The Big Three Sports
NBA website, “ The NBA is a shell of its former self and is currently ranked third amongst the four major sports as far as popularity in the United States” (Goldberg 1). Possibly, with the entry of LeBron James into the NBA and other new and exciting college prospects, the public eye will once again turn onto the hardwood court of the NBA.
Next, I will discuss the economic state/pr state of the MLB. According to Don Fehr, the MLBPA Executive Director in a news release from bigleaguers.com, Fehr states that the total revenue of baseball in 2001 was around 3.550 billion dollars, up from 1.330 billion in 1990. This shows a dramatic increase in revenue over the last ten years. However, in an article from espn.go.com written by Darren Rovell, the net loss for the thirty MLB teams for 2002 is higher than expected, totaling over 450 million dollars, up from 232 million in 2001. Also, only one team is estimated to produce an operating profit in the 2002 baseball year (Rovell 1). Rovell also shows in a different article on espn.go.com web-site, that between 1995 and 1999 only three major league teams have boasted an operating profit, the rest all reporting losses between that time.
Other reasons for the decline in revenue for the MLB are, as stated by Will, “Attendance is down for the third consecutive season (5.7 percent this year [2002], which means almost $80 million in lost ticket revenue alone)” (Will 2). Also, with their being no salary cap in baseball, owners can pay whatever they want for players, therefore creating a large gap between the teams that can and the teams that cannot afford to lavishly spend. When the Rangers bought Alex Rodriguez, their ticket sales soared because of the superstar quality that they could now go and watch, however, teams that cannot afford that kind of salary due to lack of local revenue, gate sales and so on, loose out on the big name buys. Therefore creating a large gap in the competition that I brought up earlier in the paper, decreasing the overall excitement toward the game. So of people are no longer finding the game exciting, then the whole of the business is going to suffer.
As for television ratings, the LCS game one in 2002 was the most watched game in three years for the FOX network according to the champlainchannel.com. However, according to the associated press, found on the Athens Banner-Herald web site, the 2002 World Series television ratings were the lowest in history. The game’s rating was 24 percent below the year before. In addition to the poor 2002 World Series television rating, as also stated in the article, “In the past 11 years, the rating for the Series has gone down by 50 percent” (www.athensnewspapers.com). So it appears that the popularity for the game of baseball is dwindling every year and perhaps will continue to do so unless competition can be jump-started somehow.
Finally, I will discuss the economic/ pr state of [next page]