Depressed about the prevailing of evil last night? Suggesting cockamamie like: the Phillies should have pulled Pedro with an 0-2 count on Matsui in third? Well, it gets worse.
Before you go into your no-good Yankee-loving boss’s office and try to shatter him by asserting that rooting for that organization lowers him as a businessman, you should unfortunately know that the Yankees haven’t been operating under the commonly failed business practices that some of us assumed all along.
David Goldman, of CNNMoney.com and loyal Red Sox fan, reluctantly reports this morning that the Yankees ran one of the most efficient operations in the league this year:
Adding up the dollars and cents. Applying a Society of Baseball Research metric, the Yankees were actually more efficient with their payroll this past season than were the hapless cross-town Mets, Cleveland Indians and basement-dwelling Washington Nationals.
The World Champs were only slightly less thrifty with their salaries than the Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros, and Kansas City Royals, all of whom missed the playoffs.
By those calculations, the Yankees paid $3.2 million per “marginal victory.” That’s nearly twice as efficient as the Mets, who only won 70 games despite their $149 million payroll and paid $5.8 million per marginal victory.
In addition, a rough estimate of the team’s revenue in 2009 shows the Yankees cashed in on their success more than any other team. Multiply the number of people coming to games by the average ticket price ($73),and the Yankees took in about $270 million this season, or $69 million more than they shelled out for their payroll.
Sigh. However, if you’re a New Yorker and a Yankee hater – the pinnacle of the unbiased majority in this debate, right? – take solace in an undeniable fact. What primarily helped the Yankees develop this business model are the ticket, food, and merch sales contained within that billion dollar stadium. And, if the stadium doesn’t get built, the Yankees wouldn’t be able to leverage the astronomical price mark up of those items. And if the government subsidies for the stadium that came down don’t, then the stadium don’t get built. Whether you’re a Yankee fan or not, if you’re a New Yorker you’re unwillingly paying down that grant money, and in turn fueling the stadium funds that helped pay player salaries and the luxury taxes attached to those salaries.
And, as Goldman points out, it’s a sad reality and it’s working – but on paper, in no less evil of a fashion than before.
Yankees got their money’s worth (CNN)
