Major League Ready

Where in this article does it address how much revenue teams would get from cable and satellite carriers? It says fans will continue to have the option of getting coverage through traditional carriers and of course we knew this to be true with the Twins as well. However, it says absolutely nothing about revenue models as they pertain to cable and satellite carriers.

Why would MLB negotiate the rights of individual teams for their local broadcasts on platforms out side of MLB's streaming service? What are the specifics of how MLB negotiated the rights of individual teams for local broadcasts with all the other platforms such as satellite and cable companies? I have not looked extensively but I can't find any articles that suggest such a program is in place. Perhaps you have a link. I am genuinely interested to learn of established programs that would clarify how this works.

This was Bally's issue with Comcast. Comcast insisted that Bally's be part of their regional sports package for which customers pay an additional fee. Same thing with DirecTV and Dish. It is highly probable that the twins arrangement with providers will be based on subscriptions either specifically for the Twins or a sports package. That sports package might include the Wild, Wolves, and other sports/outdoor related programming. This will allow providers to make deals for programming at a cost of $X and package them for sale at X plus Y% and that's how they provider profits. The Fee on DirectTV as an example is $15 and that includes a number of different sports. Given that fee, they are not paying much to carry the games unless they are getting a portion of the advertising revenue. The model could be that the Twins get next to nothing from the carriers and make their money on advertising revenue. We just don't have nearly enough reliable information to understand how the revenues and operating costs flow.

I assumed those sources were illegal. Are you telling us they are legal or are you suggesting stealing is just fine if you can get away with it?

In other words, you can't answer any of the questions so you don't want to play. You won't acknowledge you have completely and utterly ignored any operational costs and the revenue from three-quarters of the subscribers.

One, you completely ignore production costs which is equally critical to understanding the net. You are also proceeding under a badly flawed assumption that the only source of advertising revenue is the direct subscribers. What about the other 75% of viewers? What revenues are derived from them? We know very little. The difference between you and I is that I know what I don't know. I also believe that a couple of ex-GMs can make a couple phone calls to current GMs and acquire a far better estimate than you or I can assemble.

First, your source is an ad from Legal Zoom (https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/cost-of-marketing-ii-advertising-on-cable-tv) using a $200 figure as if all ads cost the same regardless of views per 1000. The Twins can now reach 3X as many households as last year. In the past 5 years they have average anywhere from 50-150K viewers per game. Given the wide swing and tripling of households reached, how many households are you using in this calculation? You offered no supporting information and failed to even consider the 75% of the Twins audience viewing on cable and satellite platforms. Why are you only considering advertising and subscription revenue from direct users? What about the out 75% of viewers on other platforms? What are you using for a cost per 1000 views? According to Skyworks marketing, the average cost per 1,000 views varies from $5-10 per 1000 for a local broadcast of a professional sports event. Are you using the minimum, maximum or any figure at all to come up with the $200 per ad pricing. I did not realize I was conversing with someone who possessed have more knowledge of MLB and better information sources than not one but two former GMs who speak to baseball executives on a daily basis. What you offered was a calculation with virtually no information to support your position and no evidence that you even considered the primary elements that go into calculating net income generated.

It think it's fair to assume advertising revenue will be less. However, given we have no reliable information, I thought I would share what Jim Duquette and Jim Bowden said on their show. It also seems reasonable to assume they have had discussions with industry insiders that would provide greater insight than those of us on TD given we have very little reliable information. I am going to assume their sources are better than mine.

I was not speculating, I simply relayed what was said on the front office show on MLB radio. My speculation is that they have much better sources than you and I. Meanwhile, you speculate that an advertising on a MLB game can be had for $200 based on a generic suggestion from Legal Zoom. Do you have any actual data on the cost to advertise on a MLB game? What about viewers on all the other platforms which is going to be multiples of their subscriptions. I doubt MLB only collects for their own subscriptions. Did you account for that? What do you suppose it costs to produce the broadcast. (Talent, production crew, travel, equipment, etc). We have virtually no reliable information on the various components of revenue and operating costs. IDK why any of us would think we have the ability to quantify income with the quality of information we have on revenue and virtually no information about production costs.

You have only quantified one element of the financial equation. That being the subscription revenue. What is the advertising revenue? I have no idea but I suspect the subscription fee is a small percentage of the total revenue. What are the operating costs. Simply looking at subscription revenue is of little value. I heard this discussed on of the MLB radio programs last year and they thought the new model would yield roughly three-quarters of the old model going forward. However, they offered no details other than that's what they ascertained from talking to people in the industry.

I agree to a point but there are other considerations as Karcherd points out. We also should ask if business owners take money out of their pockets to cover the cost? Of course not. That’s not how businesses operate. They either cut other expense or go out of business. A $1.5B stadium funded by a low interest (4%) instrument would cost around $86M/year. Where do you suppose the teams would cut that expense? It would primarily be through reducing player salaries. What if they just shell out the $1.5B. Do you suppose they would require a return on that extra billion dollars? The average rate of return on capital is roughly 10%. You could make an argument that half of the teams in the league would not exist because the ROI would be so low that nobody would want to buy a team outside the major markets. The most likely scenario is that they would build much more modest stadiums and maintain a very low payroll.

