Detailed Financial Info from Pirates, Rays, Marlins, Angels, and Mariners Sees Light of Day

[JonLP24]

Last night, sensitive financial information from 2007 and 2008 was leaked regarding the Pittsburgh Pirates detailing how MLB’s club with the lowest payroll has profited, its revenue-sharing figures, and details around television, concession, ticket revenues, and more.

<snip>

Today, Deadspin released, not only the Pirates documents, but the financials from Rays, Marlins, Angels, and Mariners (separate posting) painting a picture that shows clubs at the low and middle level of player payroll spending are, for the most part, pulling a profit.

The documents that detail 2007 and 2008 for the Pirates, Mariners, Rays, Pirates and 2008, 2009 for the Marlins and Angels are, simply by volume, the largest collection of sensitive financial documents that have ever been released to the public during the Selig tenure; maybe ever. Another club’s information is also in-hand, but due to it not being in PDF format, the details are slated to be released separately.

With the exceptional amount of information within each club’s document, The Biz of Baseball will be dedicating several articles – one for each club’s documents – over the course of the next few days. This initial report will detail key like revenues that are rarely available.

Detailed information at the link--http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4654:detailed-financial-info-from-pirates-rays-marlins-angels-and-mariners-released&catid=30:mlb-news&Itemid=42

Article on the info released about the Pirates.
http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4648:pittsburgh-pirates-financial-info-shows-everything-from-revenue-sharing-to-tv-money-and-more&catid=30:mlb-news&Itemid=42

Also the documents posted on Deadspin
http://deadspin.com/5615096/mlb-confidential-the-financial-documents-baseball-doesnt-want-you-to-see-part-1?skyline=true&s=i

The Seattle Mariners.
http://deadspin.com/5619509/mlb-confidential-part-2-seattle-mariners?skyline=true&s=i

Deadspin suggests to pay "close attention to the teams' operating income, their revenue-sharing figures, the size of their TV deals, and the amortization of player contracts (a neat trick of accounting pioneered by Bill Veeck that allows an owner to turn his team into a lucrative tax shelter)" when looking through these documents.

[joeybee12]

1. Doesn't surprise me about the "accounting tricks"...

baseball is a business, a huge corporation actually, and all of them will try anything to better their bottom line.

[JonLP24]

2. What I found interesting...

is the year Tampa Bay spends more players and make it to the World Series is all the year the make less than the year before.

I'm trying to find a good analysis for all this stuff but baseball biz was the best I could fine and even them tell me to expect detailed analysis in a few days.

[joeybee12]

3. I think you miswrote your first sentence...

do you mean they made less the year they made it to the WS or after?

[JonLP24]

4. Made less the year they made it to the WS

#3 of Tampa Bay lists 2007 and 2008 years.

[joeybee12]

5. Makes no sense...

But I bet an accountant would say it does.

[JonLP24]

6. Texas Rangers

Leaked Documents Show Rare Look at the Finances of Texas Rangers

* * For merchandise: Revenue increased due to Josh Hamilton success story accounting for 10% of total merchandise sales in 2008.
* 2008 parking pevenue reduced due to parking being comp'd to season ticket holders due to lot construction.

Today, Deadspin releases the final set of leaked documents; hits the web with information from 2007 and 2008 for the Texas Rangers.

<snip>

Here's what stands out:

* As Net Income shows, the Rangers, via Hicks Sports Group, was running in the red and not profitable (this became patently obvious over the last year-and-half as HSG defaulted on $525 million in loans). Losses of nearly $38 million in 2007 and more than $10.4 million in 2007 show that the club was on uneven footing.
* Television and radio revenues are striking, until we dug a bit deeper. At $62,583,031 for each year of the contract, TV and Radio appear as a considerable cash cow, eclipising gate. However, MLB's Central Funds are rolled into it; an odd bit of accounting (see supporting table below). Here's why it's odd... When adding in Central Funds for 2008 from a separate "Details" sheet, the figure showed for TV and Radio for 2008 aligns perfectly. However, Central Fund monies were higher in 2007 for the $23,921,288 as opposed to $19,807,000 for 2008. The difference throws the Consolidated table off.
* What's odd in the sheet is that net ticket sales are identical for both 2008 and 2007 ($39,978,429)

http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4659:deadspin-releases-texas-rangers-financial-documents&catid=26:editorials&Itemid=39

Deadspin-Texas Rangers financial documents.
http://deadspin.com/5619951/mlb-confidential-part-3-texas-rangers?skyline=true&s=i