MLB Doesn't Make Census

The Truth about Demographics and Major League Market Sizes

April 8, 2001

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics, Benjamin Disraeli, 19th century British Prime Minister, once said. More properly, in the words of General Charles Grosvenor, late Representative of Ohio who was famous in his day for accurately predicting Presidential Elections, "Figures won't lie, but liars will figure." Of course, he probably never anticipated the butterfly ballot and The Spin Room determining an election, and almost certainly couldn't have predicted the weird numerology of modern baseball.

The official US Census figures from 2000 concerning the size of Metropolitan areas were released April 2, and it's illuminating to put them into the context of Major League Baseball's wolf-crying concerning market size and the alleged inability of some teams to survive in the modern marketplace.

I'll repeat my recurring thesis: Major League Baseball's economic problems, if they can be called that in a profitable multi-billion-dollar business, stem largely from one fact. That's the territorial monopoly teams may exercise, and related oligarchical agreements between the Majors, the Minors, and local co-conspirators (co-dependents? co-enablers?) who build ballparks with the public's money because of that legalized monopoly power.

Translation: if teams were free to move wherever they wanted to, natural market efficiency would equalize the market sizes. Obviously, "unfair" factors such as a city paying for a ballpark, etc. would still end up affecting actual markets, as would the details of demographics (age distribution, income levels) and geography (warmer vs. cooler) and so forth. But the NBA and NHL, with salary caps and free and frequent movement by franchises, have more or less equalized their base markets. Football has to an extent as well, with some obvious exceptions (no team in LA, a team in Indianapolis) which might be interpreted as transitional characteristics. We've got no reason to believe Baseball couldn't do the same thing if they eliminated the territorial monopoly and worked out a revenue-sharing and salary cap plan acceptable to labor. But the legal monopoly and baseball's own rules maintain an oligarchy of the top ten teams or so, which like things just fine the way they are.

Let's look at the numbers..

ML Team Metro Area Rank, US Metro Areas 2000 Population Team Market Size Rank in Market Size 2000 Attendance % Market Captured "Efficiency"

Yankees New York 1 21,200,000 10,600,000 1 3,227,657 30.45 26

Mets New York 1 21,200,000 10,600,000 1 2,820,530 26.61 28

Dodgers Los Angeles 2 16,400,000 8,200,000 3 3,011,539 36.73 23

Angels Los Angeles 2 16,400,000 8,200,000 3 2,066,982 25.21 30

Orioles Washington-Baltimore 4 7,600,000 7,600,000 5 3,297,031 43.38 20

Phillies Philadelphia 6 6,200,000 6,200,000 6 1,612,769 26.01 29

Red Sox Boston 7 5,800,000 5,800,000 7 2,585,895 44.58 19

Tigers Detroit 8 5,500,000 5,500,000 8 2,533,753 46.07 18

Rangers Dallas-Ft. Worth 9 5,200,000 5,200,000 9 2,800,075 53.85 16

Astros Houston 10 4,700,000 4,700,000 10 3,056,139 65.02 13

Cubs Chicago 3 9,200,000 4,600,000 11 2,789,511 60.64 15

White Sox Chicago 3 9,200,000 4,600,000 11 1,947,799 42.34 22

Blue Jays Toronto n/a 4,200,000 4,200,000 13 1,819,919 43.33 21

Braves Atlanta 11 4,100,000 4,100,000 14 3,234,304 78.89 11

Marlins Miami-Ft. Lauderdale 12 3,900,000 3,900,000 15 1,218,326 31.24 25

Mariners Seattle-Tacoma 13 3,600,000 3,600,000 16 3,148,317 87.45 9

Giants SF-Oakland 5 7,000,000 3,500,000 17 3,318,800 94.82 6

A's SF-Oakland 5 7,000,000 3,500,000 17 1,728,885 49.40 17

Expos Montreal n/a 3,300,000 3,300,000 19 926,272 28.07 27

Diamondbacks Phoenix-Mesa 14 3,300,000 3,300,000 20 2,942,251 89.16 8

Twins Minneapolis-St. Paul 15 3,000,000 3,000,000 21 1,059,415 35.31 24

Indians Cleveland-Akron 16 2,900,000 2,900,000 22 3,456,278 119.18 4

Padres San Diego 17 2,800,000 2,800,000 23 2,423,149 86.54 10

Cardinals St. Louis 18 2,600,000 2,600,000 24 3,336,493 128.33 2

Rockies Denver-Boulder 19 2,600,000 2,600,000 25 3,295,129 126.74 3

Devil Rays Tampa-St. Petersburg 20 2,400,000 2,400,000 26 1,549,592 64.57 14

Pirates Pittsburgh 21 2,360,000 2,360,000 27 1,748,908 74.11 12

Reds Cincinnati 23 2,000,000 2,000,000 28 2,577,371 128.87 1

Royals Kansas City 25 1,800,000 1,800,000 29 1,677,915 93.22 7

Brewers Milwaukee-Madison 27 1,600,000 1,600,000 30 1,573,621 98.35 5

(Original graph by The Baseball Crank (c) 2001. Data sources: 2000 US Census data, except for Canadian cities, which are 1998 Canadian Government data; MLB for attendance figures, via FoxSports Business.)

