Baseball’s money machine just keeps getting bigger. Major League Baseball pulled in a whopping $12.1 billion in 2023, setting a new record for the sport.
That’s half a billion dollars more than last year’s total of $11.6 billion.
And here’s the thing – those numbers don’t even tell the whole story. They’re not counting the extra cash teams make from their own businesses around the ballparks (like the Atlanta Braves’ popular entertainment district, The Battery) or their regional TV networks.
“Oh, yeah,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said with a smile last October. “We’ve had a good year. Our business was strong.”
He’s not kidding. The league has been on an incredible roll, with revenue jumping by more than 33% in the last decade. Back in 2014, MLB was bringing in $9 billion – now they’re up to $12.1 billion.
The only hiccup? Those COVID years of 2020 and 2021.
Fans are flooding back to ballparks too. More than 71 million people showed up to games last season – the highest attendance since 2017. That’s especially impressive considering attendance had been dropping every year from 2012 to 2019.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Just as these record-breaking numbers came out, Baltimore Orioles’ new owner David Rubenstein (worth about $4.1 billion himself) started talking about wanting a salary cap “like other sports have.”
The players’ union has always said that’s never going to happen.
Sure, baseball has its problems. But one thing’s crystal clear – the sport is making more money than ever before, no matter what some billionaire owners might want you to believe.
