Tigers vs. Red Sox May 4, 2021 Game 30

[byco42]

All 4 of Detroit's pro-sports teams have been @ or near the bottom of their respective sport/league for several years now. That hasn't happened very often in history, as there is usually at least one who is competitive, if not contending in any given year. So the Tigers have had competition in the Spring/Fall b/c the Lions only play 8 games @ Ford Field per season.

Gotta go back to the mid 70s to find somewhat similar circumstances. But the Lions and Pistons were relatively better then than they are today.

 

[Rebbiv]

The Tigers are on the hook for 90 million with Cabrera, I?m not positive that they budgeted for that.

I don't get what you are saying. Everyone knows who makes what money for the duration of their contract. Zimmermann got all of his $120 Mil and DET knew they had to pay it, so they "budgeted" around that expected cost.

Another thing to point out. Name one sport who has mentioned not able to maintain operating costs due to Covid. For baseball (or other sports), that means fans in the stands are not as important as media revenue or advertising revenue in these times. This means they were making well more than they were admitting.

 

[Rebbiv]

All 4 of Detroit's pro-sports teams have been @ or near the bottom of their respective sport/league for several years now. That hasn't happened very often in history, as there is usually at least one who is competitive, if not contending in any given year. So the Tigers have had competition in the Spring/Fall b/c the Lions only play 8 games @ Ford Field per season.


However, I can't see the Tigers ever completely losing more than ~65% of their fanbase in any given season. Detroit has always supported their pro-teams through thick and thin. Chris Ilitch s/b able to continue with making empty promises for an indefinite period of time...perhaps even encompassing years, while profiting bigly from "other" income streams as mentioned upthread.

Last Time in Playoffs

Pistons = 2019 (2 of last 10 years in playoffs)
Redwings = 2016 (5 of last 10 years in playoffs)
Lions = 2016 (2 of last 10 years in playoffs)
Tiger = 2014 (4 of last 10 years in playoffs)

 

[byco42]

I don't get what you are saying. Everyone knows who makes what money for the duration of their contract. Zimmermann got all of his $120 Mil and DET knew they had to pay it, so they "budgeted" around that expected cost.

Clearly CI budgets more responsibly than his father did:

Link

Another thing to point out. Name one sport who has mentioned not able to maintain operating costs due to Covid. For baseball (or other sports), that means fans in the stands are not as important as media revenue or advertising revenue in these times. This means they were making well more than they were admitting.

Operating costs are not profits, so I don?t get what you are saying. Operating costs don?t necessarily pay employees, usually don?t actually. And the decrease in 2020 revenue may not have affected keeping the plywood off the windows, but a lot of MLB employees were affected by COVID.

An estimated 30% of a team?s revenue comes from ticket sales. The estimated total revenue from ticket sales in 2019 was $ 3 billion. So I think that fans in the stands are critical to a team?s profitability, IMO. Initially, owners only had to front $170,000,000 for payroll in 2020 through May, and salaries were pro-rated after that. Since the season started in July, players were not paid until they started playing games then. The projected payroll for 2020 was 4 billion. They ended up paying players about 1.4 billion.

2019 MLB revenue = $10 billion
2020 MLB revenue = $3.66 billion

Losses > $3 billion
EBITDA > $2 billion

Link

And help me understand please how the owners can falsely report their financials.