Jerry

[Donn Beach]

When you say the ownership makes money, you think they are drawing off profit for their own use?

[D-train]

When you say the ownership makes money, you think they are drawing off profit for their own use?

Who knows but we know they are investing it in non baseball nonsense like Restaurants, Bars and VIP seating...Then and only then can they build a Championship team.

Screenshot 2024-05-02 4.49.09 PM.png (356.95 KiB) Viewed 61 times

[Captain 97]

You know what else generates revenue? Winning teams with big name stars. The M's drew over 3 Million fans playing in a concrete pimple in the late 90's. people would rather watch good baseball in a crappy facility than watch crappy baseball in a palace full of bells and whistles.

[Donn Beach]

They have claimed in the past that any profit is reinvested, but yeah, doesn't mean it's in contacts. Which is interesting, you reinvest to build equity. They are also probably working tax codes and whatever. But they don't seem to see players as a wise investment. And if you ask their accounts it's probably working for them

[D-train]

You know what else generates revenue? Winning teams with big name stars. The M's drew over 3 Million fans playing in a concrete pimple in the late 90's. people would rather watch good baseball in a crappy facility than watch crappy baseball in a palace full of bells and whistles.

The fact that Stanton doesn't get this is the most insane and ridiculous thing about this Org.

Here is my theory. He wants to feel like he is the Leader of the "Company" (btw he has said he runs the M's like he would run any other company.) Him saying he is a big baseball fan is just a ploy to make fans think it is his biggest priority but it does not impact anything.

He knows that he doesn't have the Baseball knowledge and acumen to impact the baseball side of things but his ego is so big that he wants to believe that he is running the most important part of the business so he dismisses the baseball side's impact on revenue generation even though it is blatantly obvious that it is more important than any of the nonsense he comes up with on the business side.

[D-train]

They have claimed in the past that any profit is reinvested, but yeah, doesn't mean it's in contacts. Which is interesting, you reinvest to build equity. They are also probably working tax codes and whatever. But they don't seem to see players as a wise investment. And if you ask their accounts it's probably working for them

They are the most profitable org in MLB and payroll did not go up.

[Donn Beach]

Here is Geoff Baker on the subject, it's an old article but I think it could still be relevant

Whenever the topic of the Mariners and their overall worth comes up, club president Chuck Armstrong makes it a point to note that the team’s owners have always reinvested any yearly profits in the team.
And that’s a fair point.
But I do think it’s a minor point that can be used to cloud just how much value this franchise has gained in worth since it was purchased by the current ownership group back in 1992. Forbes does an annual survey of baseball finances and does a pretty good job of giving the broad strokes.
For example, the most recent survey heading into this season had Forbes showing the M’s owners bought the team in 1992 for $100 million.
And the overall value of the franchise now, according to Forbes, is $449 million.
That’s a healthy return on investment. And it’s why people invest in professional sports teams. Well, actually, that’s not true.
There are many other benefits to owning a sports franchise: the biggest being the prestige that comes with ownership, not to mention certain tax breaks.
Yearly profits and losses? They come into it, sure. Nobody wants to lose $30 million out of the $300 million in value that’s been gained, that’s for sure. If your portfolio dropped 10 percent from year-to-year, you’d be worried.
Oh wait, I just looked at my stock market returns from 2008-2009. Never mind.
OK, all kidding aside, this is to show that a profit of $1 million or $2 million here, versus a loss of the same amount on the other side is negligible compared to overall franchise worth.
Yes, it’s real money and seven figures should never be scoffed at. But to put yearly seven-figure profits on a par with nine-figure overall franchise value for the sake of debate can be misleading.
So, just to clarify, yes indeed, the Mariners do reinvest the profits they’ve made every single year since Safeco Field opened — with the exception of 2008 — back into the team. It would be like you getting a nice yearly dividend check on your personal stock fund where you have the choice of cashing it out or putting it back into your (hopefully growing) overall pile.
That’s it.


