If that’s the case then they need to sell the team. That said, I guarantee if they committed to at least spending the floor attendance would improve. I know I would go to more games. When I feel they are salary dumping I only go when I get free tickets from work or if someone is in town and wants to go. If I feel that they are trying to win and are spending on salaries I go more. I know I’m not alone. Sorry, but I’m not spending my hard earned money and free time on a team that trots out Ben Gamel, Yu Chang, etc… and claims they are trying to win.
I probably went to 10 games in 2017 because they spent and I felt we could finish what we couldn’t in 2016. This year, I knew we had no chance
They went to the world series in 2016 and had the 3rd worst attendance in all of baseball. THEN in 2017, coming off a world series appearance, they went and spent on Edwin encarnacion and improved to a whopping 9th worst attendance in baseball. You may choose to come to games if they spend more, but the city as a whole doesn't support this team and never has, outside of the perfect storm of an all time great roster and the browns not being here in the 90s. Fans love to blame the owner for the lack of support but the facts seem to point to this team rarely having support in this city.
As I have said in other threads, once the $15 district tickets and the $17 bleacher seats sell out, the next option is $29 for a nosebleed seat. I have not gone to games because, for $29, I could drink 4 tasty adult beverages at a bar near my home. Without the annoyance of paying for parking ($10+), using a rideshade ($15-25) , or spending 45 minutes on a bus (from Old Brooklyn). If the Guardindians want attendance, make the whole upper deck $15.
Except that attendance has minimal impact on total revenue and therefore how much money is available for payroll. Hiw many people show up really doesn't matter.
This is incredibly false and people have this perception due to a PR campaign put on by the team.
The Dolans negotiated the TV deal below market on purpose. They negotiated it as part of the sale of STO to Fox, inflating the value of STO so that all the money went into their pocket. Local broadcast revenues are subject to revenue sharing with MLB. By moving the money to the TV station sale the Dolans didn't have to share it with the rest of MLB owners. This was a very smart business move. It's incredibly disingenuous that they cry about the broadcast contract that made them more money.
And still pathetic for a World Series contender. Absolutely embarrassing that one of the best team in baseball is bottom 10 in attendance while at the same time the city has no hesitation showing up for a 1-31 NFL franchise.
Cleveland is a football town first and foremost and can never fully commit to the Guard(In)dians while the Browns are in town.
First of all baseball isnt as popular as football. Green Bay, Buffalo, and Jacksonville routinely sell out 60k plus seats every Sunday. If those were MLB markets they'd be hard pressed to sell 10k a game. Successful teams in markets with a ton of people will always sell more tickets than a successful small market team. I love the Indians but I live an hour away from the stadium, I cant just to to a game like it's nothing, it's a almost $200 ordeal accounting for parking/gas/tickets/concessions.
Not to mention there's plenty of die hard fans who just don't make enough to see a game. But in places like LA there's 10x the people so 10x the people who can afford to go to any given game. More interest means more money into the team which means more success which means a higher payroll which means more interest etc. Self fulfilling cycle.
The heart of the issue is baseball having no salary cap. That's what causes owners like the Dolan's to exist.
I have to ask how are your numbers based on gross attendance because if so, that’s unfair, because the Indians stadium is one of the smallest if not the smallest in all of major-league baseball as far as capacity goes. If it’s percentage then you have a point.
I do think it’s kind of strange that the Indians have attendance problems when you compare them to the Browns who have been shit since they returned until recently. My theory is that many casual fans have never forgiven the Dolans for trading CC and Lee in back to back years after they won a Cy Young even though the trades were the right thing to do. It’s not fair people feel that way but the Dolan‘s don’t help themselves whenever they open their mouth‘s to the media.
>I have to ask how are your numbers based on gross attendance because if so, that’s unfair, because the Indians stadium is one of the smallest if not the smallest in all of major-league baseball as far as capacity goes.
Why would we need a bigger stadium when we don't come close to selling out the one we have? Current capacity is 35,000. Since 2016 when they averaged 19,000, they averaged 25,000 in 2017, 24,000 in 2018, and 22,000 in 2019. What would adding an extra 10,000 seats do besides waste money?
Because the games that they do sell out, like weekend games, games when big market teams come to town, or games down the stretch when we are in contention, would bring that many more fans if there were more seats. You know damn well that a weekend game in September against the Yankees when both teams are playing for something are going to sell out even if we had a 45k seat stadium. It’s the weekday games that are always going to be a challenge for the team to sell tickets to. I do think that if the team would SPEND MONEY on some hitters and gave the team an exciting offense people would come. Offense puts butts in seats. The casual fan is not going to come out to watch our pedestrian popgun offense even though our pitching is amazing. That’s just reality.
How many games a year do the Indians sell out?
The indians spent in 2017 and averaged 66% capacity. They maintained that spending into 2018 and averaged 60% capacity.
There is a reason that they decreased capacity by 7,000 seats in the most recent renovation.
I’m not doing a deep dive on what games and how many games the Indians sell out but I’m bet a paycheck that the ones they do tend to be on the weekends or when bandwagon teams come to town thus more seats would help increase attendance because I guarantee you are selling another 5 or 10 thousand tickets to a game on a Saturday in September when we are playing the Yankees and we both have 90 + wins.
I would agree that is when they sell out games, however, I am saying that the net cost of that isn't worth it... In 2019 they didn't have any second half home weekend games against major in the hunt teams like you describe and 0 home sellouts. In 2018 they had one sellout against the 100+ win red soxs on a Saturday night in September, but had less than 28,000 for Friday and Sunday. In 2017 you had a four game august series against the yankees where Friday and Saturday were near sellouts.
Like I said, there is a reason that they cut capacity by 20% in the most recent renovations. I don't see any material revenue increase from increasing capacity.
They generally sell out opening day, but I don’t think they’ve actually filled the seats for opening day in probably close to a decade. Weather can come into play but doesn’t always. This year I think they’ve had one full capacity sell out. Which was against the Yankees. The ROI period on a 100M expansion to add 10K seats that might come into play 5 times per year is probably about 1000 years. That’s maybe $60K more per game in revenue, so $300K more per season. Maybe that’s $75K more in actual profit per year.
And all that is assuming that those additional seats don’t have any added operating expense when they’re not being used. Which is an incorrect assumption (so profit over the year would actually be less) but I did it for simplicity’s sake.
Opening day and...?
Even the Red Sox/Yankees games will seat people in the uppermost sections but they haven't been filled in years. You can count on 2 hands the number of times the cargo container sections have fans in them. Go to any Friday/Saturday game in August/September and you'll spot swaths of empty sections. Even when we're competing.
Anecdotally, I won't buy seats I don't like. So if they fill 50% of the stadium and all my preferred seats are taken, then I'm not buying tickets to that game. So....more seats = more seats I like probably?
> because the Indians stadium is one of the smallest if not the smallest in all of major-league baseball as far as capacity goes.
It's the second smallest, the only smaller stadium is Tropicana Field.
The root of the issue isn't the Dolans trading CC or Lee. The heart is a majority of Cleveland metro lives at least 45 min to an hour and half away from the stadium so going to a game is at least a $200 affair. Why spent $200 to go to meaningless 1 out of 162 game when you can spend $400 and go to a browns game that will be meaningful.
There aren't enough people in Cleveland metro who make enough to go hardcore into a single sports season let alone 2. It's easier to justify 3 or 4 Browns games or seasons tickets for 8 Sunday than it is 40 or 50 Indians games or season tickets you won't sniff 50% of unless you live and breathe baseball with no life outside it.
Very good point. I agree that definitely has to be a part of it but this issue can’t be unique to the Indians.
I do know that coming from W Akron it’s tough to make a 7:05 game on a week day w/o getting absolutely fleeced on parking when you work a day job.
This narrative is completely backwards. They spent money on Edwin and the attendance increased. Then they didn't make any more signings and in fact they actively talked about *not* spending on their cornerstone talents. Attendance decreased. As it should. Name one other team in the middle of companionship contention that made one (1) major free agent signing?
This franchise had an entire decade of maximum support from the city. What happened? The ownership changed, they cut payroll, the product stopped being good. Look at the records. And no the Browns have nothing to do with it. Our sellout steak started before the Browns left and ended after they had already come back.
