Bud Selig loves…the Wu-Tang Clan?

“Cash rules everything around me, C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dollar dollar bills ya’ll”

-Method Man & Bud Selig

A few days later, and with one major star (Andy Pettitte) having already admitted that the Mitchell report is true, a lot of people are curious as to the effect the report will have on baseball from an economic standpoint. Will baseball’s revenue suffer? Profits decrease? Will the Red Sox have to resort to a fireworks night during every home game just to put fans in the seats? Well, the short answer to those questions is “no.”. The long answer? is the word “no” preceded with laughter.

Why? Well, for starters, the “steroids era” put major league baseball into a golden age, revenue-wise.

That period [1996-present] also brought the sport unprecedented income and popularity. Revenue more than tripled, to $6 billion this year from $1.78 billion in 1996, the first full season after the players’ strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series. Attendance climbed to 79 million fans from 60 million.

The likelihood of baseball revenues tumbling in the aftermath of the Mitchell report are very low…in part because of the events that led up to the Mitchell report. Bud Selig didn’t wake up one day and say, “we need a Mitchell Report to clean up baseball”, fans had very loudly been worrying about the usage of steroids for more than a couple of years now (examples: Giambi, Bonds, Sosa, Palmerio, McGuire, etc.) So, if revenues have been steadily increasing in the face of baseball’s fan base being upset with the fact that players were dirty, that would lead me to believe that now that there has been an attempt to clean up the game, that if anything, revenues would continue to climb. The Mitchell report was not a big enough bombshell to make the non-casual fan turn away from baseball. Baseball players, and all professional athletes in general, are always looking for some way to bend the rules, or gain that competitive edge. The average baseball fan, who is engaged in the happenings of the sport, already knows this, which means they already saw the Mitchell Report or some variation of it coming from a mile away (how many times have you heard someone say they thought Clemens was on steroids? Was anyone truly shocked when his name was mentioned?). These fans of baseball will again make up a large portion of revenue in 2008, and baseball’s many new stadiums and giveaway nights, they should have no problem pulling in the casual fans as well.

A second reason baseball will continue to increase their revenue is because of *gasp* cutting edge marketing techniques.  I know, I know…when you think baseball, you probably don’t think cutting edge sports technology, do you?  Well, let me introduce you to Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media (MLBAM) arm,

MLBAM, commonly referred to as “BAM,” packs an increasingly potent financial wallop. The company, created in 2000 to operate baseball’s digital assets, became profitable just three years after its founding and boosted its revenues by more than 60% the last two years, from $236 million in 2005 to at least $380 million this year.

And what does “BAM” do exactly? They stream MLB games, and provide online videos for pro volleyball tour games, U.S. figure skating, the NCAA tournament, and the MLS.   They also link to music artists like Elton John and Queen Latifah; it is a fantastic outlet for all different kinds of media, that the average fan can’t find anywhere else (which is probably why MLB can get away with charging users money for its services).  Bud Selig may be poorly remembered for a lot of things, but clearly, helping set up BAM, is not one of them.

In the end, I still can’t tell if Bud is a good business man, or if he’s a really bad business man who has happened to get lucky.  He allowed steroids into the league in order to save baseball, and then asked to get them out of the game, basically when baseball had bounced back enough to continue to be popular even without the jaw dropping numbers steroids brought to the game .  Inadvertently, or maybe not, Bud Selig has taken a lot of correct steps in attempting to get baseball to stabilize and increase its revenue.  So the million dollar question?  Does Bud Selig just have awesome foresight, or was he that oblivious to the goings-on in baseball in 1996, and is just now getting around to fixing everything in 2007? You decide…But know this though, Bud Selig as the commissioner of baseball, will be unnecessarily praised when things go right, and usually unnecessarily condemned when things go wrong.  With baseball’s revenues reaching all time highs right now, with no potential drops in sight, he at least, even if inadvertently, deserves some credit.

Sports Business Digest:  Chuck Knoblauch:  98 Career HR* 

ESPN: Pettitte admits using HGH to recover from an elbow injury in 2002

Bloomberg.com: Baseball, Players consider next move after the Mitchell report

USA Today:  MLB’s advanced media arm pulls in profits

Category: Baseball