Mark Cuban must have been looking at more than his love of Dallas when he purchased the Mavericks. The stats from a 2006 survey by Scarborough Research (224,583 residents in the US) highlight that Dallas is the wealthiest NBA fan market. Approximately 10.4% of Dallas residents are loyal NBA fans who earn over $100,000 a year. The next closest cities are Detroit and Washington,DC with 9.1% of NBA fans earning over $100k. Dallas also leads the league with 16.4% of their residents being loyal NBA fans earning over $75,000 a year. The city did not do as well with loyal NBA fans who are female as the city only posted 15% response for that question (3rd highest) while its cross-state rival the Spurs led the league in this category with 25.1% of the market's adults being female NBA fans.
Gil-
Monday, October 29, 2007
World Series
With Boston destroying Colorado, the real loser were not the Rockies or their fans, but the broadcast network. After Colorado's easy victories and Boston's close series with Cleveland, networks were hoping for some large numbers. However, the relative ease with which Boston won would spur only Red Sox nation followers to closely follow the series and the long, late night, games. I would not be surprised if rating for the series declined over 15% from last year.
Gil-
Postscript- I was wrong. The numbers just came out (a day after I posted this blog) and the rating were up 5% over the 2006 Series. But with a 10.6% average rating the games represented the second-lowest rated Series since they have been tracking the ratings. The last three years represent the lowest rated three world series ever.
Gil-
Postscript- I was wrong. The numbers just came out (a day after I posted this blog) and the rating were up 5% over the 2006 Series. But with a 10.6% average rating the games represented the second-lowest rated Series since they have been tracking the ratings. The last three years represent the lowest rated three world series ever.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Yankees Payroll?
Is the giant payroll for the Yankees worth it? With the prospect of renegotiating A-Rod's contract to an even higher level, is there BizBall sense in what management is doing? My answer is no.
I am not a Yankee lover or hater. I am just looking at it from a business perspective. The Yankees have a solid season ticket base, they are moving into a new stadium with numerous luxury suites that will go for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and the team has significant concession revenue streams, along with various naming right options that can raise even more money. Lets not forget the broadcast revenue numbers which are the best in all of baseball. So why invest more money into the team?
The statistics are clear that investing in players can increase revenue. However, that is normally true for smaller market teams or teams that have been in the dumps. Teams with a rich history and solid revenue streams do not need to invest as much (i.e. Boston or Chicago teams). If the Yankees play well and make it to the playoffs on a regular basis the fans will stay. It is only ego that drives up the salaries in a push to win it all one more time. George can learn a good lesson from the former owners of the Dodgers. They used to have a very simple strategy. That strategy was .500 ball. Team management aimed to have solid seasons where the team would win 50% of their games in any given season. Some years the team would lose more and other years the team could even go to the World Series (as they did). However, management's goal was to try to provide a winning team as often as possible. The Yankees want to spend like they need to have a winning team all the time. While wins help, as long as they are competitive they will still make tons of money.
Thus, the BizBallz strategy would be to drop some of the high payroll players to add some new fresh talent who can develop new fans and rely on some veterans to help keep the team competitive.
Gil-
I am not a Yankee lover or hater. I am just looking at it from a business perspective. The Yankees have a solid season ticket base, they are moving into a new stadium with numerous luxury suites that will go for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and the team has significant concession revenue streams, along with various naming right options that can raise even more money. Lets not forget the broadcast revenue numbers which are the best in all of baseball. So why invest more money into the team?
The statistics are clear that investing in players can increase revenue. However, that is normally true for smaller market teams or teams that have been in the dumps. Teams with a rich history and solid revenue streams do not need to invest as much (i.e. Boston or Chicago teams). If the Yankees play well and make it to the playoffs on a regular basis the fans will stay. It is only ego that drives up the salaries in a push to win it all one more time. George can learn a good lesson from the former owners of the Dodgers. They used to have a very simple strategy. That strategy was .500 ball. Team management aimed to have solid seasons where the team would win 50% of their games in any given season. Some years the team would lose more and other years the team could even go to the World Series (as they did). However, management's goal was to try to provide a winning team as often as possible. The Yankees want to spend like they need to have a winning team all the time. While wins help, as long as they are competitive they will still make tons of money.
Thus, the BizBallz strategy would be to drop some of the high payroll players to add some new fresh talent who can develop new fans and rely on some veterans to help keep the team competitive.
Gil-
Welcome
BizBallz is a blog dedicated to analyzing the business side of sport with a focus on issues such as sport law, sport finance, and sport marketing. The focus is not just on whether it was a good investment to sign a given player, but if the sport industry is healthy, why are TV numbers declining for certain sports, what innovative marketing techniques are being used, and why are some sport related stocks stuck in the mud.
I welcome you to the exciting world of sport business.
As the umpires say...play ballz (corny I know)
Gil-
I welcome you to the exciting world of sport business.
As the umpires say...play ballz (corny I know)
Gil-
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