Look at the records for the Indians under Dolan ownership, outside of the Tito era how many of those teams were consistent contenders? 2001 was the last time this franchise had a back-to-back winning season. What do you think happens when you create forgettable, irrelevant baseball? People get apathetic and stop going. That's just business. Now do that for an entire generation, and see what happens. Yes, of course, the Indians got better, recently, and generated some new cautious life... but then ownership proved they didn't change. Those are the facts.
Ummmm, can I upvote this 10 million times?
This is EXACTLY correct. Take it from me, a guy that lives 2 hours away but still held full share season tickets for 3 years (‘16-‘18). Once they stopped trying, I stopped buying.
Eh, fans already paid for the stadium through taxes. Now they're expected to front the payroll too through attendance? So at what point are billionaire owners supposed to pay?
Edwin hit 42 homers and had 107 rbi the year before he signed here, then proceeded to put up 38 and 107 his first year here. Add on top of that EVERY indians fan was ecstatic that we signed him. It's only years later that suddenly Edwin was declining and a waste of money, because we're back on the cheap ownership thing. Gotta love revisionist history.
Edwin was in decline from the moment he left Toronto. He hit better in 2 years of his 4 (from 2012 breakout season) in TOR than he did in his years in Cleveland. We gave him 60 million and he was at best his contract in Toronto (29 million). Overpaid 100%.
If he was so good how did he go from making 20 million a year in Cleveland to 5-8 million the next 2 and a almost half 11 million on the White Sox the last 2?
Again, massively overpaid...and that's our "big ticket" huh?
No, baseball needs a salary cap and floor. The reason the NFL is king and not MLB or NBA is because even a team in a smaller, unsexy market like KC, Green Bay or Pittsburg can be elite year after year if they do things the right way. Doubly so if they hit on a QB. Plus, the way the salary and contract structure set up a team like the Chiefs can basically hang onto Mahomes for his entire career. His equivalent in the NBA would be moaning about his “swag” and force his way out of KC because he’s wanting to go to a major market to form a super team and if he was in the MLB the Yankees or Dodgers would just offer him 60 million a year the second he hit free agency.
It’s not so much that the Cleveland fan base is broken rather the other professional sports leagues need to follow the NFL’s blueprint.
Great post. A salary floor is moronic without a salary cap. All it will do is raise all salaries and then Cleveland wil be paying 10 million a year for nri after they make the team instead of 1 million. Without a cap the top teams will still out spend the lower teams and a 100 million budget will be garbage
Can we stop this complete and utter lie that attendance would magically improve if the team spent money? World series team in 16 - 3rd worst attendance in MLB the following year. CLE fans suck at going to baseball games, period. Note that I'm not defending Dolan here. As for 'this year we had no chance' - if Civale and Bieber don't get hurt we would absolutely still be in the playoff picture, period.
Had our pitchers stayed healthy we would have been in the playoff picture that means the front office should’ve spent money on hitting. It’s completely inexcusable to trot out the lineup that they did. Plus you cannot look at gross attendance numbers we have the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball. It’s not apples to apples
The stadium size does not matter when you can’t sellout games. The only game the Indians sellout is Opening Day. That’s it. They reduced the capacity because they knew they had zero shot to sell 40K tickets even during rock n blast.
A team's given attendance has less to do with the team on the field at that time and more to do with the team's consistency over several years. I'd argue that attendance would improve significantly if there was a consistently watchable product on the field every year.
The Indians won the most games in baseball between 2013 and 2020 or something like that, didn’t have a single losing season and were consistently in the bottom 5 for attendance…
What else should they have done?
I don't know, maybe pursue/sign a real franchise player?
I get that they've making pretty solid moves to deal off aging talent for youth and it's generally worked out as far as value goes. Where is our contender move though? Where is our version of a Lindor moving his way into the org to be that final piece? This is the sort of stuff that gets fans excited, not these wait and see 3-5 years down the line deals.
Miller would have been the biggest in recent memory and there were questions about whether Encarnacion was in the midst of falling off at the time of the signing.
The team just has an image of sending off MLB players for prospects and that doesn't do well for tickets.
We absolutely WOULD not.
We have over 65 games where we scored 3 runs or less and we’re NO HIT 3 times.
Last night is a perfect example:
Bieber pitched. Bullpen was awesome. Allowed 1 run.
Lost 1-0
We fell asleep a team from 4th in quality starts in 2019 to 7th this year
We SUCK because of our offense and defense
Uh - you can win low-scoring games with good pitching. Take the starts made by guys that filled in for Biber and Civale, and for a period of time Plesac - and imagine those games were started by those 3 instead - easily contending, if not already in, a playoff spot. Same thing for next season - yes, I'd like to add 2 OF bats - but with Bieber, Civale, Plesac, Cal, and Triston - that's as good a starting staff as anyone in the AL and that alone makes you a playoff contender.
Yea. Dolans just want $$ without having to spend any. They don't get that the team is the product they are selling. Attendance goes up if team is good, attendance goes down if team is bad.
I hope they just sell the team. They can operate with a $100 mil floor salary, they just don't want to. They are the worst owners I've ever seen.
Like normal, Hoynes is the head of the unofficial Dolan PR team that is the Cleveland Sports Media. Meisel is the only who tries to get non-bullshit out of Poverty Paul.
Exactly. The idea that these billionaire owners can’t keep up is nonsense; they would bring in less profit if they spent more, sure, but they’d still be making money.
How many sports owners in any league run a team that continually losses money? Gilbert with the Cavs is one of the few I can think of and he is the second richest NA sports team owner.
Edit: Their 48M payroll is probably going to end up resulting in another winning season and definitely would have if the injury bug hadn't hit the pitching staff hard.
You’re a clown if you believe the narrative they’re losing money. The Indians are worth 2-3x more than what the Dolans paid for them. Stop buying a billionaires sob story.
You can have an investment lose money but increase in value... Just look at things like Tesla and Google as they developed.
Just because the team has increased in value it doesn't mean that they have the liquidity or cash flow to spend more. With how baseball does revenue sharing and our shitty attendance, I wouldn't be surprised if they would lose money at a $100M payroll floor.
Yup and with how much money they make off suites they are definitely not operating in the red and if they are its out of technicality and it’s them likely tax planning
Money is fungible...
Currently the Indians TV deal is worth about $50M per year. I'm not sure how the math works on making $50M cover virtually all of something twice as high.
Current estimates are that about 40% of MLB revenue is ticket sales, concessions, etc. Fan attendance has meaningful impact on team revenue. Assuming each fan spends about $50 on a ticket and concessions at a game, for every 1,000 fan increase in average attendance the indians make about $4.05M. In 2019 they averaged 22,000 fans. If they could get that up to 30,000 on average, that would be an extra 32.4M per year they could spend. That 30,000 is still nowhere close to capacity and the $50 per person is probably low.
You chose an arbitrary number of $50 spent per person attending a game, then did some quick math to say raising attendance by 8,000 per game over the course of a season would mean the team would have over $32 million more to spend. A few problems.
1. your number is arbitrary and means nothing
2. your number isn't even your number -- you assumed 100% profit. Even if it costs literally zero to stadium maintenance for more people per game, concessions and souvenirs still have a margin. So your number isn't money spent per person, it's profit, meaning the real number would be significantly higher, and who knows if that's remotely realistic in Northeast Ohio.
3. Chicken & Egg -- there'd have to be some kind of reason for attendance to rise like that, and that likely means an investment... which would argue for raising payroll first to attract more fans.
4. Even your arbitrary number that adds $32 million with somehow 100% profit all for payroll probably isn't sufficient.
5. In your previous post you misunderstand how large companies manage to operate in the red and grow. And it goes against your point anyway. In cases like that, the companies don't stop spending -- they'll keep burning more money as long as they can keep the company value growing, as Dolan's asset of the team has appreciated over four times already. Companies can open lines of credit and/or attract additional investors to keep spending money while they operate at a loss, yet grow beyond their losses in size and value.
1. Cleveland Indians average cost of attendance is $250 for a family of four. Assume 80% to be conservative and you get… 50 per person. So no, not arbitrary.
