As MLB’s 30 owners and the Players Association clash over the length of a potential 2020 season — the MLBPA recently proposed a 114-game length, while ownership recently suggested as few as 50 to 60 games — Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick offered some strong objection to the notion of pushing the regular-season schedule into November. Appearing on the Burns & Gambo Show on 98.7 FM Arizona Sports, Kendrick rebuked the notion of November play (hat tip to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, on Twitter):
We don’t want to take the risk of putting our players at jeopardy and our game in peril to be playing games beyond the end of October. So our model is and will never be changed that we will not be playing baseball in the month of November or later.
It’s never been likely that the league would accept the union’s 114-game proposal, but Kendrick’s strong words are of particular note given that the union’s plan called for the regular season to conclude on Halloween. Kendrick ostensibly strives to put the well-being of players at the forefront of the issue. However, it’s been reported for weeks that the league has concerns that additional spikes in COVID-19 cases could jeopardize the postseason, where they’d stand to make considerable revenue from national television broadcasts (particularly with an expanded playoff field).
Meanwhile, Cubs owner Tom Ricketts again bemoaned a lack of revenue to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, claiming that most owners don’t profit much from their teams:
[Owners] raise all the revenue they can from tickets and media rights, and they take out their expenses, and they give all the money left to their GM to spend. The league itself does not make a lot of cash. I think there is a perception that we hoard cash and we take money out and it’s all sitting in a pile we’ve collected over the years. Well, it isn’t.
Ricketts contends that the Cubs derive 70 percent of their revenue from gamedays (ticket sales, concessions, parking, etc.) and that his team is hoping to salvage 20 percent of its would-be revenue in 2020. Of course, that’s the very type claim that has caused the MLBPA to bristle not only throughout negotiations to resume play but for decades prior. The union has repeatedly requested that ownership provide transparent documentation of the potential losses they’re claiming in 2020, but owners don’t appear likely to ever acquiesce on that issue.
Asked about agent Scott Boras recently using Ricketts and the Cubs as an example of suspect claims regarding their revenue, Ricketts merely replied that Boras “doesn’t have any insight into our balance sheet.” He also called the losses facing owners throughout the league “biblical” and spoke at length on his belief that revenue sharing between MLB and the MLBPA is a worthwhile concept to explore in the next CBA. The notion of revenue-sharing has been a total nonstarter for the union.
Owners do not turn a profit until they sell. They basically have an investment that will mature no matter how well run their teams are.
have you seen their books? if not, you just made an uneducated statement.
I think this makes his point-
statista.com/statistics/193441/average-franchise-v…
my point is that they also make profits. how large? i don’t know. but i think they make more than they let they are willing to let anyone know.
Im not gonna cry a tear for anyone whos net worth begins with a “B”
Bazooka?
Buck o five?
And have YOU seen their books in order to make that statement?
Babe Ruth or Baby Ruth?
Boobies
Bankrupt?
Bears
Beets
Battlestar Galactica
It’s been reported for years in Forbes
Profit isn’t just how much money they have it also includes what they own so in that sense yes they do make profit. 70% of revenue my butt. These people would not be owners if they weren’t having huge profits every year. They took the risk in buying the team now they have to deal with it
“Profit…includes what they own”.
No it doesn’t. Go back to junior high school economics class and re-read the text carefully.
Accounting student here, profits are definitely not what they own. That would be assets. Profits are a portion of retained earnings after paying shareholders their dividends from current year sales. That’s my TED Talk.
I would truly love to know what trusted source you got this information from where you then started espousing this crap as fact
Probably the Internet where only truth lives.
Watch ya talkin’ ‘bout? Everything on the Internet is true.
They don’t have to turn a profit to make owning a team a fantastic investment.
For starters is the obvious: Team value appreciates. Even if they did spend more than they made, that’s team debt; when they sell, it’s owner profit.
But then the less obvious: The term “profit” is exceptionally loaded. Any income you have left over after paying for things is a profit. If, say, you pay yourself $15MM a year salary to be team CEO, that is an expense and reduces the teams’ profits–but also puts $15MM a year in your pocket. That’s not to mention all the games you can play to show how none of your profit was profit (see: Hollywood Accounting).
According to Hollywood
accountants no movie
has ever made a profit.
EVER!
Assets include what they own. Profit does not.
wow! that’s so incredibly wrong!
