Outrageous MLB Salaries!

[xpress34]

Re: Outrageous MLB Salaries!

While I agree that ultimately the fan is the 'bottom line' source of revenue, the owners and teams need to be held - at least to extent - accountable to the fans for what they pay for players and what they charge us for tickets.

Why do I have this opinion? Well, at least here in Denver, the Rockies got a sweetheart deal... part of the Expansion Deal in the late 80's / early 90's with MLB included them getting a Baseball Stadium built - not just playing at Mile High.

And yes, the Rockies got one of the most beautiful parks in the majors built - by who? The FANS (i.e. Taxpayers). It didn't cost the team ONE RED DIME... and who collects ALL the revenue the stadium produces??? The OWNERS and the team. The City of Denver collects tax revenue, sure... but the other cities that voted for small sales tax increases to help the 'Stadium Disctrict' get the Stadium built see little to nothing back.

Tax revenues are a given for any business that builds in your city - but for the Tax Payers to finance a stadium that gives them NO return on their investment??? We don't build Wal-Mart's stores for them...

Just my .02 and rant... any other cities in the same boat???

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, incumbent teams (read: BRONCOS) use scare tactics (If we don't get a new stadium, we'll have to move the team) to get votes to have the Tax Payers build their new stadium as well! And again - what did the taxpayers get back? NOTHING. Just the same Tax revenue they were already collecting from Mile High.

[aeneas01]

Re: Outrageous MLB Salaries!

does it really matter if manny makes 40 times the national average or 500 times the national average? in either case he will make more in one year playing ball than the average joe will make in his/her entire lifetime. according to the baseball almanac dimaggio pulled in $100,000 in 1941 while the rest of nation was trying to get by on $2,400 (social security wage index history). yet we're told dimaggio played during the golden years when ball players took the field for the love of the game and played for peanuts. sure, dimaggio's pay represented "only" 40 times the national average while manny's pay will represent 500 times the national average. but, honestly, what's the dif when the dust finally settles? when all is said and done both dimaggio and ramirez, like many other well paid professional athletes, will make more in 12 months than the average joe will make in 40 years. to complain that players such as ramirez are making even more than this strikes me as somewhat goofy, know what i mean? if a guy laps your entire lifetime earnings in 12 months complaining about the number of times he's lapped you seems a little pointless imo...

so have baseball tickets really gone through the roof? are ball games no longer accessible to the average joe because of the huge salaries megalomaniacs such as ramirez demand today? seems like a reach to me. in 1964 the average ticket price was $2.25 while average income was $4,600. in 2009 the average ticket price will be $25 (or so) while average income is estimated at $45,000. using these figures ticket prices have increased 14% since 1964 - 14% in 45 years. this doesn't strike me as something out of control - in fact it strikes me as roughly the same deal it was almost 50 years ago. quite a bargain.

it would seem that baseball has never been more accessible nor more affordable than today - especially when one considers the enormous amount of alternative access fans now have. in 1964 you were pretty much looking at going to the park, listening to the game on the radio or reading about it in the paper the next day. but today fans can follow any game, pitch by pitch, on the internet while listening to the radio stream of the game in another browser - or fans can pretty much tune into any game they want on the tube with the mlb package. yet fans continue to complain that they're being squeezed out, that baseball is becoming less and less accessible. because of the manny's of the world. crazy daze...

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[kingjammy24]

Re: Outrageous MLB Salaries!

i'm always a sucker for an economics discussion.

chris: i'd rather hold fans accountable for what they agree to pay than owners for what they try to charge. a ticket only costs a certain amount once it's actually been bought and paid for. that said, i agree that the notion of taxpayers funding ballparks is unfair. but again, it goes back to the fan's cries that a team is part of the fabric of a city, part of the character of a city. it's not just a walmart. its a part of the city's history and makeup. so apparently, the government sometimes subsidizes it lest they hear it from the fans when the team moves to another city.

robert: it's true that ultimately you reach a point where it's all just monopoly money and it doesn't matter whether it's $30mm/yr or $130mm/yr; the point is it's more than you can possibly spend. sure the dimaggio's of any era never wanted for much but you wonder how the different eras compare in terms of the lesser-known players. i once saw a really great documentary about the brooklyn dodgers. a part of it discussed how many of the players lived in middle-class neighborhoods and during the off-season, many had to get regular jobs, including selling appliances or doing manual labor. the 2009 MLB min. salary is $400k. the absolute worst player in all of baseball will make at least $400k. unless you go insane with it, $400k is enough not to necessitate an off-season job selling stereos. here's an amusing photo. the top home is arod's (one of them). the bottom is mantle in front of his home, in 1956, well after he'd already "made it" in the bigs:


i know the mantle pic may be deceptive as we can't see how far mantle's house wraps around

anyway, i thought your baseball ticket figures were interesting. in real, inflation-adjusted 2002 dollars, an average ticket in 1964 was $13.01. in 1997, the average ticket in real 2002 dollars was $13.51. when correctly adjusted, ticket prices really haven't exploded. (in 1988, the price was $8.97!). what has genuinely exploded are player salaries. in 1964, the avg salary, in real, adjusted 2002 dollars, was $85,909. in the same real, adjusted 2002 dollars, in 1997 it was $1,472,150. so much for the common knee-jerk reaction that player salaries are behind ticket price increases.