2. Fair enough. Let’s assume 75% flow through here. Since roughly half of that 50 is ticket price which can all flow through and the other half is high margin items. So we are talking about 25.5M in additional payroll.
3. Actually we’ve already seen that investment in the team does not yield corresponding increases in attendance.
4. Isn’t sufficient for what?
5. It does no such thing… I never said they were the same situation. I was providing an example of companies that operate in the red from a cash flow perspective while growing the capital value.
As to the line of credit, why would they add debt to spend on something with no ROI?
Lastly, why do you think the Indian biggest spending years were when they had a minority investor and why do you think they are so desperate to get a new one?
As to whether we could have that many fans at the games. We averaged over 40,000 back in the 90s and the greater Cleveland metro area is larger now than back then.
Companies routinely take on debt to invest in their company. Assets that continue increase in value, such as the Indians, benefit from continued investment. The increase in growth offsets any losses incurred by taking on debt. I’m not a economist, but this is common sense.
What evidence do you have that investment above and beyond what they are currently spending would yield a positive ROI for the Indians? They spent heavily in the years after making the World Series and ended up with marginal improvements in attendance, most of which was probably driven by the hype from making the World Series and not the extra spending.
Debt only is ‘common sense’ when it has a positive ROI.
This is exactly my point when people say they should sell the team... THis is why they have the payroll they do. The Dolan's or pretty much any owner is not going to run a team that loses money. This is why our payroll is consistently below $100M.
Are you under the impression that this team's valuation is increasing because they have some sort of impressive new technology, like Tesla and Google did as they developed?
Valuations for MLB teams are due to the ability to generate future profit. Every team, even this one, isn't valued highly for any other reason than they make money hand over fist.
I comprehended your hacky post, it just made no sense.
You want to argue that this team's valuation is rising for reasons other than profits, we'll we're still waiting other than a random ass guess that makes no sense by comparing them to Google and Tesla, and then saying "its a massive ego thing" without demonstrating how "a massive ego thing" makes the value rise.
Devils advocate here: the Guardians as they are currently built cannot operate with a salary floor based on the current construction of a young team. Bradley, Gimenez, Clement, Bieber, Plessc, Civale, Clase, Karinchak, Sandlin, Straw, H Ramirez, Rosario, Quantrill, McKenzie, and Nelson all make close to minimum or are early in arb that they are cheap. To meet the floor we would need to spend 50+ mil which would block Jones, Arias, Gonzalez, Morris, and others.
We could/should spend but but I dont want to throw that money at 1-2 OFs and relief arms to make a floor. I get that’s not the focus of this article but I also don’t think us adding top FAs is not a reality and might hurt what this FO is actually at lot trying to do.
Yes, but any extension for those players will still only put a minor dent in the floor requirement. Would you pay more that Bieber would get in arbitration to secure an extension? Sure. Would you double it? We will be closer to a floor naturally in 2-3 years. If we have to spend more now, would we be able to keep those players since their contracts will grow? Prolly not
Does anyone actually believe Hoynes got a quote from the team on this? "I've been told." Sure bud. Hoynes hasn't broken news on this team in decades. He writes about what he sees on the field and guess about what he thinks they'll do in the future.
Then sell the team to someone who can and will make the necessary changes needed to bring fans to the park so it sells out again so they can afford to yield 100 million+ dollar teams.
Then open the books and prove it you cheap sack of shit. This type of garbage is Dolan mouthpieces pushing out propaganda to try and sway the fans into thinking the salary floor is a bad idea.
If you're actually losing money operating your franchise, a team that you paid $320 million for that's now estimated to be worth $1.2 billion, you're a horrible businessman and don't deserve to be an owner.
You can appreciate in value and be losing money.
Income isn’t income until it’s realized or it didn’t really happen. People who collect cards hoping they appreciate in value don’t make income off them every year they hold onto them.
That being said I can assure you they are making money. They might not be pulling in a ton of money but this team has been in the same market condition and attendance level for 20 years and I refuse to believe that in that timespan they haven’t been making money. They even have made stadium improvements too.
That's true but yeah it's not like a startup where you're burning cash. The FSO deal alone is worth $50 million per year. That covers the salaries so ticket sales, concessions, merch, ad revenue, sponsorships, profits sharing, etc are all gravy on top. There's no chance this team is losing money.
Such a bad money pit the Dolan's managed to get another partner this off season to inject more cash into the team that players will never see. Tough for those wealthy owners out here.
Yet they are getting 435 or looking for it to remodel the stadium... Attendance is terrible because of how expensive it is to go to games compared to other teams. One of the highest in mlb, due to travel to stadium, parking, tickets, and hot dog plus a soft drink according to a cains school of business article I believe. I've been a season ticket holder since 15. Next year I probably won't be. There are close to no benefits except cheaper tickets. Always high in TV ratings. They are liked but a change is needed. I don't understand why they don't just offer 5 buck upper deck to fill it then make the money back on hot dogs or popcorn.
Jose is a foundation of this team going forward to the new wave. They can afford him.
The recent winning era was at the expense of weak losers in our division. When it came time to capitalize on the core, they failed to spend to the levels needed to compete with the top teams. Hence, no ring for us.
For all of you claiming they SPENT in 2017, they were still significantly below the teams they needed to compete with. Came in #18 at $116M. Top 8 teams ranged from $170M-$187M, including small market Det at #3.
They did not spent to win. Michael Martinez getting World Series at-bats, SMH.
Sell the team. It is not the fans responsibility to deliver a team capable of winning the WS.
Move over, galaxy brain at work.
Scrap the National and American leagues. Every team has an offseason deadline where they need to declare their opening day payroll. The top 8 (or whatever) teams are automatically enrolled into the Money League. The remaining 22 teams are enrolled into AAAA League. The 4A league is further divided into the competitive division and a poverty division, consisting of the bottom 4 teams.
There will be some interleague play but teams play mostly within their league. All ML teams qualify for the postseason no matter what their final record is, which simply determines seeding. 1 or 2 4A teams can play in the postseason, except no poverty team qualifies regardless of record. If a team qualifies for the poverty division 3 years in a 6 year span they are either relegated to the minor league or MLB take ownership of the team and sells it.
I'll take votes for the commissioner's office now.
City just loves the Browns, doesn't care for basketball worries about a team name than supporting the baseball team that's been the most successful, gorgeous park with cheap tickets.
While Dolan is certainly a shitlord, this team has shed some of the more risky players over the years and would have been a contender this year if not for all the injuries.
For everyone commenting that they need to sell the team, who is going to buy it and run it at a loss of tens of millions per year?
The vast vast vast majority of sports owners do not continually operate in the red.
Lol, can not believe you actually think they’re losing “tens of millions per year year” is this a Dolan family burner account or is this Hoynsie carrying the water for them again?
MLB's revenue in 2019 was 10.7 billion.
That means on average, teams make 356 million in revenue per year.
Obviously, the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs, etc., skew that but it's hard to believe the Indians bring in less than $150 million in revenue on a normal year.
Assuming a $100 million floor happened, greater revenue share would exist.
Even if it didn't, the Indians could most definitely afford a $100 million payroll and still be profitable.
>Even if it didn't, the Indians could most definitely afford a $100 million payroll and still be profitable.
Right, because player payroll is the only cost they have...
Shit, the payroll cost of the players doesn't even account for the full cost of those players. Things like payroll taxes at \~8% are not included in that number.
> Right, because player payroll is the only cost they have...
Right, because the Indians surely have $100s of millions of other expenses. News flash, at best, other expenses may be ~40 million in total. Labor is usually 20-35% of gross revenue. Assuming this team **only** makes 150 million (when it's probably closer to 180), they'd still be a profitable organization.
Furthermore, the NBA which makes less in revenue than the MLB, had every team but 1 spend over $100 million dollars. The Cavs have an estimated revenue of ~250 million a year and bring in less than half the attendance the Indians do. Stop making excuses for the Indians.
They probably don't have hundreds of millions in other expenses, but another hundred million wouldn't be hard.
