Deep Into Sports » payroll

World Series Title $201 Million, Not Priceless

Nate Barlow — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:55:30 +0000

Congratulations to the Steinbrenners for buying the New York Yankees another World Series Title. Ah, the glory in being able to outspend other teams! Is that really the type of championship of which one can be proud? Regardless, Yankee fans will enjoy this victory like any other, but, to everyone else who follows baseball, the Bombers’ latest title is another case of spending ability over playing ability following New York’s $240 million off-season spending spree. Shameful, not triumphant. Trust me, Yankee fans, every other baseball fan views this as a purchased World Series, only a handful of steps less dubious than if the Yanks had a roster consisting solely of A-Roids.

To put things into perspective, the Yankees $201 million payroll in 2009 was $52 million more than the next highest team (the Mets, $149 million). That difference is more than the entire payroll of three other teams: the Pirates ($49 million), the Padres ($44 million), and the Marlins ($37 million). Even currently exuberant Yankee fans, if the least bit rational, must admit that such a disparity is disgusting and detrimental to the game. If you don’t… wow. That would make you even more myopic than most sports fans.

That baseball desperately needs a salary cap to restore competitive balance has long been accepted by pretty much everybody other than the Major League Baseball Players Association. But the situation has sunk to a new low when fans everywhere considered the World Series championship to be “bought”.

Yankee Economics

Nate Barlow — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:25:34 +0000

You know that the economy is bad when:

1. The Yankees have a lower payroll than the year before ($6.86 million average per player in 2008; a record $7.47 million in 2007).

2. The Bronx Bombers didn’t want to risk Bobby Abreu accepting arbitration as a Type A free agent, even though it meant passing on the opportunity of receiving two high draft choices if he said no and signed elsewhere.

Ouch.

Are NFL Payrolls Inversely Proportional to On-Field Success?

Nate Barlow — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:43:28 +0000

Not exactly, but a brief look at the payrolls of the 32 NFL teams reveals some surprising numbers. Two of the lowest salaried teams, the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots (29th and 30th, respectively), have, as we all know, been two of the most successful franchises in recent years; the team with the highest payroll, the abysmal Oakland Raiders, one of the absolute worst. Only slightly better on the playing field is the fourth-highest salaried team, the Cleveland Brown.

Despite these surprising stats, NFL payrolls are by no means inversely proportional to on-field success. The woeful Kansas City Chiefs have the lowest combined payroll of any NFL team; the excellent Pittsburgh Steeler squad is #6. In fact, there seems to be a relatively even distribution of salaries across the NFL success vector.

Compare those numbers to the success of Major League Baseball’s highest paid teams. Although spending a lot never guarantees having a championship-caliber team in any sport–the ultra-expensive New York Yankees didn’t make the playoffs while the dirt-cheap Tampa Bay Rays won the American League pennant–overall the higher-salaried baseball teams tend to have better won-loss records than their lower-paying counterparts (five of the eight highest-paid teams were in the playoffs this year). But in the NFL, no such payroll to on-field success comparison can be made.

So, what then do these numbers mean? Only that strong management trumps high payrolls in reaching the Super Bowl every time… and that really strong management can even bring home the Lombardi Trophy on a budget.