TD Ameritrade was sold for $26 billion. As Startalk recently reminded me-most of us don’t have a very solid idea of just how much a billion is other than 10 to the 9th power. To get an idea, at 32 years of age, you’ve lived for one billion seconds. It’s likely the only billion that most of us will ever encounter. While I realize that TD Ameritrade founder(the patriarch) and his offspring will only get portions of the $26 billion, it seems like the Ricketts are doing their best to completely reverse their image to a negative one after bringing a championship to Wrigley.
Cheers mate. Go cubbies.
@paddyo875 if TD Ameritrade sold and the Rickets are gona profit from it, is a diferent bussiness and in no way are they obligated to invest that money onto the baseball team.
The Pittsburgh Pirates make millions every year with a nonexistent low payroll. When One Team spends 40 Million and and another spends over 200 million in payroll , I can’t understand why baseball isn’t more competitive. It is all driven my big market tv and revenue . Occasionally, a small market will draft well but, when free agency comes around, that smaller market serves as a “feeder” Team to the big markets. If league was reduced to 12 Teams that would all change for the better.
The way things have gone, Halloween would ackcherley make an appropriate date for the New Year. I’d like to see not only the baseball season, such as it may be, but the entire accursed solar circuit of 2020 conclude itself by skipping November and December altogether. We’d lose eight weeks of stone crab season but we can make it up with spiny lobsters. Let’s give 2021 a ride around the dealership a few months early, shall we?
I’m certainly not against your idea, but why wait? 2021 starts on June 10!!
It’s sad cuz 2020 is such an elegant, easy year to say and will never happen again. Shame it had to be so terrible.
If the owners are lying about their profits and potential losses, then why doesn’t the union what in on revenue sharing? If the teams are as rich as some claim on this site, wouldn’t players have the potential to earn more money?
It would create a hard salary cap which the players have never wanted.
I believe the Union has rejected this option. Now, the owners may no longer want this but as I understand it the players were against it.
The owners can use tricks of accounting to hide some of their revenue so they can claim to not make much money and then wouldn’t have to count that revenue towards thr revenue split.
Kendrick seems more believable than rickets. If rickets wasn’t lying, the Marlin’s, Padres and devil Ray’s would all be bankrupt since they don’t draw well. It’s also team and player merchandising, sponsorship and a lot of other revenue streams, apart from game day attendance.
bingo! as most newer owners were/are money managers they would not be in biz not making profits.
Ricketts specifically said the CUBS derive 70% of their revenues on game day.
I still don’t know that I believe him (unless he’s talking RIGHT NOW while they have only a few local TV deals in place for Marquee) but “the Padres don’t draw!” is a really terrible retort.
Also, to say that merchandising is big for all teams is an oversimplifies revenue. For example, some teams probably sell few jerseys since the they are so bad. Who’s the biggest seller in the Marlins and how many do they sell? In addition, it’s not as if every player on a team is a seller either. How many Brett Gardner jerseys are the Yankees selling? Probably not many. How many times can one person buy an Aaron Judge jersey?
So, in short, I don’t think merchandising is putting profit that far over the top.
Stanton jerseys. TV deals, sponsors, media right, radio deals, commercials, official beer of the team,airline rights, autograph sessions, appearances, etc. Ask the former dodgers owner that the team made no money.
$12 Old Styles and $8 fries!! There is some profit. The Cubs had no problem buying up the neighborhood around Wrigley Field. Money, Money, Money! It’s all about the money, money, money!
The Padres draw better then quite a few teams.
That is why there is revenue sharing, where those teams you think will go bankrupt are propped up by teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox and others.
The padres draw extremely well. The issue isn’t filling a stadium, it’s putting their own fans in the game. Tons of bandwagoner that are from San Diego Or live in San Diego follow other teams due to success.
What we have heard from both sides is money and the number of games. We have not heard anything about how the teams plan to protect player health or what happens if someone comes down with coronavirus.. Although each side is using player health in their positioning, no one seems to be talking about how this will happen.
I think all the owners really want is the playoffs. But they need some sort of season to choose the teams for an expanded playoff season.
I give the season a 30% chance of happening.
That’s because the owners really don’t give a poop about players’ health….you can ALWAYS get players. Bill James is right; get 900 guys off the street, SOMEBODY’s going to hit the most home runs, have the highest OBP, etc. etc.