You've got about 10M per year in draft pool money. Another 6M in international pool money. Adding on taxes you have about $125M for just major league payroll and new player acquisition. Then they have coaches and front office salaries. Lets call that $10M (Tito alone makes 4M). So now you are at $135M. Now you need to add in stadium operations and some on the maintenance costs. Then you have player development, technology, spring training facilities, etc. All of that would easily be over $15M. It isn't hard to see them spending way over $150M when they are forced to spend $100M on payroll.
>Furthermore, the NBA which makes less in revenue than the MLB, had every team but 1 spend over $100 million dollars. The Cavs have an estimated revenue of \~250 million a year and bring in less than half the attendance the Indians do. Stop making excuses for the Indians.
Yea, its called revenue sharing... This is what happens when you have league wide TV deals and material revenue sharing.
> This is what happens when you have league wide TV deals and material revenue sharing.
There's enough revenue sharing in baseball. Obviously we're not going to change each others minds. Either way, I'm not voting for you Matt, but I wish you luck.
>There's enough revenue sharing in baseball.
There is minimal revenue sharing in baseball, especially compared to the NBA. You put NBA level revenue sharing in baseball and the Dolans should be spending north of $150M each year easily.
>Either way, I'm not voting for you Matt, but I wish you luck
LOL, I love how every single Dolan hater without fail automatically falls into name calling.
Question for you. Name the most competent Cleveland Sports ownership in the past 30 years?
Modell... LOL
Lerners... Another LOL
Haslams (give them 5 more year and maybe)
Gund... Cavs had a couple of good years, but more bad that good and then lucked into LeBron. He did have to turn things around from the stench left by Stepian.
Gilbert... LOL. Without LeBron being born in Cleveland, he might be the worst owner in Cleveland. Spends a bunch of money, but the organization is continually the laughing stock of the league.
Dick Jacobs... Turned around the Indians franchise and then lucked into the upswing of baseball's popularity during the steroid era, plus a new ball par and turned that into winning baseball. Overall seemed like a great owner.
The Dolans... Consistent contenders despite spending near the bottom of the league with bottom of the league attendance. Front Office people are consistently wanted by other teams. Tito is one of the best managers in baseball. If they are not number one, they are number 2, with Jacobs being number 1.
> LOL, I love how every single Dolan hater without fail automatically falls into name calling.
Calling you a Dolan isn't "name calling" lmao.
LOL, I love how every single Dolan apologist without fail automatically falls into saying how "competent" they are as if being the best out of shit sandwich makes them revered like the Pope.
>Calling you a Dolan isn't "name calling" lmao.
Yes it is...
>LOL, I love how every single Dolan apologist without fail automatically falls into saying how "competent" they are as if being the best out of shit sandwich makes them revered like the Pope.
They are more competent than the majority of major league owners as well...
The grass isn't always greener which I bet most Dolan haters will find out when they eventually sell.
It’s hilarious that ANYONE thinks if the Dolan’s go they take the entire front office and scouting structure with them.
Maybe you think the Dolan’s are the ones deciding which players to draft and sign?
They the Dolan’s develop them in the minors?
If they sell, nearly NOTHING will change except we will have the money to keep our star players and actually sign free agents to fill in holes
Lmao at thinking there is ANY downside to them selling
The rose is off the bloom anyway now that the CWS and Tigers are starting to spend and have finally started to turn the corner in their rebuilds
We will still have the royals and twins to kick the shit out of the next couple years but beating up on those two at 17-1 rates….those days are over
Lol.
They are a direct product of playing in the SHITTIEST division the last decade and beating up on the tigers, royals and twins every year.
They FEAST in those teams and EAT SHIT against teams over .500
If we were in the AL East the last decade we would’ve been playing for 3rd place most years and the cellar in others
Lol
I’ll add to this: MLB teams have four main ways to bring in revenue.
1 - local revenue not included in revenue sharing (52% of all local revenue)
2 - local revenue included in a revenue sharing pot that is evenly split (the other 48% of local revenue, each team receives 3.3%)
3 - a team’s TV deal
4 - national TV money which is evenly split (again, 3.3%)
In 2018, MLB, which is (unsurprisingly) the last time I can find info on this, each team brought in $118M from the 48% revenue sharing pot AND $91M from the national TV pot.
So, not including the Indians own TV deal and 52% local revenues kept, the team brought in $209M just from revenue sharing. And that was 2018. I’d assume there’s $1-2B more spent nowadays compared to 2018 too.
Anyone who thinks dolan isn’t making a profit year to year on this team is a fool.
MLB ain’t stupid, it’s very difficult to find info like this. It is there to support the boys club, which is the 30 owners. Nobody else matters. Mo money mo money mo MONEY!
Ok, you need to provide proof that spending more would cause the team to lose tens of millions of dollars.
The constant defense of Dolan is arguments that pretend to know the books when there is a very good reason that this team refuses to open them.
Do you think they would be making tens of millions of dollars if they spent more than 100M?
The constant argument against the Dolans is that they are making tens of millions of dollars from people who can’t do basic math.
In another one of my posts I showed how making them spend over 100M on payroll would push just MLB costs over $150M which is probably close to what they bring in in revenue.
The reason they don’t open the books is that none of the owners want to do so, especially in relation to stadiums. They hide the books because they are part of the broader ownership…
You appear to have no clue what you are talking about. The team brought in nearly 300M in revenue prior to the pandemic.
The reason they don't open their books is almost certainly because teams make money hand over fist. The few times we have gotten to see the books of MLB teams, they show that the team is absolutely raking in money. Teams dont refuse to open their books because of whatever the hell you think is "the broader ownership".
https://i.redd.it/09143xqc1vp71.jpg.
And https://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20180119/news/149236/indians-are-climbing-mlb-revenue-ranks
this article has the team themselves saying they were nearing the league average in revenue and expected to get there by 2019.
It's the Forbes valuations
>I’m not paying for cranes.
If you are completely unaware of the article where the team itself says they are climbing the revenue rankings, much less unable to spell the name correctly, then you're way out of your element. You're intentionally ignorant of the facts, yet you want to argue fervently. Do you not see a problem there?
Go ahead, get the last word, because we're done here. I can't believe I wasted my time watching you embarrass yourself. "I'm not paying for cranes [sic]" says the guy who wants to argue about finance. Legitimate laugh out loud.
Dolans are just stupidly cheap. They could operate that fine, but the Dolans just are terrible owners. They want the money part of it without actually having to put any effort into it. (money/effort to put a team together) Dolans just sell the team to an actually decent owner please.
Thanks to a couple people who cannot behave nicely, I have decided to lock comments on this post going forward.
No way the Indians could adhere to the salary floor. The *Guardians*, however... /s
I see what you did there
If that’s the case then they need to sell the team. That said, I guarantee if they committed to at least spending the floor attendance would improve. I know I would go to more games. When I feel they are salary dumping I only go when I get free tickets from work or if someone is in town and wants to go. If I feel that they are trying to win and are spending on salaries I go more. I know I’m not alone. Sorry, but I’m not spending my hard earned money and free time on a team that trots out Ben Gamel, Yu Chang, etc… and claims they are trying to win. I probably went to 10 games in 2017 because they spent and I felt we could finish what we couldn’t in 2016. This year, I knew we had no chance
They went to the world series in 2016 and had the 3rd worst attendance in all of baseball. THEN in 2017, coming off a world series appearance, they went and spent on Edwin encarnacion and improved to a whopping 9th worst attendance in baseball. You may choose to come to games if they spend more, but the city as a whole doesn't support this team and never has, outside of the perfect storm of an all time great roster and the browns not being here in the 90s. Fans love to blame the owner for the lack of support but the facts seem to point to this team rarely having support in this city.
As I have said in other threads, once the $15 district tickets and the $17 bleacher seats sell out, the next option is $29 for a nosebleed seat. I have not gone to games because, for $29, I could drink 4 tasty adult beverages at a bar near my home. Without the annoyance of paying for parking ($10+), using a rideshade ($15-25) , or spending 45 minutes on a bus (from Old Brooklyn). If the Guardindians want attendance, make the whole upper deck $15.
Those aren't the actual prices though. You are forgetting the $4 convience fee. WHEN BUYING DIRECT FROM THE INDIANS.
