SPENDING MONEY TO MAKE MONEY

SB Nation (via another publication) calculates that the Blue Jays trading deadline moves not only helped the club vault into first place but also helped the bottom line.

When the Blue Jays traded Jose Reyes and prospects for Troy Tulowitzki, no money exchanged hands. Tulowitzki was owed $94 million after this season and Reyes was owed $48 million. That means the Blue Jays assumed an extra an extra $46 million. It was a risk. Except, the Blue Jays have already made that money back.  From Financial Post:

Overall, (Team Marketing) estimates that group of four would pay $270.43 for the whole trip to the ball game, just a few dollars over the MLB average.

That works out to $67.61 per person. Multiply that by 465,000 more bums in seats and you’ve got a whopping $31.4 million — more than triple the extra spending on salaries.

I recall when Harry Carey commanded the Wrigley Field press box. A Tribune executive secretly whispered that Carey was the most underpaid person in the organization. Why? Because he brought in fans to the ball park. But beyond mere attendance, he brought in beer drinking fans (the most profitable segment of concession sales.)

For example, another 10,000 in ticket sales per game by fans drinking $7 worth of beer for a home season calculates to $5.67 million. Plus Carey was a great ambassador for the beer company, who would spend millions more on ball park advertising.