And yes, owners make more money than just franchise value increases. The Red Sox took in more than 600 million last year, I think, MUCH of which was high-profit, since they control most of that income. It’s hard to spend 600 million. It’s hard to spend 500 million, even 400 million. And the franchise has risen into the 3-billions from an initial 700-million investment.
No knock to them; they (and other teams) do good things, and they’re good at what they do. McDonald’s is better at what they do than Burger King; they deserve their sucess.
Ricketts is full of it if he thinks other owners give all the money left to their GMs to spend and that the league itself doesn’t make a lot of cash.. Give me a break. Not even gonna get into his team and their new network…
I might add that I dont think owners are sitting on a pile of cash but I do think they may, in some instances, have taken that cash and, instead of “sitting on it” invested it out side the team. which is definitely their right to do so…
What is so bad about revenue sharing?
because it generally constitutes cheap teams taking money from more successful ones and then not spending it and banking it instead.
It’s no secret Tom Ricketts is extremely cheap otherwise he at the very least let’s Theo and Jed spend money and make offers to Gerrit Cole or Strasburg or whoever. Everyone knows where both were signing.
He doesn’t even want theo to extend his best players.
One, we’ve seen Theo and Jed spend money recently. Hasn’t been great.
Second, why spend when the Cubs should consider a rebuild sooner rather than later?
What money have you seen Theo spend the last 2 off-seasons?
Why aren’t you accounting for the full tenure and focusing on the last two years?
Hey, atleast the Cubs didn’t cut payroll to 50 Million Annually.
how about we hear answers from owners of teams that dont siphon revenue sharing money now?
well, i stand corrected. Cubs dont but they act like they do.
actually scratch that, that’s the teams sharing. players dont like that because it caps their total earnings.
whoops, that comment somehow got on the wrong thread. now i just look like im crazy.
Tom Ricketts isn’t lying. Forbes put the Cubs revenue for last season around 470 million, given the Cubs average 3 million fans at 100 per fan that puts them at right around 65% of their revenue coming from game day operations. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if your cost for players is 215 million and you subtract 300 million for 470 million you come up with a substantial loss.
Last season, Forbes put the Cubs “profit” at 68 million but that does not include the amount of money the Cubs continue to pay for Wrigley renovations.
People think owners make money hand over fist and of course some do but for a little perspective, the Yankees “profit” in 2020 was 35 million. Given that they signed Cole for an AAV of 35 million what does that tell you?
Now that is kind of unfair because “team” revenue doesn’t account for all the investment properties that the Ricketts own surrounding Wrigley but also a lot of that investment still is based on the Cubs playing games at home.
If you believe that the Yankees profit was only $35 million last year, you’re insane. If MLB ownership is such a miserable investment then why are the teams valued in the billions and why are so many people willing to buy a team when it comes up for sale? Why isn’t every single current owner looking to sell? Give me a break
The value of something is not related to how much net income it generates in a single year.
Anyone who owns a rental property could tell you that.
Lol you must only talk to rental property owners who lose money then.
Thr value of an asset is directly correlated to how much value it returns
I have 2 houses and 2 apartments that I rent and I can tell you that you are so wrong
The elephant in the room is
“owners won’t open their books.” Very suspicious…..
They’ve opened up their wallets. Evidence from observing the average player salary increase over the last 30 years.
Very suspicious.
Wrek, you don’t know what the hell you are talking about. The Ricketts family is no where near cheap and saying so is just flat out ignorant.
Nah, they aren’t cheap. They’re totally broke from this miserable investment in a MLB team. If only someone, anyone, would be willing to buy the team from them they might be able feed their families at some point
There will be MLB this year if the only true sticking point is the number of games.
Play Ball !
This is so silly. Cubs make 70% from ticket sales? What do they charge – $500 a ticket? They have just over 30k seats so to make that much from ticket sales/concessions they’d need to be charging an insane amount. Their TV rights would be worth an arm and leg as they were one of the most watched teams when they only played afternoon games and sucked. Can’t imagine they aren’t still one of the top 10 teams for TV viewership today. Heck, they should be a top 3 or 4. Their big problem is it seems they were going to run their own TV network this year so the timing sucked and they will have massive costs without revenue this year if games don’t get going soon.