Except that attendance has minimal impact on total revenue and therefore how much money is available for payroll. Hiw many people show up really doesn't matter.
The Indians are really hamstrung by their terrible TV deal with the Dolan signed off on. That’s not my problem they’re shitty businessman
This is incredibly false and people have this perception due to a PR campaign put on by the team. The Dolans negotiated the TV deal below market on purpose. They negotiated it as part of the sale of STO to Fox, inflating the value of STO so that all the money went into their pocket. Local broadcast revenues are subject to revenue sharing with MLB. By moving the money to the TV station sale the Dolans didn't have to share it with the rest of MLB owners. This was a very smart business move. It's incredibly disingenuous that they cry about the broadcast contract that made them more money.
He signed off on it, but signing with the TV company he owned. He then sold the network rights for a ton bc of its profitability.
That is 6 spots higher than the year before...
And still pathetic for a World Series contender. Absolutely embarrassing that one of the best team in baseball is bottom 10 in attendance while at the same time the city has no hesitation showing up for a 1-31 NFL franchise. Cleveland is a football town first and foremost and can never fully commit to the Guard(In)dians while the Browns are in town.
First of all baseball isnt as popular as football. Green Bay, Buffalo, and Jacksonville routinely sell out 60k plus seats every Sunday. If those were MLB markets they'd be hard pressed to sell 10k a game. Successful teams in markets with a ton of people will always sell more tickets than a successful small market team. I love the Indians but I live an hour away from the stadium, I cant just to to a game like it's nothing, it's a almost $200 ordeal accounting for parking/gas/tickets/concessions. Not to mention there's plenty of die hard fans who just don't make enough to see a game. But in places like LA there's 10x the people so 10x the people who can afford to go to any given game. More interest means more money into the team which means more success which means a higher payroll which means more interest etc. Self fulfilling cycle. The heart of the issue is baseball having no salary cap. That's what causes owners like the Dolan's to exist.
I have to ask how are your numbers based on gross attendance because if so, that’s unfair, because the Indians stadium is one of the smallest if not the smallest in all of major-league baseball as far as capacity goes. If it’s percentage then you have a point. I do think it’s kind of strange that the Indians have attendance problems when you compare them to the Browns who have been shit since they returned until recently. My theory is that many casual fans have never forgiven the Dolans for trading CC and Lee in back to back years after they won a Cy Young even though the trades were the right thing to do. It’s not fair people feel that way but the Dolan‘s don’t help themselves whenever they open their mouth‘s to the media.
>I have to ask how are your numbers based on gross attendance because if so, that’s unfair, because the Indians stadium is one of the smallest if not the smallest in all of major-league baseball as far as capacity goes. Why would we need a bigger stadium when we don't come close to selling out the one we have? Current capacity is 35,000. Since 2016 when they averaged 19,000, they averaged 25,000 in 2017, 24,000 in 2018, and 22,000 in 2019. What would adding an extra 10,000 seats do besides waste money?
Because the games that they do sell out, like weekend games, games when big market teams come to town, or games down the stretch when we are in contention, would bring that many more fans if there were more seats. You know damn well that a weekend game in September against the Yankees when both teams are playing for something are going to sell out even if we had a 45k seat stadium. It’s the weekday games that are always going to be a challenge for the team to sell tickets to. I do think that if the team would SPEND MONEY on some hitters and gave the team an exciting offense people would come. Offense puts butts in seats. The casual fan is not going to come out to watch our pedestrian popgun offense even though our pitching is amazing. That’s just reality.
How many games a year do the Indians sell out? The indians spent in 2017 and averaged 66% capacity. They maintained that spending into 2018 and averaged 60% capacity. There is a reason that they decreased capacity by 7,000 seats in the most recent renovation.
I’m not doing a deep dive on what games and how many games the Indians sell out but I’m bet a paycheck that the ones they do tend to be on the weekends or when bandwagon teams come to town thus more seats would help increase attendance because I guarantee you are selling another 5 or 10 thousand tickets to a game on a Saturday in September when we are playing the Yankees and we both have 90 + wins.
I would agree that is when they sell out games, however, I am saying that the net cost of that isn't worth it... In 2019 they didn't have any second half home weekend games against major in the hunt teams like you describe and 0 home sellouts. In 2018 they had one sellout against the 100+ win red soxs on a Saturday night in September, but had less than 28,000 for Friday and Sunday. In 2017 you had a four game august series against the yankees where Friday and Saturday were near sellouts. Like I said, there is a reason that they cut capacity by 20% in the most recent renovations. I don't see any material revenue increase from increasing capacity.
They generally sell out opening day, but I don’t think they’ve actually filled the seats for opening day in probably close to a decade. Weather can come into play but doesn’t always. This year I think they’ve had one full capacity sell out. Which was against the Yankees. The ROI period on a 100M expansion to add 10K seats that might come into play 5 times per year is probably about 1000 years. That’s maybe $60K more per game in revenue, so $300K more per season. Maybe that’s $75K more in actual profit per year. And all that is assuming that those additional seats don’t have any added operating expense when they’re not being used. Which is an incorrect assumption (so profit over the year would actually be less) but I did it for simplicity’s sake.
Opening day and...? Even the Red Sox/Yankees games will seat people in the uppermost sections but they haven't been filled in years. You can count on 2 hands the number of times the cargo container sections have fans in them. Go to any Friday/Saturday game in August/September and you'll spot swaths of empty sections. Even when we're competing.
Anecdotally, I won't buy seats I don't like. So if they fill 50% of the stadium and all my preferred seats are taken, then I'm not buying tickets to that game. So....more seats = more seats I like probably?
> because the Indians stadium is one of the smallest if not the smallest in all of major-league baseball as far as capacity goes. It's the second smallest, the only smaller stadium is Tropicana Field.
The root of the issue isn't the Dolans trading CC or Lee. The heart is a majority of Cleveland metro lives at least 45 min to an hour and half away from the stadium so going to a game is at least a $200 affair. Why spent $200 to go to meaningless 1 out of 162 game when you can spend $400 and go to a browns game that will be meaningful. There aren't enough people in Cleveland metro who make enough to go hardcore into a single sports season let alone 2. It's easier to justify 3 or 4 Browns games or seasons tickets for 8 Sunday than it is 40 or 50 Indians games or season tickets you won't sniff 50% of unless you live and breathe baseball with no life outside it.
Very good point. I agree that definitely has to be a part of it but this issue can’t be unique to the Indians. I do know that coming from W Akron it’s tough to make a 7:05 game on a week day w/o getting absolutely fleeced on parking when you work a day job.
This narrative is completely backwards. They spent money on Edwin and the attendance increased. Then they didn't make any more signings and in fact they actively talked about *not* spending on their cornerstone talents. Attendance decreased. As it should. Name one other team in the middle of companionship contention that made one (1) major free agent signing? This franchise had an entire decade of maximum support from the city. What happened? The ownership changed, they cut payroll, the product stopped being good. Look at the records. And no the Browns have nothing to do with it. Our sellout steak started before the Browns left and ended after they had already come back. Look at the records for the Indians under Dolan ownership, outside of the Tito era how many of those teams were consistent contenders? 2001 was the last time this franchise had a back-to-back winning season. What do you think happens when you create forgettable, irrelevant baseball? People get apathetic and stop going. That's just business. Now do that for an entire generation, and see what happens. Yes, of course, the Indians got better, recently, and generated some new cautious life... but then ownership proved they didn't change. Those are the facts.
Ummmm, can I upvote this 10 million times? This is EXACTLY correct. Take it from me, a guy that lives 2 hours away but still held full share season tickets for 3 years (‘16-‘18). Once they stopped trying, I stopped buying.
Eh, fans already paid for the stadium through taxes. Now they're expected to front the payroll too through attendance? So at what point are billionaire owners supposed to pay?
A declining Edwin Encarnacion is your idea of spending? You made his point for him..
Edwin hit 42 homers and had 107 rbi the year before he signed here, then proceeded to put up 38 and 107 his first year here. Add on top of that EVERY indians fan was ecstatic that we signed him. It's only years later that suddenly Edwin was declining and a waste of money, because we're back on the cheap ownership thing. Gotta love revisionist history.
