Normally, the news of the Phillies introducing an alternate home jersey wouldn't be something I would embrace. But, in this case, I think its a great idea for a couple of reasons.
- They are good looking jerseys and while they aren't cotton, they are made to be breathable. If I didn't have a college tuition to pay for in 18 years and a dog that consumes more food in a month than I do, I just might buy one.
- Creative little revenue streams like the new jersey are exactly what I was referring to a few weeks ago when I postulated that the Phillies need to make more money.
One long-time reader, Mike Harmanos, did some further digging on my little theory that the Phillies aren't maximizing their revenue potential. Here's what he found:
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I put together the following chart. There's three variables to it.
The first is the corresponding metropolitan area that the team plays in, as this correlates pretty smoothly with a team's fan base. The one outlier is Boston, because the Boston MSA does not include the Providence, Rhode Island Area. If it did, the Boston MSA ranks right in front of Philly, and behind Dallas, with about 6 million people. My source is Wikipedia, whose source is the US Department of Commerce. I then ranked all teams and assigned an ordinal value to them.
I took the data from Team Marketing Report, located at http://www.teammarketing.com/fci.cfm, and used their figures for average ticket prices. This is the group that always attracts attention when they calculate the cost of "an average night at the ballpark for a family of four." Their figures are from 2006, but it's pretty comprehensive. I also ranked them ordinally.
I then took the payroll figures, also from Wikipedia, whose source is ESPN, and ranked those ordinally.
I then averaged the three ordinal figures and sorted everyone lowest to highest.
I would make the argument that if a team's three ranks are consistent (within a standard deviation), they are capitalizing on their fan base, bringing in an average amount of revenue and spending an average amount on payroll. These teams include: Yankees, Cubs, White Sox, Padres, D-Backs, Athletics, Reds, Pirates, Rockies, and maybe the Royals.
What is more interesting is each of the deviations, of course. If a team has a substantially lower MSA number rank than their ticket rank, I would argue that their fans are pretty devout and are willing to pay premium prices. These teams include the Red Sox, Mariners, Giants, Cardinals, Orioles, Brewers, and the Indians. If a team has a high MSA rank, but low prices, they are under-pricing their tickets. The Mets, Dodgers, Angels, Tigers, Braves, Nationals, the Rangers (wow!), the Twins, and Marlins (no shock there) fall into this category. Are these teams generating revenue in some other way? Lucrative TV contracts? Seat licenses? More expensive beer?
That leaves four teams: the Astros, Blue Jays, Devil Rays, and our beloved Phillies.
The Rays are just the sick man of the league. It really explains a lot when you see a team with the capability of building a winner (the same amount of people as in Denver), but no real fan base, therefore tickets artificially low, and therefore, payroll low. They are a good exercise in failing to build a franchise.
Toronto, Houston, and Philadelphia demonstrate some evidence that the owners have a built, established franchise, make the money, but don't spend enough of it. But when you average the ordinal ranks, Toronto gravitates back toward its slightly above average rank. Houston and the Phillies Payroll Rank are such outliers to their averages. It certainly explains why the Astros would hire someone like Ed Wade, who has experience "hoarding the fans money!"
But this whole exercise, especially when considering what teams compete against each other, gives you a good idea of the business models of each team. The question then becomes "Given the fan base, tickets, stadium variances, and payroll, what kind of team maximizes the chances of getting to the World Series?"
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Those are interesting figures. Now, the Phillies payroll might be underestimated a bit in the chart because it probably isn't counting the money owed in the Jim Thome trade. But, it still shows that the Phillies market size, ticket prices, and pay roll certainly don't "jive", even if you bump the Phils' payroll up a bit.
Some would contend that this shows the Phillies are making a ton of money but not spending it. But on the other hand, the argument can certainly be made -- and I am -- that since ticket prices aren't the only way a team makes money, the Phillies must be doing poorly in those other areas, despite bragging about being able to pour six beers at a time.
Now, lets say that the Phillies owners are hoarding a ton of what they make rather than putting it back into player development and acquisition. Wouldn't you still like them to make more money in relation to their market size, ala the Red Sox, so that even if they did like to line their pockets, they might be just a little more willing to sink something back into payroll?
