Rays Owner: Our Bottom 5 Payroll is Way Too High

Stu Sternberg wants something from Tampa Bay residents. You'll never guess what it is. The Rays owner made his biannual gripe on Thursday about how current costs are too high and revenues are too low. Speaking to MLB.com's Bill Chastain, Sternberg characterized this season's $77 million payroll as "an enormous aberration" and something that is "clearly going to be lower" next season. The franchise that on opening day ranked 26th in MLB in money paid to players might sink all the way to—well, it's sort of like falling off a curb.

Sternberg isn't necessarily lying about the team spending more than it takes in, but he's selecting convenient facts to make his point. The Rays would lose money every year if it weren't for MLB's revenue sharing program, which means they're forever on the take from massive clubs like the Dodgers and Yankees. But this isn't a Rays-specific problem; they're just the league's most habitual strugglers. The Royals and Indians—teams that regularly collect from the revenue sharing kitty as opposed to paying into it—could pack their stadiums every night and not make anything close to what the Red Sox do in a down year. This is why revenue sharing exists: The rich buoy the less rich (ostensibly) in service of competitive balance. Every major American sports league does it.

Obviously, big market teams grumble about this, but if it bothers Sternberg so much that Tom Ricketts buttonholes him at MLB owners prom every year, he should sell the Rays and invest in the Cubs. He'd have quite a bit of money to spend if he did the former. He bought Tampa for $200 million in 2004. Forbes currently values the franchise at more than twice that number.

The Rays have no clear path toward profitability that doesn't include getting a check from MLB. That reality hasn't stopped Sternberg from trying to convince Tampans that a taxpayer-funded ballpark would fix what ails their local team. Tropicana Field is dumpish and located in the middle of a traffic quagmire, but that doesn't mean a new home for the Rays would move the needle much.

According to Rod Fort, a sports management professor at Michigan, new baseball stadiums increase revenue by $10 to $15 million per year. Tampa Bay typically receives about $35 million per year in revenue sharing. So a shiny $500 million-ish building would, at the absolute best, close half that gap. Of course, the value of the franchise would increase handsomely, but only Sternberg's ownership group would ever see a dime of that money.

Plus it would cost Tampa and/or St. Petersburg taxpayers somewhere between $25 million and $35 million for a decade to 15 years. This is without taking into account the $80 million Pinellas County and St. Petersburg still owed on the Trop as of 2012.

I spoke with sports economist Duane Rockerbie about whether Tampa Bay can support a baseball team, new stadium or no, and he's not high on the area's prospects: "Sternberg initially, when he bought the team, invested in players, they got into the playoffs, and the fans didn't respond to it." Rockerbie thinks it's a local interest problem, not a ballpark-related one: "Tampa and Miami have proven [Florida] isn't a good baseball market."

Tampa signed their current television contract with the regional Fox Sports branch in 2008, before networks started lavishing teams with money. They're due for an increase in TV revenue in 2016 or 2018, and have impressive viewership—fifth in the league in 2013—but Maury Brown, co-founder of the Biz of Baseball blog, says he "wouldn't expect them to get some extraordinarily large TV deal."

There are those in Tampa Bay who want to believe the Rays can achieve viability without help from MLB. Hillsborough County Councilman Ken Hagan said in 2012 that a downtown stadium in Tampa is the answer to the problem, as it would help the area flourish. Conversely, the team leaving "would have a devastating effect on our community from a quality of life and economic perspective." Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn is on the same page: "Tampa is a baseball town. We've got as long a history of baseball in this town as any place in America. I think the Rays would be warmly received here."

The facts don't back up either politician's case, but if Sternberg's going to get a new ballpark, he needs people whose desires and dreams drown out the concerns of their rational minds. The Rays are what they are, and it's going to take a lot more than a construction project to transform them into something else.