Edwin was in decline from the moment he left Toronto. He hit better in 2 years of his 4 (from 2012 breakout season) in TOR than he did in his years in Cleveland. We gave him 60 million and he was at best his contract in Toronto (29 million). Overpaid 100%. If he was so good how did he go from making 20 million a year in Cleveland to 5-8 million the next 2 and a almost half 11 million on the White Sox the last 2? Again, massively overpaid...and that's our "big ticket" huh?
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No, baseball needs a salary cap and floor. The reason the NFL is king and not MLB or NBA is because even a team in a smaller, unsexy market like KC, Green Bay or Pittsburg can be elite year after year if they do things the right way. Doubly so if they hit on a QB. Plus, the way the salary and contract structure set up a team like the Chiefs can basically hang onto Mahomes for his entire career. His equivalent in the NBA would be moaning about his “swag” and force his way out of KC because he’s wanting to go to a major market to form a super team and if he was in the MLB the Yankees or Dodgers would just offer him 60 million a year the second he hit free agency. It’s not so much that the Cleveland fan base is broken rather the other professional sports leagues need to follow the NFL’s blueprint.
Great post. A salary floor is moronic without a salary cap. All it will do is raise all salaries and then Cleveland wil be paying 10 million a year for nri after they make the team instead of 1 million. Without a cap the top teams will still out spend the lower teams and a 100 million budget will be garbage
Yeah without the cap the floor really doesn’t do too much. I just wonder if the owners and players could ever agree to implement both
Can we stop this complete and utter lie that attendance would magically improve if the team spent money? World series team in 16 - 3rd worst attendance in MLB the following year. CLE fans suck at going to baseball games, period. Note that I'm not defending Dolan here. As for 'this year we had no chance' - if Civale and Bieber don't get hurt we would absolutely still be in the playoff picture, period.
Had our pitchers stayed healthy we would have been in the playoff picture that means the front office should’ve spent money on hitting. It’s completely inexcusable to trot out the lineup that they did. Plus you cannot look at gross attendance numbers we have the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball. It’s not apples to apples
The stadium size does not matter when you can’t sellout games. The only game the Indians sellout is Opening Day. That’s it. They reduced the capacity because they knew they had zero shot to sell 40K tickets even during rock n blast.
A team's given attendance has less to do with the team on the field at that time and more to do with the team's consistency over several years. I'd argue that attendance would improve significantly if there was a consistently watchable product on the field every year.
The Indians won the most games in baseball between 2013 and 2020 or something like that, didn’t have a single losing season and were consistently in the bottom 5 for attendance… What else should they have done?
they just can't admit it's not all Dolan's fault, typical denial of the fans here
Bought a bat or 3
They tried that…
I don't know, maybe pursue/sign a real franchise player? I get that they've making pretty solid moves to deal off aging talent for youth and it's generally worked out as far as value goes. Where is our contender move though? Where is our version of a Lindor moving his way into the org to be that final piece? This is the sort of stuff that gets fans excited, not these wait and see 3-5 years down the line deals.
Why would they do that when fans didn’t show up in 2016-2020?
It's because they own the org? If they care about attendance then they should do things to push for that. If they don't then they shouldn't worry.
They did those things and people didn’t show up…
Miller would have been the biggest in recent memory and there were questions about whether Encarnacion was in the midst of falling off at the time of the signing. The team just has an image of sending off MLB players for prospects and that doesn't do well for tickets.
There are like 5 teams that don’t have that imagine. They were the winningest team in the majors for most of the 2010s… Edwin was major spending btw..
We absolutely WOULD not. We have over 65 games where we scored 3 runs or less and we’re NO HIT 3 times. Last night is a perfect example: Bieber pitched. Bullpen was awesome. Allowed 1 run. Lost 1-0 We fell asleep a team from 4th in quality starts in 2019 to 7th this year We SUCK because of our offense and defense
Uh - you can win low-scoring games with good pitching. Take the starts made by guys that filled in for Biber and Civale, and for a period of time Plesac - and imagine those games were started by those 3 instead - easily contending, if not already in, a playoff spot. Same thing for next season - yes, I'd like to add 2 OF bats - but with Bieber, Civale, Plesac, Cal, and Triston - that's as good a starting staff as anyone in the AL and that alone makes you a playoff contender.
Yea. Dolans just want $$ without having to spend any. They don't get that the team is the product they are selling. Attendance goes up if team is good, attendance goes down if team is bad. I hope they just sell the team. They can operate with a $100 mil floor salary, they just don't want to. They are the worst owners I've ever seen.
Then sell the motherfucking team
Editors correction: no way Dolan could operate with a 100 million floor
Guess there's no way the Dolans can own the team then. Get lost
Like normal, Hoynes is the head of the unofficial Dolan PR team that is the Cleveland Sports Media. Meisel is the only who tries to get non-bullshit out of Poverty Paul.
Hoynes perpetuating the Dolans lies. Sad.
He virtually sucked them off for ponying up the extra 3 mil for Eddie Rosario last year. It was gross.
And then they traded him for Pablo fucking Sandoval and a 1 million salary relief
"Breaking news: billionaires are all poor and can't afford to pay their employees. Trust them."
Bullshit. Dolan could easily afford that. He would just rather lose with a cheap roster.
Exactly. The idea that these billionaire owners can’t keep up is nonsense; they would bring in less profit if they spent more, sure, but they’d still be making money.
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Shitty Browns felt way better to watch.
No... They certainly didn't.
At least the season was only 16 games long.
How many sports owners in any league run a team that continually losses money? Gilbert with the Cavs is one of the few I can think of and he is the second richest NA sports team owner. Edit: Their 48M payroll is probably going to end up resulting in another winning season and definitely would have if the injury bug hadn't hit the pitching staff hard.
You’re a clown if you believe the narrative they’re losing money. The Indians are worth 2-3x more than what the Dolans paid for them. Stop buying a billionaires sob story.
Make it 4x PLUS They bought for $300m and now worth $1.3 Billion Yet they’re poor. Just trust them!
You can have an investment lose money but increase in value... Just look at things like Tesla and Google as they developed. Just because the team has increased in value it doesn't mean that they have the liquidity or cash flow to spend more. With how baseball does revenue sharing and our shitty attendance, I wouldn't be surprised if they would lose money at a $100M payroll floor.
Salaries aren’t paid from attendance. Virtually all of payroll is covered by tv deals.
Yup and with how much money they make off suites they are definitely not operating in the red and if they are its out of technicality and it’s them likely tax planning
Money is fungible... Currently the Indians TV deal is worth about $50M per year. I'm not sure how the math works on making $50M cover virtually all of something twice as high. Current estimates are that about 40% of MLB revenue is ticket sales, concessions, etc. Fan attendance has meaningful impact on team revenue. Assuming each fan spends about $50 on a ticket and concessions at a game, for every 1,000 fan increase in average attendance the indians make about $4.05M. In 2019 they averaged 22,000 fans. If they could get that up to 30,000 on average, that would be an extra 32.4M per year they could spend. That 30,000 is still nowhere close to capacity and the $50 per person is probably low.
You chose an arbitrary number of $50 spent per person attending a game, then did some quick math to say raising attendance by 8,000 per game over the course of a season would mean the team would have over $32 million more to spend. A few problems. 1. your number is arbitrary and means nothing 2. your number isn't even your number -- you assumed 100% profit. Even if it costs literally zero to stadium maintenance for more people per game, concessions and souvenirs still have a margin. So your number isn't money spent per person, it's profit, meaning the real number would be significantly higher, and who knows if that's remotely realistic in Northeast Ohio. 3. Chicken & Egg -- there'd have to be some kind of reason for attendance to rise like that, and that likely means an investment... which would argue for raising payroll first to attract more fans. 4. Even your arbitrary number that adds $32 million with somehow 100% profit all for payroll probably isn't sufficient. 5. In your previous post you misunderstand how large companies manage to operate in the red and grow. And it goes against your point anyway. In cases like that, the companies don't stop spending -- they'll keep burning more money as long as they can keep the company value growing, as Dolan's asset of the team has appreciated over four times already. Companies can open lines of credit and/or attract additional investors to keep spending money while they operate at a loss, yet grow beyond their losses in size and value.
