ORS

Not really. All they need to do is get good, and there are multiple paths to achieving that goal. There are risks associated with each path, but let's remember, they've only been there for a handful of years. Elktonnick is right in that there are some unique challenges in that market, but his perspective is not without fault. I spent the first 24 years of my life in the DC area. It's not true to say it is a not a sports town. It supports the 'Skins, Capitals, and Wizards just fine, and the town will support a baseball team as well.

Not according to several insiders who have followed both the business of sports and Washington sports, who call them mid, and/or, big market. Boswell's been around forever. I remember reading him when I was in HS 25 years ago. http://www.federalbaseball.com/2011/11/25/2586650/washington-nationals-revenue-sharing-tv-deal-and-stan-kasten Clearly, I'm out here on crazy island.

But, it's not a matter of perspective. We are not talking about subjective terms. We are talking about specific terms. You want to know what I like? I like it when people use definitions properly in their arguments. You aren't understanding what the definition you used is saying. Wait, wait, wait. Where did your love for hard data go? I guess that love of hard numbers only applies when it is convenient. Elktonnick's statement is not supported by the facts, the data. People are watching. People are watching enough for them to have been paid $29M for broadcast rights, with most following the current contract negotiations anticipating that amount will increase by 2x to 3x in magnitude. Results are what matters, right? No excuses.

I beg to differ. If there was no market for the product, they wouldn't have received $29M from MASN last year, a figure considered by many baseball insiders to reportedly be a sweetheart deal for Angelos. Do they need to improve their market penetration? Absolutely, they are just now scraping ground, but the market is huge. This alone makes them a mid-market team.

Wiki is fine in my book. What does "it was another perspective" mean? Reading that definition and getting the correct meaning from the words is not a matter of perspective. The definition is very specific. And, you are still getting it wrong. That definition is not talking about their "media market share". It is talking about the overall size of the media market in which they play their games. You demonstrate a failure to understand this every time share these popularity figures.

This is about the best way to describe it.

Because he f***ed up and called them small market to start and he has too much pride to admit he's wrong.

This is where you are all f***ed up. The definition you used is talking about the size of the local media market. LOCAL. And, not how much of it they command, but just the overall size of it. You are talking about global share of the overall media market for the entire sport, which is popularity. You are way off.

Why would they move? In 2010 they generated $36M in operating income while being a middle market team (not small). For someone so afraid of any speculation that goes counter to your point, you are running at full speed on the "move the franchise" opinion shared by Elktonick. Have some consistency. They are already profitable. The just renogotiated their broadcast deal, and their stake in the RSN goes up annually. They are middle market, profitable, and on their way up. Furthermore, they are looking like they will be increasingly competitive on the field in the near future.

I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but operating income can be a little misleading, particularly for the Red Sox and Yankees, here's why.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_sports_network This has been written about many, many times in the past on the topic of revenue sharing and how the biggest financial giants of the sport fudge the books to hide revenues from the revenue sharing pool. There's also a benefit for teams that take from the revenue sharing pool that have ownership of their network. By committing to the same undervalued cost of broadcast rights, their reported revenues will be smaller relative to their peers, increasing their benefit through revenue sharing. It is a widely recognized problem with the system. Operating income is important when you are analyzing most businesses, but in baseball, when a club has ownership of its broadcast network, they need to be taken with a grain of salt.

I provided an analysis of the figures that Forbes used that you have, apparently, ignored. That's not my fault, and it's lazy, and/or dishonest, of you to portray may argument as lacking in data. I acknowledged that any attempt to understand other revenue sources would be speculative, and that I thought it was better to speculate than to ignore them completely. Ownership, or part ownership, of a regional broadcast network is a strategic move to supplement team revenues that has been in the playbook for years. It's common knowledge. Why should we ignore it when a team does it in such a large media market? In other words, use common sense to apply them. I have not stated I know the magnitude of these things, I'm asking you if you think their magnitude is large enough to have any impact given the size of the revenues tracked by Forbes. I don't think they are. Your response to that is a failed attempt to portray me as contradictory. I'm not. I openly accept, and have even asked for speculation, but I expect what you are speculating on to make a good case for inclusion. Why won't you answer my questions? If RSN costs $14.95 and includes access to MLB Gameday audio, and MLB Gameday audio costs $14.95, how much do you think they get out of this? Is this an unreasonable question? I don't think it is, not when you are using it to suggest it will have a meaningful impact on a team that generated over $270M in revenues as reported by Forbes in 2010. I'm open to other suggestions, but ask yourself if they pass the smell test first. That's all. Yes, I acknowledge they are making something from these ventures. They wouldn't do it for nothing, but there's also more to this than revenues. This is a "branding" type of move. Generating interest, engaging fans, gaining popularity, which ultimately increases the valuation of the team. I think a lot of these moves aren't big money makers so much as they are name makers to inflate the team's valuation. In 9 short years, Henry has increased the valuation of the team from $400M to over $900M. That's where these types of moves are real money makers. What point am I trying to make? Follow the discussion. This tangent was initiated by iortiz's comment about focussing on expansion into markets outside of the local market. Yes, they are absolutely interested in that. Every business owner in the world is interested in increasing the valuation of his/her enterprise, but in the discussion of big vs. small market teams, where the generally used dividing point is revenues and the ability to spend money, I don't see where the Sox out-of-market popularity generates a revenues differential from the competition based on the current revenue sharing.

