The MLB Stadium Revenue At Risk For Every Team If Games Are Played Without Fans

The notion of playing games in front of no fans would be extremely problematic for MLB because of the huge disparity in stadium revenue (the sum of tickets, concessions, sponsors, parking, and team stores, minus stadium debt service) the 30 teams.

Not so much for the profits of the 30 teams, as player costs would be reduced to a certain degree to account for the loss of stadium revenue. But because the loss of stadium revenue would necessitate a radical change in baseball’s revenue sharing formula whereby 48% of net local revenue from the previous season is pooled and shared equally among the 30 teams.

The top teams in stadium revenues (see list below) for the 2019 season—New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants—chipped over $250 million combined towards revenue sharing, based on the previous season’s revenue. Several teams on the bottom half of the list, like the Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays, Kansas City Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds—each received over $20 million last season.

The challenge for the league if these stadium revenue is lost is that much of this money is not used just for players at the major league level. Rather, it’s often used for all kinds of operational needs, like staffing, the minor leagues, scouting and debt. In other words, the money is fungible.

In this exercise I excluded local media revenue even though it is also pooled for revenue sharing purposes because teams would still get proceeds from their cable and radio deals if games are played in empty ballparks. Also, it is likely that even if ballparks were empty, some sponsors would not ask for their money back, but instead would have it roll over to the next season or receive some free advertising or promotions in the future to make up for having their signage in front of no eyeballs this season.

The stadium revenue figures are before playoffs and net of stadium debt service.

Team Stadium revenue ($mil)

New York Yankees 470

Boston Red Sox 366

Chicago Cubs 321

Los Angeles Dodgers 320

San Francisco Giants 299

St. Louis Cardinals 220

Houston Astros 217

Atlanta Braves 191

Philadelphia Phillies 183

Washington Nationals 180

Los Angeles Angels 173

New York Mets 161

Texas Rangers 159

Milwaukee Brewers 142

Colorado Rockies 140

Minnesota Twins 132

San Diego Padres 130

Cleveland Indians 114

Toronto Blue Jays 112

Seattle Mariners 112

Cincinnati Reds 99

Chicago White Sox 97

Kansas City Royals 97

Detroit Tigers 93

Pittsburgh Pirates 87

Arizona Diamondbacks 86

Oakland Athletics 74

Baltimore Orioles 70

Tampa Bay Rays 66

Miami Marlins 47