Why do Baseball players make so much money? Amazingly, the top ten highest-paid contracts in the world of sports have gone to baseball players.
While baseball players aren’t that much known worldwide when compared to other world-class athletes in sports such as soccer, track and field, and even basketball, they are definitely the ones that are pocketing the most money.
Why do Baseball players make so much money?
It is interesting to note that the most significant contract in sports history went to a baseball player Giancarlo Stanton. This contract was for a term of 13 years, and it involved a whopping $325 million.
Contrary to other sports like basketball, for example, baseball has no salary cap. In the NFL, there’s a salary max of around $133 million. In basketball, this number is more in the range of $22.9 million per season.
Although the MLB has a very high tax on payrolls, the number of high-earners make so abundant that that may have little impact on their heritage.
Marvin Miller, the union’s director, has made it possible for baseball players to earn ridiculously large amounts of money. Impressively, the minimum salary of a baseball player went from $19 k to $326 under Miller’s authority.
Now there’s also the opportunity of players bargaining their salary with the league in a collective manner.
Contracts in other sports like the NLF can end unexpectedly, reducing the earnings of the players. This doesn’t happen in MLB. The players get to earn all the money they agreed upon with the league on the contract.
It is an essential note that players can play in up to 162 games each season. Thus, it’s not like they are getting the money for free. They have to train hard and be at the top of their performance in every game.
There’s a lot of money that’s made because of T.V. rights. Local T.V. stations pay millions of dollars each year for the right to broadcast the games. They reflect this money in the wages of the baseball players themselves.
Given the fact that MLB is such an independent sport, there’s less risk involved when hiring a professional baseball player. Unlike other games where teamwork is more important such as NFL, in MLB, the performance of a player is not entirely directly tied to the production of other players.
How do Baseball Teams Save and Invest Their Money in Players?
There’s something special that happens in baseball. In the first three years, basically, the first three seasons, teams pay salaries close to the minimum baseball wage to their players. This is because they still don’t qualify for salary arbitration.
This money that’s saved via having relatively young and inexperienced players can be spent on baseball superstars that can give that extra edge that’s needed to win games and attract more than just a handful of crowds. The finances of the MLB are substantial.
Revenue has increased pretty much every year in more than a decade now. In 2015 alone, the revenue was $9.5 billion.
There are many teams having TV right agreements of more than $1 billion. In fact, the MLB itself has a deal with TBS and FOX that is worth $12.4 billion. A specific case is that of the LA Dodgers that agreed on a contract with Time Warner Cable in 2013 for $8.35 billion. This has allowed the LA Dodgers to pay their players in terms of salaries around $300 million. Online presence also gives MLB teams additional revenue.
It is not only big teams that are paying their players big time. There’s this revenue sharing program that stipulates that almost 50% of the revenue received by all the teams is distributed in equal terms among all teams in the Major League of Baseball.
Final Thoughts
Why do Baseball players make so much money? As we have explained above, baseball players make more money than their counterparts of other sports because they have a stable union, and there’s no maximum limit amount on the money they can earn.