And in theory, as long as the Mariners can keep that annual stuff at a break-even point, they are going to reap big rewards whenever they cash out. If they avoid any year-to-year red ink, they are, in effect, avoiding any risk to the “real” profit that stands to be made in pro sports, which is — “cashing out” by selling the team.
The big risk in pro sports comes when a team does not have a stadium that it owns and can reap concessions and parking revenue from. Ad revenue as well. Money from personal seat licenses and luxury suites. Or when a team does not have a lucrative local or regional TV deal to bring in big-time bucks.
The Mariners have those things.
They have a state-of-the-art facility funded by taxpayers and a multi-year TV deal with ROOT Sports — formerly FSN Northwest.
Those yearly profits? Heck, reinvest them in the team. As long as you’re not losing money, you’re making money in the long run.
Plus, in theory, if you keep reinvesting those profits every year, it should get you through the losses when they happen. Like that one year in 2008 when the team tried a $118 million payroll and lost $4.5 million. The only year in the Safeco Field era the M’s did not turn a yearly profit.
A few seasons of $1.5 million profits, it all evens out.
Plus, I don’t know about you, but when I take annual losses on certain investments, my accountant somehow finds a way to mitigate some of it. Helps me pay less tax — all perfectly legal — in other areas where I’ve made profit.
That’s the way this country was built. Somehow, some way, I’d have to think baseball teams get to use the exact same system. Probably much more complex and potentially lucrative than the breaks I’m used to.
Now, I’d never advocate that somebody take a $400 million investment and downgrade it into a $200 million investment overnight by doing irresponsible things. Like investing in a Ponzi scheme run by some New York investment banker.
No way, no sir.
But is upping a team’s yearly payroll to help bring it a couple of years closer to a championship really being reckless and irresponsible? Is that $4.5 million loss you take once every decade — offset by profits every other year — really going to damage your $400 million pile all that much?
As I’ve said before, it’s not my pile to decide what to do with.
But I know that pile grows with more butts put into seats.
And while I’m sure the average Mariners fan is pleased that owners aren’t using their yearly profits to buy an extra Ferrari for the kids, the whole conversation about what is done with this yearly money misses the point.
It’s in the owners’ best interests to reinvest the small yearly profits into the team. It offsets future losses and covers money that was going to have to be spent anyway on upgrading and maintaining the existing investment. If you own a house that’s tripled in value and needs a paint job, it would be silly to spend the $2,000 your nephew gave you to rent the basement for the summer on a night of poker with the boys. You spend it on the paint job, hope to get more renters and keep your triple-value home looking spanking new.
And as long as that big pile that’s amassed over the years stays big, no owner is going to come close to “losing” any money in the long run.
The only losses they’ll have to worry about are on the field. In that one regard, the owners and fans have a lot in common.

[Michael K.]

You know what else generates revenue? Winning teams with big name stars. The M's drew over 3 Million fans playing in a concrete pimple in the late 90's. people would rather watch good baseball in a crappy facility than watch crappy baseball in a palace full of bells and whistles.

playing in a concrete pimple

Another fucking doozie! You guys are on a roll this week.

[Michael K.]

When you say the ownership makes money, you think they are drawing off profit for their own use?

You know what I don't think, because I know? They don't shell out these profits for player's salaries. Even when the salaries increase, as has been pointed out many times in here, it hasn't increased anywhere close to the savings they made during the "step back". Fuck their step back. All that was was a way to excuse shitty baseball for a couple of years so we could hope that young players panned out, and even if they did? We weren't going to invest in FA to fill out the roster. Instead we were going to talk about

1. Needing money for salaries down the road
2. Spending in FA doesn't work, even though it has. We will show the times it hasn't
3. We fucked up our TV deal
4. The fans should thank us for trying to win 54% of our games over a ten year period. One playoff appearance in 23 years pales in comparison to that.