in the 1949, dimaggio made $100k. in adjusted 2002 dollars, that would be about $755k. not even the major league minimum in 2009. baseball revenue has exploded, player salaries have exploded, but ticket prices, as you say, have pretty much stayed the same. the game today is no less affordable than it was in the 50s and 60s.



what i hope this does is finally dispel this common myth that a) ticket prices are exploding out of control and b) ticket prices are a result of player salaries.

in 1929, the average MLB payroll 35.3% of total team revenue. in 1990, it was 33.4%. meaning in 1990, the average MLB team spent less on player salaries than they did in 1929.

i remember in 1990 when i could get the best seat in the house for $20. the problem is i was also making a hell of a lot less back then. i think people are looking at old prices in the context of their current salaries.

rudy.

[kingjammy24]

Re: Outrageous MLB Salaries!

Somebody gave me a seat there once, a couple of years ago, and I took it for about three innings, and then took the elevator upstairs. Nothing but yuppies...I can only imagine that in New York, it's, if anything, even worse. You can have those seats.

yuppies!?! when did they start letting yuppies into ballparks?! sweet merciful jesus. what's next..minorities? homosexuals?

and you're right about NYC!! oh man..wall to wall yuppies over there. them and their 26 world championships...did i ever tell you about the time i went to some yuppie party out in the 'burbs? they served salsa and when i asked them where it was made, they said NYC!!!! what the f.?! that's not salsa!! that's when i whipped out my Pace Thick 'N Chunky and showed them what was up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSxnieYctVM

i bet you tough guys over in PHX serve Pace Thick 'N Chunky! nothing but real salsa and seats in the nosebleed section!

rudy.

[aeneas01]

Re: Outrageous MLB Salaries!

robert: it's true that ultimately you reach a point where it's all just monopoly money and it doesn't matter whether it's $30mm/yr or $130mm/yr; the point is it's more than you can possibly spend. sure the dimaggio's of any era never wanted for much....

exactly what i was pointing out - but to take it a step further you would think any ball player that makes more money in 12 months than the average fan will make in his entire lifetime would be the target of the same sort of criticism that seems to be reserved for ramirez. yet every player that makes $2,000,000 per year or more qualifies - heck 1/3 of the guys on the woeful pittsburgh pirates roster (sadly, my team) make $2,000,000 or more. apparently fans are ok with players that equal the fan's lifetime salary in just one season but draw the line when a player makes 5-10 times this amount. because, of course, that's obscene. mama mia...

...but you wonder how the different eras compare in terms of the lesser-known players. i once saw a really great documentary about the brooklyn dodgers. a part of it discussed how many of the players lived in middle-class neighborhoods and during the off-season, many had to get regular jobs, including selling appliances or doing manual labor. the 2009 MLB min. salary is $400k. the absolute worst player in all of baseball will make at least $400k. unless you go insane with it, $400k is enough not to necessitate an off-season job selling stereos.

gotta love unions... i was never a fan of nolan ryan until after i saw him interviewed years ago. he mentioned the days when he was forced to pump gas during the winter to make ends meet when he played for the mets. he went on to say that his work with the mlbpa was his most important, meaningful contribution to the game. of course ryan went on to make close to 200 times the national average in 1992 - $4.2 million that year compared the $22,900 the rest of the nation was averaging...

anyway, i thought your baseball ticket figures were interesting. in real, inflation-adjusted 2002 dollars, an average ticket in 1964 was $13.01. in 1997, the average ticket in real 2002 dollars was $13.51. when correctly adjusted, ticket prices really haven't exploded. (in 1988, the price was $8.97!). what has genuinely exploded are player salaries. in 1964, the avg salary, in real, adjusted 2002 dollars, was $85,909. in the same real, adjusted 2002 dollars, in 1997 it was $1,472,150. so much for the common knee-jerk reaction that player salaries are behind ticket price increases.

exactly - very tough to argue that ticket prices have severely outpaced a fan's income during the past 50 years. as far as skyrocketing mlb growth trends are concerned, soaring club values deserve a prominent place in your graph!

