While it’s a short work week for many, the week ahead is being touted as critical to the possibility of a 2020 MLB season. The MLB Players Association and owners are working against the clock in an effort to outline the health procedures and financial structure necessary to ensure the possibility of some form of baseball, likely starting with a second spring training in June and an abbreviated regular season opening in July.
Media coverage of this week’s negotiations will likely focus on the economic issues, which will be no small hurdle to clear. Teams’ revenue pictures will change dramatically in a partial season that will, at a bare minimum, likely begin with no fans in the stands. Public debate on these matters likely won’t be flattering for either side, with phrases like “millionaires vs billionaires” thrown around to characterize the dispute between the players and owners.
In the meantime, teams have been left to their own devices to determine what this shutdown means for the people stuck in the middle. With no minor league games at present and an abbreviated MLB draft coming up in June, some organizations are furloughing or cutting player development and scouting positions. The Angels, for example, made headlines last week when word started to get out that they’re going to be furloughing their area scouts on starting June 1, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. In April the Angels were estimated to be worth just under $2 billion by Forbes and their owner, Arte Moreno, has an estimated net worth of $3.3 billion. They’re keeping a few of their senior scouting officials long enough to run next month’s draft, then they’ll be furloughed too.
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Keeping Staff in Place
On the other side of the coin, several teams have made it clear that they’re keeping baseball operations employees around. First word came out that the Twins, White Sox and Cardinals would retain all employees through June, and later several more teams announced their staffs were staying through September. The Brewers were in the latter group despite a financial picture that almost certainly cannot be as solid as the Angels’.
Commissioner Rob Manfred recently told CNN that owners could lose “about $4 billion” if no baseball were played in 2020, although that number has not been independently verified or audited. To put that figure into context, Forbes reported that MLB teams made a record $10.7 billion in revenues in 2019 and spent around $4.7 billion on player payroll. This is the 17th consecutive year where MLB has set a new revenue record and the linked article also notes that the figure was poised to rise again in 2020 in part due to a new $1 billion uniform deal with Nike. The value of the national television contract with Fox was also set to increase by $2 billion in 2022.
Not all of those revenues are distributed evenly among teams, of course, and it’s safe to assume that an organization like the Yankees made significantly more than the Brewers. The fact that MLB teams do not publicly release their financial data further muddies the water on any discussion of revenues. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman noted that the Braves, the only major league team owned by a publicly traded company, reported a $476 million gain in 2019. On the surface this wouldn’t seem to line up with Mark Attanasio’s public comments that the Brewers “operated at a loss” in 2019.
Even if Attanasio and company aren’t making as much money as their contemporaries, however, furloughing staff just a few months after setting a new revenue record is a bad look for MLB teams and everyone involved should be glad the Brewers aren’t following that trend.
