Analyzing the Pittsburgh Pirates Financial Situation

[ThatRogue]

Per the article posted below, it appears that the Pirates ticket & concession sales covered most of their payroll during several seasons. The money they received from national and local TV deals, as well as revenue sharing provided significantly more dollars that, in all likelihood, turned into sizable profits for Nutting and his ownership group.

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2022/04/10/pirates-ticket-sales-revenue-player-investment-mlb-payroll-special-report/stories/202204100006

[madducks]

If the Pirates are one of the top 5 spenders on player development, then why do they have far fewer top prospects than most other teams?

[revo]

The writer didn't challenge them on some of these headscratching comments:

“In order to put it all into perspective, you need to consider the level of player contracts and expenses in supporting the large number of major and minor league players, which are more than any other sport,” Pirates president Travis Williams said in a statement. “With that comes large coaching and support staffs to support the Major League team, as well as the six levels of player development with eight full rosters of players.”

"Beyond the major league roster, the Pirates said they must account for roughly 250 players on the minor and developmental squads, as well as the coaching that goes along with that."

I mean -- doesn't every single MLB team also have these same exact expenditures? Couldn't the writer have challenged him on that? Bad job.

Also, concession "revenue" doesn't mean concession sales profits. What are the % profits from concessions? Also not determined in this article.