MLB Cardinals Chair & CEO Bill DeWitt Jr. in a Q&A with Derrick Goold of the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH discussed "the present team but also the future," including the Cardinals' payroll and broadcast revenue. Below are excerpts from the Q&A:
Q: The team this year, because of the youth and some expiring contracts and retirements, has a smaller payroll than last year. That comes at the same time as increased revenue throughout baseball from the national television broadcast rights. I know the plan wasn't to scale-back payroll like this, but can you reconcile these two things and do you see payroll closing that gap?
DeWitt: We certainly have flexibility. One thing to think about when you compare last year's payroll to this year is that we had a number of injured players that were insured. We're a club that insures players on multi-year contracts of significance. ... It's a way of evening out the payroll and gives us flexibility.
Q: Do you expect payroll to grow? ... Can you take what's saved from 2014 and apply to 2016? 2017?
DeWitt: Yes. We always have a three- to five-year forecast of what our budget might look like. It's very fluid because particularly with a group of young players it's going to depend on performance. But we have a sense of what the payroll in the out years -- three years, five years out -- will look like, and it will certainly be higher than it is today.
Q: How in a marketplace where the Dodgers exist and the Yankees have their own network can you maximize your market?
DeWitt: That's an area we look at for sure. And it's one that we think has upside for us given the current rights fees that we get (from Fox Sports Midwest). There has been a general escalation of all markets, not just the big markets but all markets in rights fees because the content to the RSNs or the cable distributors has so much value. ... St. Louis is not a particularly highly penetrated cable market. Compared to a lot of cities that draw nowhere close to what we draw (in attendance) there are not as many households. (But) it's an area that we definitely think we can do better with.
Q: Do you see that happening in the short-term?
DeWitt: We have four years left, counting 2014, (on the rights deal). The first time we would have an opportunity to do anything different would be 2018 (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 2/16).
