In addition to being an insufferable tyrant with whom no GM wants to work, it seems Orioles owner Peter Angelos is also a poor negotiator. The truth of the matter, though, is that the changing baseball economy is only going to emphasize its small-market status in coming years. Civic pride in a franchise nearing 150 years of age cements the team's place, and allows it to occasionally act like a mid-market team. The Bengals do not intrude much on the Reds' market share for sports in Cincinnati, nor does the city host an NBA or NHL team. On top of that, the region is relatively baseball-mad.
They also get a boost from baseball tourism, owing to the city's proximity to Louisville (home to the Louisville Slugger Museum). The Reds fans diaspora is considerably wider than that of most teams. So, too, are Lexington, Ky., and Dayton, Ohio. While Indianapolis and Columbus are split between Reds, Cubs and Indians fans, Louisville is almost exclusively Reds territory. Indianapolis, Louisville and Columbus are all larger cities than Cincinnati, yet each has only a Triple-A ball club. They also have a unique sort of X-factor when it comes to revenue streams. Here are all 30 MLB teams, ranked according to their market size, i.e., their overall revenue streams.Ĭincinnati is neither a bustling metropolis nor a massive media market, but the Reds have a lovely riverside ballpark that has been a cash cow for nearly a decade. Teams can spend as they see fit, so things like market size and fanbase matter insofar as they can impact a team's ability to make the right decisions without regard to cost. The 15 who get the money, though, are not the same 15 who play in the smallest markets, or who have the smallest revenue potential.įor another thing, like it or not (I do), baseball is still a relatively free-market enterprise. Well, for one thing, half of the 30 current teams in MLB get some share of revenue from the other half, under rules established to encourage competitive balance at the very beginning of the 21st century. That's roughly the number of squads whose designation (are they big-market, mid-market or small-market?) by most fans and analysts misrepresents the truth of the matter.
Most fans, though, might have a mistaken vision of what that means for a dozen or so teams around the league. It could conceivably create an underclass of teams unable to compete for reasons financial and infrastructural. The new collective bargaining agreement makes these distinctions more important than ever, because it best serves big- and medium-market clubs. The Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates are notoriously small-market clubs. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are obviously big-market teams.
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