Baseball has long been considered to be one of the most popular sports in the United States. It has remained largely unchanged as far as the rules go despite being around for so many years. The biggest thing that has changed is how sports teams make money. Read on to learn how baseball teams make money in modern times.
Television Deals
The biggest way that baseball teams make money involves television deals. There are two types of television deals and both of them are lucrative. Teams make money by signing national and local television deals. Games that play locally make teams a good amount of money, and nationally televised games make a lot of cash.
TV stations pay big money to get sports games on their networks. Sports broadcasts are still some of the most watched television shows in North America. Baseball games bring in more money from advertisers and help to get the networks better ratings. Those networks pay baseball teams a great deal of money to secure the rights to air their games.
Ticket Sales
As you’d expect, ticket sales are another way that baseball teams make money. This is the live gate for the baseball games that the team plays. A sellout crowd for a playoff game is going to bring in a lot of money. So baseball teams that have consistently high ticket sales will bring in more money than those with low attendance.
Merchandise
Merchandise sales help teams to earn money as well. Baseball teams sell all sorts of merchandise. Fans of different teams can buy baseball hats, jerseys, pennants, t-shirts, posters, and much more. All of these merchandise sales help to contribute to a team’s bottom line.
Revenue Sharing
In Major League Baseball, teams also make money through revenue sharing. Every team contributes a set percentage of revenue, and that money is distributed evenly to all of the teams. This helps to ensure that teams in major markets don’t get an unfair advantage over teams located in smaller markets. It evens the playing field a little bit, but it doesn’t keep the more popular teams in big cities from being more profitable overall.