in the 1949, dimaggio made $100k. in adjusted 2002 dollars, that would be about $755k. not even the major league minimum in 2009. baseball revenue has exploded, player salaries have exploded, but ticket prices, as you say, have pretty much stayed the same. the game today is no less affordable than it was in the 50s and 60s.

imo you can't use cpi driven inflation models for this debate, i.e. $12,100 worth of goods in 1949 would cost $100,000 in 2007. imo you have to use a wage or gdp index when attempting to compare incomes - for example when a gdp model is used dimaggio's annual salary works out to around $5 million in 2009 dollars. this strikes me as somewhat more accurate given that dimaggio's 1949 salary was about 15 times the 1949 median home price. a 2002 salary of $755k would to equate to only 4 times the 2002 median home price. but, to your point, still nowhere near the dollars other mlb stars are currently pulling in.

what i hope this does is finally dispel this common myth that a) ticket prices are exploding out of control and b) ticket prices are a result of player salaries.

in 1929, the average MLB payroll 35.3% of total team revenue. in 1990, it was 33.4%. meaning in 1990, the average MLB team spent less on player salaries than they did in 1929.

i agree - this should put to rest the notion that the manny's of the world are pushing ticket prices beyond what john q. public can afford. but i think your labor ratios are a little low - i thought the figure was around 50%. but ratios can be very misleading - just because ratios are up doesn't mean hard profit dollars are down.

in my past life as a numbers guy for hotels and resorts everything was tied to ratios - food cost ratios, labor ratios, cost of goods ratios, profit ratios, casino drop ratios, housekeeping ratios, etc., etc., etc. - the culture was such that management focused more on ratios than the dollars that were hitting the bank. i mean it was so bad that food and beverage directors and executive chefs would shoot down expensive dishes like beluga caviar or fresh abalone flown in because the cost ratio was above 55% and they were shooting for a 32% food cost, which their bonuses were tied to. what was lost in this ratio madness was that the hard dollars brought to bottom line was more on these 55%+ food cost items than it was on many of the 30% food cost items. go figure...

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[godwulf]

Re: Outrageous MLB Salaries!

yuppies!?! when did they start letting yuppies into ballparks?! sweet merciful jesus. what's next..blah blah blah etc

So I'm bothered by self-important people who go to the ballpark to socialize and be seen, and dare to suggest that there just might be some of those folks in N.Y., and now I'm John Rocker.

Dude, you've got problems.

[kingjammy24]

Re: Outrageous MLB Salaries!

gotta love unions... i was never a fan of nolan ryan until after i saw him interviewed years ago. he mentioned the days when he was forced to pump gas during the winter to make ends meet when he played for the mets. he went on to say that his work with the mlbpa was his most important, meaningful contribution to the game.

what i love is this idea that a workforce comprised almost entirely of multi-millionaires needs a union! the average MLB salary is $3mm. a man making $3mm needs a union to protect him from..what? oppressive working conditions? unfair and low pay? MLB players..right there in solidarity with their minimum wage union brethren. anyway, yes i remember the curt flood case where flood said that he may be highly paid but he's a highly paid slave because a team can ship him whereever they want, whenever they want, without his choice. curt had a choice; he could quit baseball. aren't we all pretty much wage slaves? the only difference is most of us aren't paid $3mm/yr. for $3mm/yr, i would be more than happy for an MLB team to ship my ass wherever, whenever and i wouldn't raise a peep. ship my ass to kansas city! as long as that $3mm/yr check cashes, i'm a happy guy. anyway, i find it deplorable and dehumanizing that poor nolan had to pump gas in the offseason. thank god the union stepped in and ended the barbaric need for off-season jobs.

rudy.

[aeneas01]

Re: Outrageous MLB Salaries!

what i love is this idea that a workforce comprised almost entirely of multi-millionaires needs a union! the average MLB salary is $3mm. a man making $3mm needs a union to protect him from..what? oppressive working conditions? unfair and low pay? MLB players..right there in solidarity with their minimum wage union brethren.

yeah, the notion of multi-millionaire athletes represented by a union is pretty goofy - but i'm fairly certain baseball players weren't the multi-millionaires they are today when the union was formed. in fact the average starting salary for a mlb player was about 15% higher than what the average joe made in 1966. no wonder ryan pumped gas in new jersey during his early days with the metropolitans! and, needless to say, the history books aren't replete with examples of unions voluntarily disbanding once their initial demands are met - they seem more agreeable to sticking around.

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[dodgersfan]

Re: Outrageous MLB Salaries!

Check this out,how long it takes Manny Ramirez to earn your wages.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/salary/index?athleteId=3951623

Rudy