MLB, first and foremost, remains a big busine$$

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Earlier this year, Forbes announced its latest Major League Baseball franchise valuations. It’s a simple reminder that every team is swimming in massive amounts of money, despite the story that’s often shared by many of the owners. Yes, the player salaries are astronomical, but take a look at the owners’ net worth. It’s substantially higher than players, from All-Star to fringe major leaguer.
The 2022 season is, after a new collective bargaining agreement was reached, back on and scheduled to start today (Thursday, April 7), with nine games on the Opening Day slate.
The New York Yankees are king of the valuation mountain, coming in at $6 billion, which is up 14 percent from the previous year. The Yankees were purchased by George Steinbrenner in 1973 for $10 million. This was three years after the Ohio native attempted to purchase the Cleveland Indians for $9 million. It’s kind of incomprehensible to think of a better business decision than Steinbrenner’s purchase of the Yankees nearly 50 years ago. For an individual that cared so much about winning, though, the growth of the franchise certainly came at a cost. Steinbrenner oversaw six World Series championships and 10 pennants during his tenure yet changed managers 20 times in his first 23 seasons.
The St. Louis Cardinals crack the top 10, coming in seventh at $2.45 billion, and the fifth most valuable National League team behind the Dodgers ($4.075 billion), Cubs ($3.8 billion), Giants ($3.5 billion) and the Mets ($2.65 billion). The Miami (formerly Florida) Marlins are last (30th) at $990 million, the only MLB franchise not to surpass $1 billion. The average franchise value is now at $2.07 billion, an all-time high and up 9 percent from the previous rankings.
Yes, the anticipation and buildup for another season of baseball is nearly here. For the Cardinals, this is the first year since 1971 that Mike Shannon won’t be on the radio broadcast. The former outfielder/third baseman joined the team’s radio broadcast prior to the 1972 season. It’s also been 20 years since the team’s greatest announcer did play-by-play. That would be Jack Buck, who somewhere along the line coined the phrase, “That’s a winner!” Buck passed away in June 2002. He had called Cardinals’ games since 1954.
Modern baseball certainly has its concerns. Pace of play is an issue, as the average length of games was three hours, 11 minutes in 2021, according to Baseball-Reference, the longest ever.

With strikeout rates increasing, the chance of seeing something happen (a batter putting the ball in play) in a particular at-bat doesn’t occur as often. Which means fans are watching more…inaction.
In addition, newer baseball thinking has taken more risk away, which in turn has led to fewer stolen base attempts. Remember Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman? Henderson was an all-time great who remains the league’s career leader in stolen bases and runs scored. He stole 80 or more bases in six seasons also reached base in 40 percent of his plate appearances. Coleman piled up 100 plus steals his first three years and finished with 752 steals. He probably would be a fourth outfielder in today’s game, his on-base percentage deemed too low and not generating enough power (28 career homers in more than 5,900 plate appearances).
Time will tell how much of an impact the lockout had on overall attendance. The pandemic eliminated fans in 2020 and the total regular season attendance from 2021 (45,304,709) was the lower than 1983 (45,540,338).
It is believed that sponsorships on jersey patches and helmet decals could generate more than $400 million in combined revenue, according to Forbes, which is slightly more than the $225 million the National Basketball Association reportedly earns from jersey advertising patches.
Ba$eball may no longer be America’s pa$time, but is certainly remains a big bu$ine$$. The marathon march to the October postseason sprint begins in earnest today.
Daniel Winningham is the managing editor of the Republic-Monitor. He can be reached at 573-547-4567, ext. 227 or email editor@perryvillenews.com.