Franchise Values
Let’s not talk about yesterday.
This week Forbes published its annual baseball franchise valuations. The Twins ranked 22nd on the list with a value of $356 million. This doesn’t include any potential revenue from the new stadium because, as we have seen with the new Yankee stadium, you can’t assume all your new high price seats will get sold.
The Pohlad family bought the team in 1984 for 44 million, that is a pretty tidy return. Not quite as good as the Yankees, Steinbrennerbought them for around 10 million in the early 70s, but still good. One of the points I found interesting is that Carl spent 63% of revenue on player salaries over the last five years, that is significantly higher than the 57% that is the league average. Guess he wasn’t such a cheapskate was he? He did run the team like a business, but who are we to tell him how to spend his personal fortune.
The Twins 2008 wins to player cost ratio was 133. That means we got 33% more wins per dollar than the league average. In this formula postseason wins count double. That can’t come as much of a surprise to anyone, as we have discussed the Twins payroll efficiency in this space before.
The Twins have seen a dramatic increase in both value and revenue since 2000. This is also to be expected, as franchise values overall have increased steadily over that time. Also, the Twins have been much for successful on the field in this decade than they were in the 90s, thus more people are wont to buy tickets, jerseys, etc.
The Twins get roughly 45% of their value from “sport”, which is defined as “portion of the franchise’s value attributable to revenue shared among all teams”. This also can’t come as a shock, as the have always been one of the biggest benefactors of revenue sharing.
Does anything else stand out? Nothing really groundbreaking here, I just wanted to write about something unrelated to the Twins terrible play yesterday. One comment: I am now more convinced than ever that I could homer off of Scott Baker. He needs to figure his shit out. Quick.
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That number doesn’t include future potential revenue from the new stadium … but it also must not include ANYTHING about the new stadium, which by itself is worth considerably more than what the Twins are apparently worth.
I don’t recall if anyone ever brought this up … but instead of building the Twins a new stadium, wouldn’t it have been cheaper to just have the state BUY THE WHOLE TEAM?