NEW YORK: Major League Baseball had a very good financial year in 2015, setting a new revenue record with nearly $9.5 billion.
As Maury Brown of Forbes reported Friday, MLB did not release exact figures, but the sport saw a gross revenue increase for the 13th consecutive year with an uptick of $500 million from the previous year.
Brown cited numerous factors as reasons for the revenue increase, including media rights, merchandise sales in excess of $3 billion and new sponsorship deals with various companies.
Television money has been the big story in all of sports over the past few years, including MLB. Its deals with ESPN, TBS and Fox, which were agreed upon in 2012, were worth a combined $12.4 billion and went into effect in 2014.
That doesn’t include money teams are generating from local markets, with Brown specifically citing the Philadelphia Phillies.
“As an example, the Philadelphia Phillies saw rights fees increase from $25 million annually to $100 million as part of their new $2.4-3 billion deal,” he wrote.
Brown also noted MLB Advanced Media “had more than 3.5 million subscribers to its suite of digital products last year, including MLB.TV and the MLB.com At Bat mobile application.”
Attendance at MLB games in 2015 was slightly up compared to the previous year, per Baseball-Reference.com, also helping revenue totals.
There are certainly problems with baseball that MLB must work to correct, with Brian Costa of the Wall Street Journal writing in May that participation in youth leagues has declined from 8.8 million in 2000 to 5.3 million in 2013.
Those figures can’t be swept under the rug, but the sport has built a healthy financial foundation that will help it reach out to the young fans it needs to convert to continue growing.
On the bright side, Brown noted next season will likely be another successful one for MLB, with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ new television deal kicking in and a new streaming service for 15 local markets with Fox affiliates.
The next time you see someone like David Price or Clayton Kershaw signing a $200 million deal and wonder how they can be making that much money, it’s because MLB is in such a healthy financial state.