What, the bricks and grass and dirt gimmicks? Again, we are looking at revenues in the hundreds of millions in terms of magnitude. Do you honestly think those things account for anything more than a fraction of a percent on that scale? Your big component in your previous post was the split gate, but you were dead wrong about it. I'll admit, I haven't dug into these other outside-the-market revenue sources, so if there's something else, I'd like to hear about what I'm not considering. However, when you factor in magnitude, I think the league has pretty much made everything outside the local market part of the common good.

Do you realize that an ownership stake in the regional broadcast network represents a source of revenues that you routinely and consistenly ignore? This is a fact. The magnitude is indeterminant due to the private nature of that business, but it does mean the #16 flag you keep waving is extremely irrelevant.

SOX governs public companies. This is another one of your smoke screens to sound intelligent on the matter. It does not apply.

I question the validity of this. Francona, via the organization most likely, operated with a pretty close adherence to the 100-pitch count limit philosophy, as it was the conventional wisdom for a time there. Teams that have been more aggressive with pitch count limits have pretty successful lately. My hope is that the organization is looking into this and realizing the benefit that could be obtained by letting their good pitchers have a longer leash, relieving strain on the BP. Might be wishful thinking, but I think it would be the best course of action. I'm not so sure those guys were clearly gassed after 100 pitches/6 innings, but that's when they pretty much always got pulled. I think the capability is there, but has been unrealized to date.

Expansion of the brand into other markets is beneficial overall, as expanded revenues are good, period. However, expansion beyond the local market provides no competitive advantage over the other teams. Everything outside of the local market is shared evenly through revenue sharing. This is why international popularity has no impact on big/small market classification.

Yes, it mentions them for the Sox and Yankees, but it does not go into the team valuation. The Yankee Enterprises valuation is $5.1B, the team valuation, the data iortiz is leaning on heavily to support his argument, is $1.7B. These are the 2010 valuations. At the time of these valuations, the Nationals were still under their original contract with MASN and had no ownership stake. They renegotiated their contract this offseason and part of the deal included an ownersip stake in the network. It currently stands at 13%, so I admit, the impact is not as big as I suggested, but it is still there and should not be ignored. The ownership stake caps at 33% in the future. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wizards/nationals-negotiations-with-masn-will-have-huge-impact-on-franchise/2012/01/18/gIQA26VD9P_story.html You aren't going to get figures, figures, figures. This is a privately held company. Their financials are not public information. Maybe it's just me, but I think it much more reasonable to speculate as to what impact this has given there is no hard data available rather than sticking your head in the sand and ignoring it all together (the iortiz method). Also, the $163M that Forbes attributed to market that you posted is kind of a misleading figure. Per the footnotes of that page, the market value is the portion of the overall value attributable to the market size. In other words, the market value is dependent upon overall value, which is heavily impacted by popularity (the brand), and includes the stadium deal for the team. I think you can get a closer approximation to market size valuations by looking at the ratio of market value/overall value. The top-10 teams relative to the Nationals (value figures in millions).... [table]Rank|Team|Market|Overall|Ratio 1|Yankees|867|1700|.51 2|Red Sox|402|912|.45 3|Dodgers|337|800|.42 4|Cubs|340|773|.44 5|Mets|326|747|.44 6|Phillies|246|609|.41 7|Giants|231|563|.41 8|Rangers|242|561|.43 9|Angels|245|554|.44 10|White Sox|225|526|.43 16|Nats|163|417|.39[/table] Yes, they fall in the lower end of big market teams. I would expect them to. The DC market is not as big NY (2 teams), LA (2 teams), Chicago (2 teams), Dallas, and all of NE. But, it's similar to Philadelphia and SF. Let's look at which teams are traditionally considered "small" market..... [table]Team|Market|Overall|Ratio Rays|87|331|.26 A's|80|307|.26 Pirates|82|304|.27 Royals|85|351|.24 Marlins|80|360|.22[/table] I entered this discussion based on the commentary arguing against classifiying the Nationals as a "small" market team. They aren't. Their market is competitive with most of the top-10 and nowhere near the actual small markets. Overall, I agree with a higher middle ground assessment (upper middle, lower big) of their market standing. If forced between big/small, I put them in the big category.

Why don't you answer my question about international popularity since it is such a big component in your argument?

Pure foolishness.

Opinion.....a poorly formed one at that. The key components of your argument are Forbes valuations that do not account for a large source of revenues and popularity which is irrelevant. Again, tell me how international popularity benefits the NYY revenues over the Nats revenues?