Tom Brennan - OTHER TEAMS' PAIN IS METS' GAIN

When you consider the competitive landscape for talent as the winter meetings currently commence, it is worthwhile to realize that some MLB teams had very bad years financially.

Bizjournals.com did a recent article where it referred to TMR’s 2020 MLB Fan Cost Index, which reportedly "uses what each team saw for attendance across its full 2019 slate of games to approximate the spending that didn’t happen for home games in 2020 because fans weren’t in attendance.

"The result: More than $5 billion in lost revenue across the league, according to TMR’s calculations. The Yankees topped the list, with an estimated $437 million in game-day revenue lost compared to what the Yankees might have drawn with fans attending a traditional 81-game home schedule. The Miami Marlins were on the other end of the scale, at No 30, with $37 million in game-day revenue lost."

And this earlier article by Forbes in May 2020 takes a wider look at other revenues some teams were expected to have access to during 2020 - I did not dive into it, but refer to it as you wish:

A Deep Dive Into MLB’s Financial Losses For The 2020 Season (forbes.com)

Additionally, FanGraphs recently took a look at the Braves finances and concluded the following:

"..we speculate (that) the Braves would have been down $65 million for the entire year, though that’s without accounting for the potentially tens of millions extra in tax benefits due to those unusual losses."

And "Some teams might have lost more than the Braves and some teams might have lost less, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore prior gains. From the beginning of 2019 to the end of 2020, the Braves are down a total of just $11 million. Since the start of 2018, with the same fourth quarter assumption, they are up by a total of $83 million."

So...it's complicated...what isn't...but suffice it to say that many teams' losses were likely to have been huge.

Another FanGraphs article in May, however, was skeptical about MLB cliams as to how much they would lose.  After all, they cut many costs tremendously and still had those other revenue sources. 

No doubt, such financial imprecision and opaqueness could lead to much player-owner acrimony going forward:

Parsing MLB’s Claim of a $4 Billion Loss | FanGraphs Baseball  

In any event, my article is not meant to be an exhaustive look at MLB finances, just a bit of an overview, but clearly (and I'm telling you nothing new) quite a few teams lost a whole lot of money in 2020...and, given that COVID may still be an obstacle, albeit a decreasing one, in 2021, the promise of a normal revenue 2021 is iffy at best at this point.

All of which should suppress spending from many teams as we proceed into the action portion of 2020's off season...except one team, which won't be constrained like other teams from prior and possible future losses:

THE METS

So, Steve and Sandy, "Spend well and prosper."

P.S. Today is the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Thanks always to those brave individuals who put (or have put) their lives on the line to keep us safe and strong.