03.25.11
NYT’s Schmidt & Sandomir : The Mets Are Leading The League (In Hemorrhaging Cash)
Hours after Mets GM Sandy Alderson assured an audience of bloggers, “if we’re in the hunt the money will be there to add a player,” said claim to a slight hit from a New York Times report in which Michael D. Schmidt and Richard Sandomir cite losses of $50 million in 2010, with more misery to come.
The team’s losses — projected to hit another $50 million or more this season based on factors including advance ticket sales — come with a range of implications for its owners, who are trying to sell a portion of the club, and for major league teams that rely on the Mets to share revenue with them.
Two years ago, the Mets contributed more than $40 million to baseball’s revenue-sharing pool — a system meant to create a more level playing field for small- and large-market teams. But in 2010, the Mets put in around 40 percent less.
The losses — the club’s falloff in revenue was the largest year-to-year decline for any major league team in recent years — are certainly jarring for a franchise operating in the nation’s most lucrative market. In 2009, the Mets, boasting one of the sport’s most expensive payrolls, opened the season in a new park, Citi Field, and the club took in revenue of more than $350 million. Still, it lost close to $10 million, according to the two people briefed on the matter.
