If there is to be a financially acceptable solution, it’s going to have to come not through giving some of the pieces of the Yankee share of the pie to other teams, but from making the pie bigger! (You’re seeing this dynamic at work in the discussions about increasing the size of the Big 10 conference.)

The solution isn’t really to tell the Yankees, “you can’t bring in $400 million in revenue any more.” The solution has to be telling them, “It’s fine if you bring in $400 million in revenue… but you need to help us find a way to make sure everyone else brings in AT LEAST $200 million.” After all, if the reason the Yankees are so successfuls is because their ownership/management is so great at maximizing revenues, shouldn’t they be able to come up with ideas to help the Royals do the same thing?

As Ethan points out, that additional revenue is not likely to come from the Royals selling out their stadium (though maybe there are some ideas that could get them closer to doing so). My suggestion of making all local broadcasts part of the MLB broadcast rights package seems like the most likely way to increase the size of the overall revenue “pie”, but it’s not the only one, I’m sure.

In fact, I have another idea that would allow most, if not all, teams to increase their revenues (and some of them substantially).

But I’m saving that for another blog post.

In any event, we keep hearing that MLB has never been more popular than it is now. If that’s the case, there has to be a way to cash in on that popularity in ALL markets, not just New York and Boston.

The ideas that Jim Crikket threw out, along with those in my second post would enable smaller market teams to spend more on player salaries, which would hopefully spur more fans to buy tickets, which would increase revenues, and so on. The idea is growing on me, as it would provide subsidies to small market teams without the “handout” mentality.

It’s not enough to say “the Yankees generate tremendous revenue, it’s not fair!” Every team can increase revenue (albeit not to the $400M extent that the Yankees bring in) and to help the situation, the focus should be on increasing teams’ revenues — it’s inarguably good for baseball.

The most expensive seats in the new Kauffman Stadium in KC are about 200 dollars. And there are like 40 of them. If they sold out all 81 home games next year, they’d still probably take in less than half of what the Yankees do in ticket sales.

It is true that the television markets are controlled by the NFL and not by MLB, and the problem may be that that the ship may have long sailed with regard to the television contracts. In fact, when George Steinbrenner announced he would not renew the Yankees television contract with the Madison Square Garden Network, and planned to create an entire television network based solely on the Yankees, it was largely laughed at if I recall correctly. The idea of basing an entire network around a part time sport was thought to be folly, and several television networks refused to carry the station at its inception. Perhaps revenues would be better realized if each team owner maximized the television possibilities by creating a network and filling the time with appropriate programming. Admittedly, I am not sure how MLB controls or licenses the broadcast rights, but even if it had the power to equally distribute television revenue, it would be unfair to those who took the risk of creating a network to maximize television revenue to now unilaterally declare those rights revoked.

The issue might be the number of games (MLB has about 10x the regular season games that NFL has). Of course, the 240 or so NFL games can be proscribed for on national television and the revenue shared among all parties involved. Trying that with the 2430 or so MLB games would be a logistical nightmare.

That being said, there was an old Nintendo baseball game (MLB Stars maybe?) that rated its players in terms of popularity such that the draw of the crowd for its games would increase regardless of on-field performance. So for a game between A and B, the crowd would be proportional to the “star power” (for lack of the actual word used) and the total gate was then split between the two teams involved. This might be a potential solution along the lines that you proposed.

That is, when the Yanks play the Royals (home or away), the television revenue for that day from both local markets is pooled and split between the two teams. This would ensure that the Yankees retain more of the revenue that they cause, but may provide an increase in the revenue for the teams that they play. After all, a game features two teams and the Royals should receive some of the television revenue that their game generates. It also feels a little more “fair” than simply asking a team to give away a portion of their earned revenue for an altruistic reason (e.g., “for the good of the game”).

Note that the example is Yankee-centric due to the post, but the Red Sox (among others) would also provide those benefits in the American League, and the Mets, Cubs, etc. would have the same effect in the National League.

For the record, I’m not suggesting anyone stifle revenue generation. But as the NFL has figured out, someone has to provide an opponent for the big-market teams and those opponents deserve an equitable (not necessarily equal) share of revenues that they help generate. Sharing ALL television revenues equitably would be a good start.

I honestly don’t even really blame the Yankee ownership nearly as much as I blame Bud Selig and the rest of the owners who (with too few exceptions) are too gutless to stand up and tell Bud and the Steinbrenners, “this is wrong and we won’t continue to do it this way.”

The reason is clear. Having the Yankees in the playoffs every year is what the TV networks want. If the owners decided to make things “fairer” with the result being that the Yankees might only be in the playoffs 50% of the time (and perhaps stand less of a chances of advancing in the playoffs than they have now), the owners are afraid they may not make as much money from the national networks.

In other words, most owners are more concerned about upsetting the TV networks than they are about creating anything approaching competitive balance. Until more owners are willing to speak up, like Attanasio did, and back up their voices with votes at owners’ meetings, nothing will change. But I’d really love to see Mark Cuban own a mid-market team and then sit back and wait to see how long it took before he started making waves.

I believe there is room to debate the chicken/egg of the situation, however. The Yankees are able to put a great product on the field because of their vast revenue, then enjoy vast revenue because of the great product on the field. That is to say, of course selling out even Target field for every game will not bring the revenues that selling out Yankee Stadium receives (side note: on the Target Field opening day telecast we found out you could get a luxury box for $90k for the season — 15 seats per game. If I could get that in Yankee Stadium, I’d be all over it — $75/seat IN A LUXURY BOX — get 20 people together and go to 4 games each, throw a party for 15 closest friends, not to mention the resale value…and when the playoffs roll around? But I digress…). Nevertheless, time and time again we see teams (Twins, Rays, White Sox, Angels, Astros, Braves) that sell out their stadia when the team is playing well, and draw 10,000 fans when the team is not.

Shouldn’t the task at hand for teams be formulated to read “We need to increase revenues!”? I have never heard a team come out and say “We are committed to spending 94% of revenue on baseball operations (or better yet, 85% [or whatever the number comes out to be] on player salaries). It is up to the fans to support the revenue stream and we will take it from there.” You want to resign Prince Fielder? It’ll take 4,000 more people per game and we’ll do it. Support the team and the team will reward the fans with premier players.

Of course, I don’t intend the above statements to take away from the points made in the original blog post. Even considering the outcome of the above suggestion, the Yankees (along with the Red Sox, Mets, and Cubs) will have a tremendous revenue advantage all things being equal. But there is a feeling of betrayal by fans of certain teams (even the Mets) who feel as though the team is content to make its 6% ($9M) rather than make the team more competetive. Those fans, at the very least, would be the ones to add to the revenue stream if their team “made that extra effort.”

One note — I want to credit JimCrikket for also pointing out that while the Yankees spend more (by far) than any other team, they also tend to spend that money wisely, while some other teams do not. I suspect the greatest advantage a team like the Yankees has is to cover up its mistakes. Carl Pavano, while pitching well now, was one of those mistakes for the Yankees — other teams might have choked on the wasted $40M, but the Yankees just went out and spent more.

All in all, I think that the “true” answer lies somewhere in the middle. For certain, the revenue stream (and potential revenue stream) for teams such as the Yankees results in a competitive imbalance that far too often impacts the standings come playoff time. However, I believe that if the Indians had held onto Lee and Sabathia (and put them with Carmona) the revenue in Cleveland would be vastly higher at the end of the 2009 and 2010 seasons — would 94% of that increased revenue cover the salaries for Lee and Sabathia (including playoffs and potential World Series)? I have no idea. But I believe it’s something worth thinking about.