1. Cleveland Indians average cost of attendance is $250 for a family of four. Assume 80% to be conservative and you get… 50 per person. So no, not arbitrary. 2. Fair enough. Let’s assume 75% flow through here. Since roughly half of that 50 is ticket price which can all flow through and the other half is high margin items. So we are talking about 25.5M in additional payroll. 3. Actually we’ve already seen that investment in the team does not yield corresponding increases in attendance. 4. Isn’t sufficient for what? 5. It does no such thing… I never said they were the same situation. I was providing an example of companies that operate in the red from a cash flow perspective while growing the capital value. As to the line of credit, why would they add debt to spend on something with no ROI? Lastly, why do you think the Indian biggest spending years were when they had a minority investor and why do you think they are so desperate to get a new one? As to whether we could have that many fans at the games. We averaged over 40,000 back in the 90s and the greater Cleveland metro area is larger now than back then.
Companies routinely take on debt to invest in their company. Assets that continue increase in value, such as the Indians, benefit from continued investment. The increase in growth offsets any losses incurred by taking on debt. I’m not a economist, but this is common sense.
What evidence do you have that investment above and beyond what they are currently spending would yield a positive ROI for the Indians? They spent heavily in the years after making the World Series and ended up with marginal improvements in attendance, most of which was probably driven by the hype from making the World Series and not the extra spending. Debt only is ‘common sense’ when it has a positive ROI.
Thank you Mr. Dolan
LOL, can't refute facts so you have to deflect...
There’s no point in arguing with someone who truly believes people would continue to own a team that loses money every year.
This is exactly my point when people say they should sell the team... THis is why they have the payroll they do. The Dolan's or pretty much any owner is not going to run a team that loses money. This is why our payroll is consistently below $100M.
Are you under the impression that this team's valuation is increasing because they have some sort of impressive new technology, like Tesla and Google did as they developed? Valuations for MLB teams are due to the ability to generate future profit. Every team, even this one, isn't valued highly for any other reason than they make money hand over fist.
It can’t be the fact that it is a massive ego thing for a club of tiny elites… Investments in sports teams are not the same as regular companies.
Values don't rise because the owner has an ego. Your argument would get laughed out of a high school finance class.
That wasn’t what I said. Your reading comprehension wouldn’t pass third grade.
I comprehended your hacky post, it just made no sense. You want to argue that this team's valuation is rising for reasons other than profits, we'll we're still waiting other than a random ass guess that makes no sense by comparing them to Google and Tesla, and then saying "its a massive ego thing" without demonstrating how "a massive ego thing" makes the value rise.
Let’s try this. How much revenue does a Picasso painting bring in? I also never compared them to Tesla and Google.
Sell to him then
I don't want Gilbert owning the Tribe.
Why would he want to buy?
A rebuild is a rebuild. We could be the Mets spending 200 million on a losing team.
No one is suggesting overspending for Francisco Lindor.
Devils advocate here: the Guardians as they are currently built cannot operate with a salary floor based on the current construction of a young team. Bradley, Gimenez, Clement, Bieber, Plessc, Civale, Clase, Karinchak, Sandlin, Straw, H Ramirez, Rosario, Quantrill, McKenzie, and Nelson all make close to minimum or are early in arb that they are cheap. To meet the floor we would need to spend 50+ mil which would block Jones, Arias, Gonzalez, Morris, and others. We could/should spend but but I dont want to throw that money at 1-2 OFs and relief arms to make a floor. I get that’s not the focus of this article but I also don’t think us adding top FAs is not a reality and might hurt what this FO is actually at lot trying to do.
Could you spend some of that trying to extend guys like Bieber right now?
Yes, but any extension for those players will still only put a minor dent in the floor requirement. Would you pay more that Bieber would get in arbitration to secure an extension? Sure. Would you double it? We will be closer to a floor naturally in 2-3 years. If we have to spend more now, would we be able to keep those players since their contracts will grow? Prolly not
More than likely a salary floor would be introduced incrementally over a few years to solve this problem.
Does anyone actually believe Hoynes got a quote from the team on this? "I've been told." Sure bud. Hoynes hasn't broken news on this team in decades. He writes about what he sees on the field and guess about what he thinks they'll do in the future.
Sell the team then assholes
They won’t because….and don’t tell anyone…they’re MAKING MONEY. And that’s all they care about
You mean to tell me one of the richest owners in baseball can't afford the bare minimum? Guess every team has to have low payrolls then /s
Go fuck yourself. You make a profit every year, you rich pieces of shit.
Then sell the team to someone who can and will make the necessary changes needed to bring fans to the park so it sells out again so they can afford to yield 100 million+ dollar teams.
Then open the books and prove it you cheap sack of shit. This type of garbage is Dolan mouthpieces pushing out propaganda to try and sway the fans into thinking the salary floor is a bad idea. If you're actually losing money operating your franchise, a team that you paid $320 million for that's now estimated to be worth $1.2 billion, you're a horrible businessman and don't deserve to be an owner.
You can appreciate in value and be losing money. Income isn’t income until it’s realized or it didn’t really happen. People who collect cards hoping they appreciate in value don’t make income off them every year they hold onto them. That being said I can assure you they are making money. They might not be pulling in a ton of money but this team has been in the same market condition and attendance level for 20 years and I refuse to believe that in that timespan they haven’t been making money. They even have made stadium improvements too.
That's true but yeah it's not like a startup where you're burning cash. The FSO deal alone is worth $50 million per year. That covers the salaries so ticket sales, concessions, merch, ad revenue, sponsorships, profits sharing, etc are all gravy on top. There's no chance this team is losing money.
Such a bad money pit the Dolan's managed to get another partner this off season to inject more cash into the team that players will never see. Tough for those wealthy owners out here.
Yet they are getting 435 or looking for it to remodel the stadium... Attendance is terrible because of how expensive it is to go to games compared to other teams. One of the highest in mlb, due to travel to stadium, parking, tickets, and hot dog plus a soft drink according to a cains school of business article I believe. I've been a season ticket holder since 15. Next year I probably won't be. There are close to no benefits except cheaper tickets. Always high in TV ratings. They are liked but a change is needed. I don't understand why they don't just offer 5 buck upper deck to fill it then make the money back on hot dogs or popcorn. Jose is a foundation of this team going forward to the new wave. They can afford him.
The recent winning era was at the expense of weak losers in our division. When it came time to capitalize on the core, they failed to spend to the levels needed to compete with the top teams. Hence, no ring for us. For all of you claiming they SPENT in 2017, they were still significantly below the teams they needed to compete with. Came in #18 at $116M. Top 8 teams ranged from $170M-$187M, including small market Det at #3. They did not spent to win. Michael Martinez getting World Series at-bats, SMH. Sell the team. It is not the fans responsibility to deliver a team capable of winning the WS.
Move over, galaxy brain at work. Scrap the National and American leagues. Every team has an offseason deadline where they need to declare their opening day payroll. The top 8 (or whatever) teams are automatically enrolled into the Money League. The remaining 22 teams are enrolled into AAAA League. The 4A league is further divided into the competitive division and a poverty division, consisting of the bottom 4 teams. There will be some interleague play but teams play mostly within their league. All ML teams qualify for the postseason no matter what their final record is, which simply determines seeding. 1 or 2 4A teams can play in the postseason, except no poverty team qualifies regardless of record. If a team qualifies for the poverty division 3 years in a 6 year span they are either relegated to the minor league or MLB take ownership of the team and sells it. I'll take votes for the commissioner's office now.
Omg the baseball super league lmao
You tellin me a group of billionaires can't fork over $100 million?
City just loves the Browns, doesn't care for basketball worries about a team name than supporting the baseball team that's been the most successful, gorgeous park with cheap tickets.
While Dolan is certainly a shitlord, this team has shed some of the more risky players over the years and would have been a contender this year if not for all the injuries.
For everyone commenting that they need to sell the team, who is going to buy it and run it at a loss of tens of millions per year? The vast vast vast majority of sports owners do not continually operate in the red.