Are we talking about cash flow vs expense recognition? They may have paid them out but does the IRS allow them to recognize the expense when they were paid out? In other words, was their income reduced by the full amount of the expenditure in year one? I doubt it but I don't know how this works with MLB teams. If the asset/contract is not fully deductible in year one which is most often the case, then the expense is recognized over the life of the asset. Are you aware of special treatment for MLB teams that allows them to fully deduct bonus payments when they are paid? If not, the appropriate representation of these expenses is to recognize them equally across the length of the asset / contract life. Cash flow is not relevant.

I think this is an accurate accounting of the opening day payroll. ($134.7M) Starters SALARY Pablo Lopez 21,750,000 Joe Ryan 3,000,000 Bailey Ober 3,550,000 SWR 800,000 Chris Paddack 7,500,000 Relief Pitchers Jhoan Duran 4,125,000 Griffin Jax 2,365,000 Cole Sands 800,000 Jorge Alcala 1,500,000 Brock Stewart 870,000 Justin Topa 1,225,000 Michael Tonkin 1,000,000 Eiberson Castellano 800,000 Catchers Ryan Jeffers 4,550,000 Christian Vazquez 10,000,000 Infielders Jose Miranda 800,000 Royce Lewis 1,625,000 Brooks Lee 800,000 Carlos Correa 37,333,000 Utility Players Willi Castro (SS/2B/OF) 6,400,000 Austin Martin (2B/LF/CF) 800,000 ? 800,000 ? 800,000 Outfielders Trevor Larnach 2,100,000 Byron Buxton 15,142,857 Matt Wallner 800,000 Randy Dobnak 3,000,000 Kyle Farmer 250,000 Jay Jackson 200,000 TOTAL PAYROLL 134,685,857

I don't recall ever seeing an article about payroll spending or finances in general this well written. Not even close. Well done!

The 888 is revenue per attendee which of course includes concessions. The problem here is your meager understanding of financial analytics. It's hilarious you think you are qualified to assess their competence.

You insinuated they lost $20M as a result of lower attendance. I provided the difference in attendance of 22,508. We don't need any revenue numbers to calculate your inference that a $20M loss would mean that the average fan spends $888/each which of course is 10-12X overstated. The math is undeniable. Why do you want to continue to illustrate a thorough lack of analytical competence? Do you get it. You provide the revenue difference! I provided the change in attendance. The rest is a simple calculation.

2024 attendance was 1,951,616 down 22,508 from 1,974,124 in 2023. Are you under the impression that the average fan spends $888 to attend a game or did you just exaggerate by more than 10X for affect?

It's not remotely necessary to have their books to produce a meaningful comparison (estimate) using an unbiased source like Statista. All you need is a subscription. There are also numerous sources for revenue rank and there are multiple sources with very accurate accounts for payroll. It would be very easy to produce revenue vs revenue rank. It's obvious you don't want to be informed but perhaps others would like to have some factual data by which to form an opinion.

There is not a single topic that has gotten nearly as much play as how much this organization spends. There has been countless articles and thousands of posts insisting the team is cheap. People here absolutely love to rant about spending. It's become a primary function of this site. I would assume a TD writer would love to provide the facts surrounding their cheapness. It would be a huge hit to illustrate their cheapness. I would think there is a TD writer that would want the glory of illustrating these facts. writers and posters here a generally quite good at proving factual basis for their opinions on player performance opinions but the most commonly asserted fact on this site has never been supported by fact. I think the Pohlads, in general terms, are mediocre owners and I am reasonably confident the new owners will better overall. I am quite aware you don't complain. However, the majority rant constantly without supporting facts which is not exactly rational or intelligent. Is TD and their followers interested in the facts. I will join in the condemnation if it's actually proven the Pohalds are cheaper than most or even average?

I have already done a fair amount of it but I also know that you any many others would just completely ignore it if it was me posting it.

It took a five-part series to come to this conclusion? Do you think people are that intrigued by the reason they are selling? Let's be real. This much effort was a product of wanting to complain. Nobody really cares why the Pohlad's are selling.

How is this history relevant to what is happening today or why does anyone care? I bet nobody would care how they got their money if we were in the top 10 in spending. The purpose is to rant about how the Pohlad's spend. So, why not cut to the chase and do an article on how the Twins spending rank vs revenue rank compares or how their spending as a percentage of revenue compares to other teams. We get a five part series on the Pohlad's business history but not a single Twins Daily writer willing to actually layout the facts on their spending vs other teams of similar revenue. Sure seems like TD does not want an article that would actually quantify/illustrate the relative spend. Why is this so?

It seemed that Bean5302 was trying to illustrate the relative increase in market cap for the Twins vs other potential investments. I assume he did this because there have been countless posts suggesting this increase in valuation was phenomenal. What Bean5302 showed was that this was not remotely close to the return on something like Apple. Anyone that has done any investing can pull up an online investment calculator, plug in the number and determine a future asset value or a rate of return. For all the ranting here, it would appear that the people doing the ranting have never bothered to check the validity of their theories. Bean5302 made it really simple but anyone who does not like the facts, ignores them. The takeaway here should be that the increase in valuation has been slightly less than what any of us would have made in a S&P 500 fund which I would bet are part of some of the member's 401K.

I completely agree but there are always going to be fans insisting that players don't understand it's a business. I seem to recall lots of posters saying that Buxton would never sign an extension. Some even were critical that they would not give him $150M+ guarantee. Now people are complaining about him getting $15M/year when he has produced quite well in 3 or the past 4 years. Now we are complaining that they avoided arbitration with every single player.

Buxton has been a bad investment in one of the last 4 years. The other 3 years he produced a total of 11.3 WAR or $4M per WAR which is double the average production for free agents. How is that a disaster?