@jnorthey—I guess reading is a skill—-it did not say 70% from ticket sales. It said “gamedays” which includes tickets, plus parking, plus concessions, plus merchandising, plus probably a portion of money from other business operations around the park. You probably could have save 7 or 8 minutes of typing by just reading what was in the story.
And, I’d make a pretty solid guess that they are pretty high up the TV viewership totem pole. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that ESPN pads it’s Sunday night games with teams that people watch.
The owners can make $0.10 or 10 billion it’s all the same to me, I don’t care. The bottom line it’s there business not ours. What would you think if I knock on your door and tell you how to run your household. People! people! respect, respect!
Ya, well, if you helped finance building or renovating your neighbor’s house then you might feel like you get a bit of a say. In Rickett’s defense, I do not think that they used any tax-payer money in their recent renovations (I am not positive, but from what I remember ownership paid for the renovations) but many teams strongarm cities into partially funding their ballparks. I am not taking one side or the other in this particular argument, just pointing out that your black and white scenario is much more nuanced. Also, I would argue that if MLB expects that the American people should support them and continue to allow them to be exempt from the Sherman Antitrust Act then they are not just like any other business. The point of the exclusion from the antitrust act, something that should be reversed, clearly stresses that MLB is not just business as usual.
Adam you are a straight goat! You lose the point.
Okay. You are super smart!
I’d like see just one owner to open their books. C’mon Ricketts, prove your claims!
Braves?
Call their bluff.
Demand a 50/50 split of all revenues…which means opening the books…and including the ancillary income streams (regional networks, team ownership of parking lots or other adjacent stadium businesses that teams own, etc.)
Anything short of that is not a 50/50 split.
“50/50…after I skim 40% off the top” is the kind of offer a three card monty dealer makes.
My god am I sick of hearing Tom Ricketts complain about how miserable it is to own a MLB team and how much money he isn’t making from it. SELL THE TEAM THEN!! Why would anyone want to continue to own any business if this were the case? This guy owns a team in one of the biggest media markets in America…how come you don’t hear Mark Attanasio (Brewers) or others in the smallest of markets complaining or making ridiculous claims like Ricketts does? Just go ahead and take your billion dollar gain by selling the team, and get into another business already!!!
Has anyone bothered to read the Liberty Media SEC filings to see what they wrote about their investment in the Atlanta Braves?
sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1560385/000155…
MLB conforming to corporate America rather than coming through for American people. Fans can sign waivers walking into games. Not having fans is their own doing and own demise.
Mlb could also get a full season in. Expand rosters to 30 and play 10-12 7 inning games a week. Wake to baseball and let it play all day. How awesome would that be ?!? Mlb won’t though bc they choose to follow suite and not give the American people an out to focus on something other than media hysteria. So they give us scripted reality tv instead of baseball
The Cubs probably aren’t the issue — while I’m not really convinced that Ricketts is telling the whole truth — or that the Cubs will literally only generate 20% of their expected revenue — I do believe him that for the most part… he probably isn’t taking that much $ out from the team profit wise. The problem with using that logic as rationale for the entire league is that there are plenty of teams out there that are “stockpiling profits” and don’t spend as much as they should on player salaries, etc. And if the owners keep up this hard-headed stubborness about potential losses, etc. It’s going to be that much more difficult for the players and ownership to come to a compromise.
They did spend a lot of money on the recent Wrigley renovations, and as I pointed out above, although I am not 100% sure this is correct, they did not receive tax money for the nearly 600 million worth of renovations. I am not defending them, but they could be in a unique situation in which they are not making much profit when you consider the long-term costs of these renovations.
then maybe they shouldn’t have spent well north of 100 million dollars trying to get their kid a political seat.
they chose to spend their cash foolishly, no one’s fault but their own
These replies show how little people know about the cost of running a baseball organization. I will continue to use the Cubs as an example because they are the team I know the most about.
Most people ignorantly look at what the Cubs made 470 million dollars vs. what their player expenses are 220 million dollars.
They pay no attention to the vast amounts of money the Ricketts family re-invest:
Baseball academy in the DR
Wrigley renovations
Video cameras, plane tickets, rental cars, hotel rooms, dinning for their scouting team
Or the more hidden cost
Minor league players salaries
Minor league coaching salaries and staff
Scouts salaries
Analytic department salaries
City and state taxes, entertainment taxes
Draft bonuses
International signing bonuses
and the list goes on and on
and yes, some owners are cheap and run their organizations a lot more like businesses, other organizations re-invest a large majority of their profits back into the organization like MOST SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES.
