Major League Baseball Case Study

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“Take me out to the ballgame” is a song well known among baseball fans. Unfortunately, when it comes to money Major League Baseball is unfair. Rich teams can afford any player they desire, while poor teams have to invest in their rookies and young stars. Studies show that most stars go where the big money is. Money plays a large behind-the-scenes part in regards to the sport of baseball. So rich organizations have the upper hand. Certain star players command such high salaries that teams must alter their payroll distribution in order to sign them. The MLB needs a payroll cap because the money differential between MLB teams makes affording and keeping players an unfair system.
A big contributor of how organizations earn money is the attendance …show more content…

The way they can make money, is if fans come out to watch games, buy drinks, food, memorabilia, etc. There are a lot of “bandwagon” fans in all sports. In baseball the biggest bandwagon team is the New York Yankees. That is huge for the Yankees, because fans are how teams can earn money. Which also might be why the Yankees are the richest team in the game. Teams can sign star players and still earn money from it. For example, right after the Texas Rangers signed Alex Rodriguez to a long term deal, ticket sales started to go up. “The organization sold 400 season ticket packages. By comparison, it had sold only 74 ticket packages by January of the previous year” (Deschiver). There is a positive relationship between star players and attendance, regardless of how the team is doing.“This is because some spectators may be attracted to the celebrity quality of a team’s players rather than the team’s reputation of a playoff contender” (Deschiver). The small market teams could have a good run at a World Series title, then they could bring in more fans, which leads to more money. “A close pennant race …show more content…

“There are rich teams on one side of the fence, and poor teams on the other” (Rymer). Majority of the teams that have won a World Series title have been a rich team. For Example, the New York Yankees have won 27 and the Boston Red Sox have won 8. Alone the Yankees have won 24% of the World Series ever played. They easily did this because they could afford the players. Being a rich team makes it easier to make the postseason, but small-market teams sometimes make it too. For instance, “Tampa bay, Oakland, and Pittsburgh all made the postseason in 2013 with bottom-five payrolls” (Simons). There is a way for small market teams to win, but money makes it a lot easier. The St. Louis Cardinals are a team that is in the middle of being rich or poor and they have won 11 World Series titles. For the most part money is how large market teams are good. But small market teams can do other ways to become good without spending the

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