Minor Leaguers and Minimum Wage

[Mr. Brooks]

Entertainment is a business. How do they make money? By ticket sales, concessions and TV / cable deals. If the league or labor laws change and minor leaguers begin earning wages (whatever the dollar amount) the teams will incur more cost from this. The amount? who knows. But if it's a substantial hit they WILL pass along a good deal of that cost via ticket prices etc., i promise you. Any business even baseball teams still operate as a profitable business at a fundamental level. I am not saying whose right or whose wrong regarding the salary debate.

I think Ash's point is that, if they aren't already charging the maximum that the market will bear, then they aren't very good at business.

 

Passing along cost increases really only work when you either have a monopoly, or are providing an essential service.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Entertainment is a business.  How do they make money?  By ticket sales, concessions and TV / cable deals.  If the league or labor laws change and minor leaguers begin earning wages (whatever the dollar amount) the teams will incur more cost from this.  The amount?  who knows.  But if it's a substantial hit they WILL pass along a good deal of that cost via ticket prices etc., i promise you.  Any business even baseball teams still operate as a profitable business at a fundamental level.  I am not saying whose right or whose wrong regarding the salary debate.       

 

Actually, the amount has been posted here over and over......less than 5MM per year for each MLB team.....

[laloesch]

 

Actually, the amount has been posted here over and over......less than 5MM per year for each MLB team.....

 

So so what?

[laloesch]

 

I think Ash's point is that, if they aren't already charging the maximum that the market will bear, then they aren't very good at business.

Passing along cost increases really only work when you either have a monopoly, or are providing an essential service.

 

We are talking minor league players and possible salaries here correct?  why would they not increase minor league ticket prices to partially compensate?  I mean they are pretty much the cheapest ticket in town and have more wiggle room to make up any increase. 

 

I'm doing the math in my head and i just don't see the minor league markets being maxed regarding ticket prices especially in Indianapolis, Charlotte,  Nashville, Buffalo.  All those minor league teams draw lots of fans season after season.

[old nurse]

 

I think we are talking about minor league teams here.

Minor league salaries are paid for by the major league teams.  That has been fairly well established in this thread. Whatever salary the players, and club staff get does not effect the ticket prices or concessions of minor league teams.  So, if you are thinking ticket prices are going up from 10-11 dollars, that ship sailed quite a while ago at the major league level.

 

[Mike Sixel]

 

So so what?

 

Your post said we didn't know the amount.....I gave it to you w/o comment.

 

But here's some commentary:

 

But if you think 5MM a year for a MLB matters, I don't agree. Not once they wash it out over the MLB and MilB pay.....

[old nurse]

 

 

We are talking minor league players and possible salaries here correct?  why would they not increase minor league ticket prices to partially compensate?  I mean they are pretty much the cheapest ticket in town and have more wiggle room to make up any increase. 

 

I'm doing the math in my head and i just don't see the minor league markets being maxed regarding ticket prices especially in Indianapolis, Charlotte,  Nashville, Buffalo.  All those minor league teams draw lots of fans season after season.

Minor league teams do not pay for the salary of the players so whatever they make on attendance does not effect the payroll. Even then of the 190 minor league teams only 46 averaged more than 5000 a game. 14 over 7000. Using Mike's figure 5 million to each of the parent clubs having each minor league team making anther 750000 would be more than most teams could bear. That would especially hold true for the lower minors where the bulk of the players play and don't make any money.

 

[old nurse]

 

Your post said we didn't know the amount.....I gave it to you w/o comment.

 

But here's some commentary:

 

But if you think 5MM a year for a MLB matters, I don't agree. Not once they wash it out over the MLB and MilB pay.....

Well, 5 mil to the Twins is the difference between having Logan Morrison versus Kennys Vargas. Uhm, at this point, never mind.

[Mr. Brooks]

We are talking minor league players and possible salaries here correct? why would they not increase minor league ticket prices to partially compensate? I mean they are pretty much the cheapest ticket in town and have more wiggle room to make up any increase.

 

I'm doing the math in my head and i just don't see the minor league markets being maxed regarding ticket prices especially in Indianapolis, Charlotte, Nashville, Buffalo. All those minor league teams draw lots of fans season after season.

One, the people charging for milb tickets aren't the same one paying milb salaries. At least not for affiliated teams, which I assume is what we are discussing.

 

Two, if they could charge more for tickets without losing attendance, and they decided not to, then they are awful at business, and are doomed regardless.

[TheLeviathan]

This seems relevant to this thread.

[Vanimal46]

You have to be really passionate about what you're doing to make that little of money... I don't know how you can survive on less than $100 every two weeks.

[Mike Sixel]

 

You have to be really passionate about what you're doing to make that little of money... I don't know how you can survive on less than $100 every two weeks.

 

You can't. It's one reason poor people play less baseball, they don't see it as an opportunity like the NFL or NBA.

[Vanimal46]

You can't. It's one reason poor people play less baseball, they don't see it as an opportunity like the NFL or NBA.

And they would be right about that. Trying to progress through 5 levels of competitive baseball in hopes of playing MLB baseball for $525k is a steep hill to climb.

 

It blows my mind seeing that check in the Yahoo link Levi shared. I made more money working part time in college than they do. And I was broke throughout college...

[Mr. Brooks]

And they would be right about that. Trying to progress through 5 levels of competitive baseball in hopes of playing MLB baseball for $525k is a steep hill to climb.

 

It blows my mind seeing that check in the Yahoo link Levi shared. I made more money working part time in college than they do. And I was broke throughout college...

It doesn't look to me like that check was actually for "two weeks" though.

 

The YTD are all the same as the pay period, so clearly this is the first pay check of the year.

The "regular" pay rate says 550.00, so my uneducated guess is that this check was only actually for about 1/3rd of a two week pay period.