Based on the numbers I’ve seen, no team has such a large profit margin that they can cover players salaries without game day revenue regardless of TV deals and sponsorship money.
Nobody wants to look at the facts you have laid out. They want to complain about billionaires holding money. They refuse to think about the miscellaneous expenditures that are never reported to fans, and why would they? Players make millions and the owners still cover their hotels on the road. Players are pampered beyond belief.
And when a player is in a jam because of a spending mistake or something deeper, who cleans it up? The owner.
I’m glad Ricketts came out and said this. People believe that MLB owners just print money which is not the case. Many ball clubs run very close to break even each year. While the Red Sox, Dodgers, Yankees and even the Cardinals make money each year, a lot of other clubs need to pare down payroll, draft below slot players and have less perks than others (I.e. extra scouts and front office staff members) in order for the team to return a reasonable profit or at least positive cash flow. Now that 40% of the revenue is gone, most teams will not be able to afford to pay their players even pro-rated salaries for a 1/2 season without doing long term damage to their balance sheets and even more concerning, liquidity. I really don’t see how the owners could pay players their full, pro-rated salaries for 114 games and be able to continue business as usual the next few years. Given the value of each franchise, they all will be able to borrow money from lenders if cash flow goes to far in the red, but it will do years of damage to their organization. While the owners are billionaires, they didn’t get rich by owning a baseball team (expect for maybe Steinbrenner) and they aren’t dumb enough to spend their personal money bailing put their ball club which is just a separate investment to them. So either the players realize this and agree to take a pay cut or it will make more sense to just cancel the season altogether and limit their losses accordingly. The guys who cut the paychecks hold all the cards and it’s time for the players to understand this.
then ask them why they blew a season’s worth of player salaries making sure one of them ended up becoming governor of nebraska (after failing to buy him a senate seat before that).
they chose to spend their money foolishly and the fact that anyone feels sorry for them is pretty sad, in all honesty.
Which season? Because the last work stoppage gave the players 115 games in 1994 followed by 144 in 1995. Simple math says that’s not a season’s worth.
How do the dodgers make money if they are still heavy in debt?
There’s not going to be a 2020. Most of the clubs are just blowing smoke so that they appear to be negotiating in good faith. The recent pandemic is a godsend to them. In the end, they’re going to have starving players and agents agreeing to way less than they were hoping for in the new CBA.
Much, much less.
according to espn mlb generates $10 billion revenue anually. and everything related ticket sales account for 40% of the revenue. that leaves $6 billion. let say the rest of revenue losses are 50% of the figure. that still leaves $100 million average per team if there are any number of games. realistically thete will be appx 50 games. by the players model $240 mil salary will be less than $70 mil for the season. $80 mil team will have $20+ salary.
do you think owners will lose money? i say bull!
Viz,
Ok, so the league makes 10 billion… now subtract 4 billion from that for estimated ticket sales:
6 billion
-4.5 billion in player salaries (revenue does not mean profit)
1.5 billion
Now subtract 600 million for hotels, food and other operating expenses.
900 million
-66.5 million for managers
-30 million for coaching staff
803.5 million
-60 million in front office personnel
743.5
-43.5 est. for GM’s and Presidents
700 million
-236 million for the draft
464 million
-90 million for minor league players
374
-20 million on scouts
354
-265 million on internation draft slot money
89 million… we will call it 90 divided by 30
3 million per team
Minus stadium upkeep, minor league managers, misc. cost such as fuel, hotels, rental cars, plane tickets, food (for scouts) bats, baseballs, jerseys, umpire salaries, and the rest of the stuff I missed.
Again, revenue is not profit.
Well done, but you way underestimated the cost of front office personnel and even GMs & Presidents. That number in total is closer to $200M when it’s all said in done. And not to mention people in the ticket sales office, ball park help, etc…which most teams agreed to continue to pay for a finite period of time. The losses are abundant for sure. I can’t say I agree with the owners that they would collectively lose $4B, but I could see their losses getting close to $1B, if not more under the player’s proposal.
You’ve forgotten all the non baseball revenue the teams earn from their stadiums, many of which are taxpayer funded.
