As a new season gets under way, the financial disparity between MLB’s 30 teams has never been greater, alienating fans, distorting the game and making a long work stoppage all but inevitable
Exciting to read an article about baseball that mentions the Gini coefficient (well, exciting if you're an economist). More on that after some excerpts:
"Based on a widely used measure of economic inequality known as the Gini coefficient, overall team spending on payroll and luxury tax this season projects to be the most unequal since at least 1985"
"It’s a system the MLB Players Association has defended ferociously for the union’s entire existence. The NFL, NBA and NHL all have salary caps. Only baseball players have held out, a victory they consider among their greatest accomplishments. The players are so opposed to the concept of a pay ceiling that the last time owners seriously attempted to introduce a cap in 1994, the World Series was canceled because they all went on strike."
"History has shown that owners and players can resolve their issues without a cap. Baseball saw similar inequality in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the New York Yankees were cementing themselves as the “Evil Empire.”
In response, the 2003 labor deal formalized the luxury tax and established the framework for the modern version of revenue sharing, mechanisms that act as subsidies to the less wealthy clubs. Disparity decreased over the next 15 years—before skyrocketing again in the 2020s. Over the past three offseasons, the Mets, Dodgers and Yankees have spent more on free agents than the teams that ranked ninth through 30th combined."
"the Dodgers . . . signed a 25-year, $8.35 billion deal with Time Warner Cable in 2013"
"The economics of baseball franchises are notoriously opaque, but teams are required to submit an audited financial statement every year. It doesn’t factor in every potential revenue stream, like team-owned entertainment districts around their stadiums. Nor does it account for increases in franchise valuations, which continue to climb. But the document provides a window into how teams are faring on a year-in, year-out basis.
In 2023, the most recent data that has been shared with teams, franchises were divided into three groups, people familiar with the matter said. About one third of teams reported earnings of around $20 to $55 million before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, around half of which were small-market teams benefiting from revenue sharing checks.
Around another third took losses of $20 million or more. The remainder roughly broke even."
"The most recent baseball team sale saw the Baltimore Orioles go for $1.73 billion last year. At the same time, NFL and NBA teams have been selling for double or even triple that amount."
"Since MLB expanded to 30 franchises in 1998, teams ranked in the top five in payroll have averaged 89 wins a season. The next five teams averaged about 86 victories, with that figure plummeting to just 74 for those in the bottom five."
"Sixteen different organizations have won the World Series since 1998, the most of any major American sport. There hasn’t been a repeat champion in baseball since the Yankees claimed three straight from 1998 to 2000."
Gini coefficient from Wikipedia does a good job of explaining the concept. The way it is calculated is it can be as low as 0 and as high as 1. If everyone made the same income, G = 0. As G goes higher, it means that the higher incomes groups are getting a higher percentage of total income and/or the lower income groups are getting a lower percentage of total income.
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