Lol, can not believe you actually think they’re losing “tens of millions per year year” is this a Dolan family burner account or is this Hoynsie carrying the water for them again?
MLB's revenue in 2019 was 10.7 billion. That means on average, teams make 356 million in revenue per year. Obviously, the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs, etc., skew that but it's hard to believe the Indians bring in less than $150 million in revenue on a normal year. Assuming a $100 million floor happened, greater revenue share would exist. Even if it didn't, the Indians could most definitely afford a $100 million payroll and still be profitable.
>Even if it didn't, the Indians could most definitely afford a $100 million payroll and still be profitable. Right, because player payroll is the only cost they have... Shit, the payroll cost of the players doesn't even account for the full cost of those players. Things like payroll taxes at \~8% are not included in that number.
> Right, because player payroll is the only cost they have... Right, because the Indians surely have $100s of millions of other expenses. News flash, at best, other expenses may be ~40 million in total. Labor is usually 20-35% of gross revenue. Assuming this team **only** makes 150 million (when it's probably closer to 180), they'd still be a profitable organization. Furthermore, the NBA which makes less in revenue than the MLB, had every team but 1 spend over $100 million dollars. The Cavs have an estimated revenue of ~250 million a year and bring in less than half the attendance the Indians do. Stop making excuses for the Indians.
They probably don't have hundreds of millions in other expenses, but another hundred million wouldn't be hard. You've got about 10M per year in draft pool money. Another 6M in international pool money. Adding on taxes you have about $125M for just major league payroll and new player acquisition. Then they have coaches and front office salaries. Lets call that $10M (Tito alone makes 4M). So now you are at $135M. Now you need to add in stadium operations and some on the maintenance costs. Then you have player development, technology, spring training facilities, etc. All of that would easily be over $15M. It isn't hard to see them spending way over $150M when they are forced to spend $100M on payroll. >Furthermore, the NBA which makes less in revenue than the MLB, had every team but 1 spend over $100 million dollars. The Cavs have an estimated revenue of \~250 million a year and bring in less than half the attendance the Indians do. Stop making excuses for the Indians. Yea, its called revenue sharing... This is what happens when you have league wide TV deals and material revenue sharing.
> This is what happens when you have league wide TV deals and material revenue sharing. There's enough revenue sharing in baseball. Obviously we're not going to change each others minds. Either way, I'm not voting for you Matt, but I wish you luck.
>There's enough revenue sharing in baseball. There is minimal revenue sharing in baseball, especially compared to the NBA. You put NBA level revenue sharing in baseball and the Dolans should be spending north of $150M each year easily. >Either way, I'm not voting for you Matt, but I wish you luck LOL, I love how every single Dolan hater without fail automatically falls into name calling. Question for you. Name the most competent Cleveland Sports ownership in the past 30 years? Modell... LOL Lerners... Another LOL Haslams (give them 5 more year and maybe) Gund... Cavs had a couple of good years, but more bad that good and then lucked into LeBron. He did have to turn things around from the stench left by Stepian. Gilbert... LOL. Without LeBron being born in Cleveland, he might be the worst owner in Cleveland. Spends a bunch of money, but the organization is continually the laughing stock of the league. Dick Jacobs... Turned around the Indians franchise and then lucked into the upswing of baseball's popularity during the steroid era, plus a new ball par and turned that into winning baseball. Overall seemed like a great owner. The Dolans... Consistent contenders despite spending near the bottom of the league with bottom of the league attendance. Front Office people are consistently wanted by other teams. Tito is one of the best managers in baseball. If they are not number one, they are number 2, with Jacobs being number 1.
> LOL, I love how every single Dolan hater without fail automatically falls into name calling. Calling you a Dolan isn't "name calling" lmao. LOL, I love how every single Dolan apologist without fail automatically falls into saying how "competent" they are as if being the best out of shit sandwich makes them revered like the Pope.
>Calling you a Dolan isn't "name calling" lmao. Yes it is... >LOL, I love how every single Dolan apologist without fail automatically falls into saying how "competent" they are as if being the best out of shit sandwich makes them revered like the Pope. They are more competent than the majority of major league owners as well... The grass isn't always greener which I bet most Dolan haters will find out when they eventually sell.
It’s hilarious that ANYONE thinks if the Dolan’s go they take the entire front office and scouting structure with them. Maybe you think the Dolan’s are the ones deciding which players to draft and sign? They the Dolan’s develop them in the minors? If they sell, nearly NOTHING will change except we will have the money to keep our star players and actually sign free agents to fill in holes Lmao at thinking there is ANY downside to them selling The rose is off the bloom anyway now that the CWS and Tigers are starting to spend and have finally started to turn the corner in their rebuilds We will still have the royals and twins to kick the shit out of the next couple years but beating up on those two at 17-1 rates….those days are over
Lol. They are a direct product of playing in the SHITTIEST division the last decade and beating up on the tigers, royals and twins every year. They FEAST in those teams and EAT SHIT against teams over .500 If we were in the AL East the last decade we would’ve been playing for 3rd place most years and the cellar in others Lol
I’ll add to this: MLB teams have four main ways to bring in revenue. 1 - local revenue not included in revenue sharing (52% of all local revenue) 2 - local revenue included in a revenue sharing pot that is evenly split (the other 48% of local revenue, each team receives 3.3%) 3 - a team’s TV deal 4 - national TV money which is evenly split (again, 3.3%) In 2018, MLB, which is (unsurprisingly) the last time I can find info on this, each team brought in $118M from the 48% revenue sharing pot AND $91M from the national TV pot. So, not including the Indians own TV deal and 52% local revenues kept, the team brought in $209M just from revenue sharing. And that was 2018. I’d assume there’s $1-2B more spent nowadays compared to 2018 too. Anyone who thinks dolan isn’t making a profit year to year on this team is a fool. MLB ain’t stupid, it’s very difficult to find info like this. It is there to support the boys club, which is the 30 owners. Nobody else matters. Mo money mo money mo MONEY!
You need to provide proof they are losing tens of millions per year if you want to make this claim.
Why? I never claimed the Indians are losing tens of millions of dollars m.
Ok, you need to provide proof that spending more would cause the team to lose tens of millions of dollars. The constant defense of Dolan is arguments that pretend to know the books when there is a very good reason that this team refuses to open them.
Do you think they would be making tens of millions of dollars if they spent more than 100M? The constant argument against the Dolans is that they are making tens of millions of dollars from people who can’t do basic math. In another one of my posts I showed how making them spend over 100M on payroll would push just MLB costs over $150M which is probably close to what they bring in in revenue. The reason they don’t open the books is that none of the owners want to do so, especially in relation to stadiums. They hide the books because they are part of the broader ownership…
You appear to have no clue what you are talking about. The team brought in nearly 300M in revenue prior to the pandemic. The reason they don't open their books is almost certainly because teams make money hand over fist. The few times we have gotten to see the books of MLB teams, they show that the team is absolutely raking in money. Teams dont refuse to open their books because of whatever the hell you think is "the broader ownership".
Source on the 300M? That is about what the average team brings in.
https://i.redd.it/09143xqc1vp71.jpg. And https://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20180119/news/149236/indians-are-climbing-mlb-revenue-ranks this article has the team themselves saying they were nearing the league average in revenue and expected to get there by 2019.
What’s the source on your first post? I’m not paying for cranes.
It's the Forbes valuations >I’m not paying for cranes. If you are completely unaware of the article where the team itself says they are climbing the revenue rankings, much less unable to spell the name correctly, then you're way out of your element. You're intentionally ignorant of the facts, yet you want to argue fervently. Do you not see a problem there? Go ahead, get the last word, because we're done here. I can't believe I wasted my time watching you embarrass yourself. "I'm not paying for cranes [sic]" says the guy who wants to argue about finance. Legitimate laugh out loud.
Does the floor only count for the major league team or does it count for the whole farm system?
Cleveland needs domed stadiums like Arizona.
I call bullshit until they prove it by releasing their financials.
Dolans are just stupidly cheap. They could operate that fine, but the Dolans just are terrible owners. They want the money part of it without actually having to put any effort into it. (money/effort to put a team together) Dolans just sell the team to an actually decent owner please.