MLB Keeping '09 Central Office Operating Budget Equal To '08
By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal
MLB, holding quarterly owners meetings yesterday and today in N.Y., has set a central office operational budget for '09 that reflects no increase from '08, the first time the league has done that since '04. The move arrives despite a record haul this year of industry revenue of about $6.5B, and sales set to mushroom further with the January 1 onset of the MLB Network and a return of the World Baseball Classic. The league has also suspended spending for all non-delineated projects. MLB President & COO Bob DuPuy, while declining to reveal the budget figure, not surprisingly tagged the freeze to the declining economy. “You have to remember that the network carried a lot of start-up costs. Beyond that, this is a challenging sponsorship market and advertising market and we do not want to count any dollars before they actually come across the transom,” he said. To that end, league officials said active discussions are ongoing with several key sponsors about “making sure we give them as much value as possible for their sponsorship dollars and try to keep them all in place,” DuPuy said. Among them is DHL, which last week announced its impending termination of all domestic-based air and ground delivery services. DuPuy said the league has had "very positive conversations” about DHL remaining a MLB sponsor. Additionally, no MLB sponsors to date have asked to delay or cease payments, he said.
CUBS BIDS DUE DECEMBER 1: The next round of bids to buy the Cubs is due December 1. The league’s ownership committee briefly discussed the Cubs sale from the Tribune Co. yesterday, but the process is still ongoing, as no candidate buyer has been presented for approval by baseball. Four groups have met with MLB to review financial information related to the transaction. DuPuy did not address the status of Mavs Owner Mark Cuban, who according to some reports had the highest bid in the first round, has been effectively out of the running according to some others, and earlier this week received civil charges of insider trading from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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MLB Net Harlem HQs
Proposal Officially Dead |
OTHER LEAGUE ISSUES: A broad revision of MLB TV territorial rules, tabled in August, is on hold once again. League officials continue to review the clubs’ local TV contracts, and seek to allay specific operational concerns over a new plan in which a team would need to show games in a local market in order to claim it for blackout rules. The issue is now targeted for resolution at the next set of owners’ meetings in January. Meanwhile, a proposed office tower in Harlem is now officially dead, DuPuy said, confirming long-held suspicions as well as comments made by MLB Network President & CEO Tony Petitti at yesterday’s Sports Media & Technology Conference. But rather than tying the decision in part to the extensive installation of HD equipment and systems at the current Secaucus, New Jersey, HQs as Petitti did, DuPuy pegged the tower’s demise to financing issues on the part of proposed development partner Vornado Realty Trust.
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