Fortune magazine would have you know that the Baltimore Orioles monetary hit from the unrest in Baltimore is "likely to be relative chump change considering the big money it make over the entire season, including from television."
That's the language used in a subheader to Tom Huddleston Jr.'s April 29 piece, "Even with fans shut out, Baltimore Orioles don't stand to lose too much money."
Here's a sample from the article:
From concessions and parking alone, the Orioles could end up losing almost $940,000 in total over the four games. The team is averaging 33,288 fans per game this season and the average fan at Camden Yards spent $5.94 per game on concessions in 2013, which comes out to less than $200,000 per game. As for parking, Camden Yards has about 4,200 parking spaces on-site, according to the Maryland Stadium Authority. Parking passes cost between $8 and $10 for each game, which adds up to about $37,800 per game.
Of course, the team could also offset that lost revenue, in part, by forgoing pay to stadium staff for those four games. But, really, forfeiting just under $1 million over four games is not a huge loss for a team that Forbes values at around $1 billion with roughly $245 million in annual revenue last year. Those numbers place the Orioles in the middle of the pack compared with the rest of the MLB.
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If you want a few more reference points, consider that the average MLB player makes $4.25 million in a season, which works out to just over $26,000 per game. And, with an estimated team payroll of $115.9 million this season, Baltimore pays out roughly $715,345 per game to the players on its 25-person roster. All-Star center-fielder Adam Jones takes home the bulk of that cash with more than $80,000 per game (before taxes).
In other words, losing less than $1 million dollars through this weekend is not likely to hurt the team’s finances too badly.
"Quit your bellyaching," Huddleston seems to be saying. "The team is incredibly wealthy and it won't even miss the money."
Even granting that the front office and the ballplayers will survive just fine, Huddleston seems to be blithely unconcerned for the hit that area businesses and, yes, the blue-collar workers who staff them, will take from the unrest in Baltimore.
Supposing stadium concession workers get full pay for the four games of work they lost to no fault of their own, there's still a massive unrecoverable hit that area bars and restaurants took. Ditto with area hotels, particularly the one(s) which would have hosted the visiting Tampa Bay Rays.
And let's not forget that it is not certain that Camden Yards will see a long-term impact in ticket sales. Families in particular may be much more hesitant to bring young children to future home games if they fear a fresh flare-up of violence could descend upon the city and threaten their children.
