on Fox Is the Least-Watched World Series Game of All Time.

Suck it.

https://www.thewrap.com/world-...er-dodgers-rays-fox/

9.195 million total viewers is not just the smallest-ever audience for an opener, it’s the worst for any World Series game

I stopped watching this season when I saw Lance McCullers walk off the field in protest earlier this year. Last Astros game I watched. Other teams And other leagues walked off too, screw em, I am not supporting a Black Marxist hate America movement!
I keep hearing that Biden has more cash on hand than Trump, well yeah a lot was funneled from BLM fund raising.

HK Ag

Thanks for the clip Para, that's how a game should be called.

The film clip that para posted made me think of the old, external chest protectors that American League umpires used to wear. Also made me think of the Game of the Week baseball announcers: Dizzy Dean and Peewee Reese, Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek.

I will admit to following the Arizona Diamondbacks closely in their first few years in MLB, especially (of course) their seventh game Series victory against the Yankees in 2001.