For baseball, 2007 forever will be remembered as the year in which players were outed as steroid users and the most hallowed of all records fell to Barry Bonds, a superstar embroiled in the controversy.
That MLB could weather a season like that and emerge as an award finalist speaks to the sort of momentum the game has built on other fronts — particularly those that show up more clearly on the financial ledgers.
Revenue for 2007 reached $6.075 billion, an increase of $1 billion over the last two years. That’s five times what it was when Bud Selig assumed the commissioner’s role in 1992.
“It’s almost like a dream,” Selig said at the conclusion of MLB’s quarterly owners meeting in November. “I almost have to pinch myself sometimes. But we’ll be up again in attendance next year and … our outlook remains very good. All our areas of business are very strong.”
Among the accomplishments:
Posted record attendance of 79.5 million.
A vibrant dot-com business. Launched as a free-standing entity behind an initial outlay of about $80 million in 2000, MLB Advanced Media last year generated more than $450 million in revenue.
WHAT PEOPLE
ARE SAYING:
“When we were putting the Oxygen Network together, we thought getting to 30 million homes was a big deal. But now getting to 50 million with the MLB Network, you have a real viable product.”
TOM WERNER
Boston Red Sox
Better competitive balance than the game has seen in two decades, with the Colorado Rockies stepping forward as yet another example of a World Series entrant from outside the cast of usual suspects.
Carriage deals that will make the MLB Network available in more than 50 millioan U.S. homes when it launches next year, the most ever for a debut cable channel.
That last one is a particularly notable achievement in light of the scrum the NFL has endured trying to get penetration for NFL Network. Launched in November 2003 and bolstered by live game broadcasts for the last two seasons, the NFL Network is available in only about 43 million homes.
“Given the difficulty that both sports and entertainment channels have had in the last five years in launching on cable and satellite, certainly I think the baseball channel is looking forward to a very successful beginning,” said Neal Pilson, a former president of CBS Sports who now runs a consulting firm.
Pilson said a key to gaining that carriage was MLB’s decision to yield a one-third stake in the venture to DirecTV, Comcast, Time Warner and Cox. “I think most industry people feel the trades they made were worthwhile.”
For all its accomplishments, the enduring recollections from MLB 2007 likely will be of Bonds’ as-yet tainted toppling of the home run record and the Mitchell Report, which spurred congressional hearings and an ugly joust between Roger Clemens and a confessed steroid distributor. While the airing of baseball’s dirty little secret brought shame on the game and its players, one could make the argument that by tackling it publicly, MLB hastened a cleanup.
“You always worry about the business effects, certainly, from something like this,” said Rob Manfred, the MLB executive vice president who oversees labor relations. “But our fans have shown great resiliency through the years, and I think a big reason why they’ve done that is because they believe we’re trying to do something about this.”
Revenue has eclipsed $6 billion, an increase of $1 billion since 2005.
