You'd think times would be pretty tough for the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates, but the worst team in baseball has figured out a winning strategy for making money.

At 43-85, they're at the bottom of Major League Baseball standings, but that's nothing new. They haven't had a winning season since 1992.

But David Berri, a sports economist at Southern Utah University, says that while the Pirates' win column may be in the red, their bank account is eye-patch black.

"They appear to be putting profits ahead of winning," he tells NPR's Audie Cornish, describing some financial documents leaked to The Associated Press that detail the team's 2007-2008 finances. According to those documents, the Pirates made nearly $29.4 million in profit in 2007 and 2008.

For a team that received $39 million from MLB revenue-sharing in 2008, Berri says, that sort of profit indicates that the Pirates' owners aren't spending their money on better players — they're pocketing it instead.

Revenue sharing works by funneling profits from highly competitive teams — think the Yankees or the Dodgers — down to gutter-dwelling clubs like the Pirates, who are, in theory, supposed to spend it on better players.

"What these documents show is that the Pirates looked at the baseball landscape and essentially said, 'Well, you're giving us about $40 million a year. ... That really wouldn't be enough to close the gap with the Yankees or the Dodgers, so rather than spend the money on players, we're just going to keep it.'"

Berri says there's a "general agreement" in baseball that teams will spend revenue-sharing money constructively, but no rules directing how the money is actually spent.

The premise of revenue-sharing is that a rising tide lifts all boats. Consistently bad teams like the Pirates do not draw as many fans when they play on the road, since fewer people will attend a game they know is going to be a blowout. Home teams, as a result, sell fewer tickets.

But Berri says the Pirates lack the incentive to spend money trying to become more competitive when they can be profitable losers.

For their part, the Pirates say they've made some changes since the years covered in the leaked documents. They cite profits of only $5.9 million in 2009.

Still, Berri says, "There clearly is an incentive problem here. You would think that, going forward, baseball owners are going to be saying, 'We need to be thinking about how this money is being distributed.'"

Pirates are a joke. If they would've put a quality product on the field, attendance and viewership would've been higher. That means there would be an even bigger profit for the Nuttings.

No comment. It's too depressing...

This is why baseball is dying at the pro level. If ever someone puts together some new Football or Rugby league during the spring and summer baseball will be history.

(08-28-2010 11:56 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  This is why baseball is dying at the pro level. If ever someone puts together some new Football or Rugby league during the spring and summer baseball will be history.

Pro Baseball is hardly dying, its struggling in some smaller markets to be sure, but far from dying. Being a rich, large market club is meaningless look at my Mets, they can't seem to get out of their own way yet again and they're the third richest franchise in all of baseball. Then look at the Twins who are not anywhere near as affluent a franchise and they win nearly every single year as of late. A hard salary cap like the NHL and NFL have would go a long way towards really rejuvenating MLB. If a spring football league was put together no one would watch it, because while Americans love North American Football, they're picky about it. Arena league will get ok attendance, but the NFL and College are the kings and nothing else has or ever will come close. Its simple really the best talent isn't going to play in the spring on top of the NFL season.

The Pirates have a nice stadium. I have been there. You can even walk up to the window at game time and get tickets for great seats on game day.

What you can't do in Pittsburgh at this time is see a good baseball team win a home game...

I can't believe the Pirates organization has fallen this far. Growing up on the Reds, a divisional series with the Lumber Company was often times, a foregone conclusion.

I grew up watching the Pirates teams of the Sixties and Seventies. My first game was in Forbes Field in 1964. I was seven years old.

We were in the right field bleachers and I got to watch Roberto Clemente play. I was hooked. Bob Veale was the Pirates starting pitcher. I still remember that day forty six years later

I still watch almost every game on DirecTV, despite their putridness.

I was able to see the Bucs beat the Phillies on July 2nd when I was up for a visit this year.

I will be a Pirates fan until I die. Hopefully, I live long enough to see them in the playoffs some day.