I know the Mets earn upwards of $50mm annually from Citi Field
you are calculating player salaries as if there is a full season.. 2020 average salary by team at the end of the season was projected to be $136,520,019 according to spotrac. the 40% deduction was without fans in stadiums. if they get to play 50 games, average players salary per team is appx. $42 mil. which turns out $1,26 bil. far less than $4.5 bil as you stated.
by the march agreement.
You first said MLB earns $10-bil annually. Now you want to change your argument because your a$$ was handed to you? Ok, so there isn’t a full season….um, that means MLB will not be making $10-billion. But, they are still paying office personnel, minor leagues and more.
Drascoo is right, you are wrong. Now find an english teacher, preferably one that teaches above the 3rd grade.
“Losses” to owners means unrealized revenue… It’s the oldest accounting charade in the book. As for the second wave of COVID-19, so it’s ok to play in October but say one day later in November it’s a non-starter? The more we hear these owners speak the more we realize how dumb some of them are and wonder how in the hell they became owners of MLB teams…
We could just ask Alex Rodriguez who has probably seen the Mets owners books by now, and we all know he tells the truth. 😛
.
I had never realized before how harsh the life of a baseball team owner was. Paycheck to paycheck, always worried about the next layoff, juggling child care, three jobs, and student loans, Who would want this kind of life? It’s the stuff of a Jacob Riis book.
Boy I hear ya. I just can’t understand why in the world all these guys aren’t looking to sell their teams. Who would want to tie up a billion dollars in a business that doesn’t make any money??
The fact that teams are rarely sold, combined with the fact that there are ALWAYS other people eager to buy in when a team does come up for sale tells me everything I need to know
Ricketts saying they don’t hoard cash, while probably true, is a weak excuse to try to screw the players. It’s like Warren Buffett saying all his money is tied up in stock so he can’t afford anything. He’s also implying that any and all leftover revenue is spent by the GM’s, meaning profit is 0. It’s complete BS. The owners make tons of money collectively every year, not including the value of the team going up. Don’t they realize the negative impact that their being cheap this year will have on both the fanbase and the next CBA negotiations? It was a massive oversight by both the owners and MLBPA to not specifically hammer out what would happen if the season were played in empty stadiums, but the owners are looking downright cheap.
@paddyo875 if TD Ameritrade sold and the Rickets are gona profit from it, is a diferent bussiness and in no way are they obligated to invest that money onto the baseball team.
Well, this isn’t too hard to estimate for the Cubs based on 2018
Avg Ticket to Fan Cost Index (Teammarketingreport.com) = $59 to $93
Attendance = 39,000
Home Games = 81
= 186MM to 293MM.
So on tickets alone, the Cubs pull in about $186MM in revenue during the regular season. If you factor in other game revenue like concessions, parking, food, merchandise while assuming every last dollar of that beer goes to the Cubs (only a small portion does) it might rise to as much as $293MM at the extreme end of the scale. The revenue for the Cubs in 2018 was $410MM according to Forbes.
Based on comparing total revenue to the extreme maximum revenue from games (fan cost index), you do reach about 71% of total revenue. At ticket price, it’s only about 45% of revenue.
What Ricketts isn’t saying is how their costs are also radically reduced while not playing. They’re not paying players or staff, not spending nearly as much maintaining the field, hiring security or incurring travel or marketing expenses. It’s pretty well known that the Ricketts’ got creative with how they leveraged to the max when purchasing the Cubs. Loans payments aren’t stopping while baseball does so I’m sure their losses are high, but biblical? Please. The flair for the dramatic…
Embrace debate, who would you rather be your father?
Tom Ricketts or the bone bending disease “rickets?”
Its gonna be a close vote…
Only thing you have to know is that baseball is a unique congressionally protected monopoly. Do monopolies make good profits? Why, yes, I believe they do. The Hollywood accounting comment is apt since this is after all an entertainment business and there are many ways to write off expenses, as was also mentioned.
Revenue sharing is unlikely because it constitutes a partnership and indeed would allow the players, as essentially interested parties, to order an audit which they pay for to ensure they are getting their legally required share.
70%? Hmm, something about lies, damn lies, and statistics comes to mind.
Did you know that teams can depreciate the cost of players’ diminishing skills against ‘profits’?
Accounting is a full body contact sport at that level, between large enterprises and the IRS.