"Rank, US Metro Areas" shows the absolute size of the market among US metropolitan statistical areas as defined by the US Census. For "Team Market Size", I simply divided Metro areas with two teams into two -- this is meant to represent potential market, so this is entirely fair. The "Rank in Market Size" is an ordinal ranking of these markets, with market sizes for the two Canadian teams added in.

I've added my own ranking, "market efficiency", represented by "% market captured" and an ordinal ranking. Suppose that every single person in every metro area in which there is a major league baseball team went to exactly one game a year. For instance, in Tampa-St. Petersburg, there are 2,400,000 people. If the Devil Rays' attendance was 2,400,000 for the year, then the Market Efficiency for the D-Rays is 1.00 (which I've translated into percentages).

So let's read the graph and make some observations, shall we?

NOT SMALL MARKETS

The Phillies are in the 6th largest market on the continent. The Tigers are 8th. The A's have a potential share of the 5th largest market, which divided in half still gives them 17th out of 30th (and the Giants the same). The Twins, poster children for poor-mouthism, are not only in the 15th largest market, the Minneapolis-St. Paul area has been growing by double digits in the 1990-2000 period. Montreal, one of the great cities of North America, still has 3.3 million people and by the measure of population is 19th out of 30 teams, pretty much in the middle.

THEY ARE SMALL MARKETS

The Reds, Cardinals, Rockies, and Indians, all of which drew at least 2.5 million (and three of which drew over 3 million) in 2000, are in the bottom tier of market sizes: 28th, 24th, 25th, and 22nd respectively.

If the Commissioner insists on talking contraction, unfortunately he's going to have to start at home. Milwaukee is the tiniest market in the majors, with a mere 1.6 million people in a very generously-defined Metro area. The Royals and Pirates can rightly claim to be small-market, ranking 29th and 27th. The Devil Rays rank 26th -- Orlando is nearly as big, and one wonders if it mightn't have been a better choice for a location, having more tourists coming through (counting the population of visitors would put Orlando practically in the middle sizes, but this is probably not fair.)

There are three metro areas larger than those currently occupied by Major League teams: Portland, Ore., which ranks 22nd; Sacramento, California, 24th; and Norfolk, Virginia, at 26th. Right around Milwaukee's numbers: Columbus, Ohio; Charlotte and the Triangle area in North Carolina; and Northern Virginia, if you peel it off the DC-Baltimore numbers;

MARKETS SO BIG THEY CAN BE SUBDIVIDED

New York, which historically supported three teams, more than likely could do this again. Peter Angelos is being piggy: not only do the Orioles have the largest undivided market in the majors, if a team were to move into Washington DC or Northern Virginia and took as many as a third of the O's potential patrons, Baltimore would still be a mid-sized market.

The median market size is just a bit shy of 4 million people.

Let's look at the same data, ordered by team efficiency, from best to worst:

Major League Market Efficiency, 2000

ML Team Metro Area Rank, US Metro Areas 2000 Population Team Market Size Rank in Market Size 2000 Attendance % Market Captured "Efficiency"

Reds Cincinnati 23 2,000,000 2,000,000 28 2,577,371 128.87 1

Cardinals St. Louis 18 2,600,000 2,600,000 24 3,336,493 128.33 2

Rockies Denver-Boulder 19 2,600,000 2,600,000 25 3,295,129 126.74 3

Indians Cleveland-Akron 16 2,900,000 2,900,000 22 3,456,278 119.18 4

Brewers Milwaukee-Madison 27 1,600,000 1,600,000 30 1,573,621 98.35 5

Giants SF-Oakland 5 7,000,000 3,500,000 17 3,318,800 94.82 6

Royals Kansas City 25 1,800,000 1,800,000 29 1,677,915 93.22 7

Diamondbacks Phoenix-Mesa 14 3,300,000 3,300,000 20 2,942,251 89.16 8

Mariners Seattle-Tacoma 13 3,600,000 3,600,000 16 3,148,317 87.45 9

Padres San Diego 17 2,800,000 2,800,000 23 2,423,149 86.54 10

Braves Atlanta 11 4,100,000 4,100,000 14 3,234,304 78.89 11

Pirates Pittsburgh 21 2,360,000 2,360,000 27 1,748,908 74.11 12

Astros Houston 10 4,700,000 4,700,000 10 3,056,139 65.02 13

Devil Rays Tampa-St. Petersburg 20 2,400,000 2,400,000 26 1,549,592 64.57 14

Cubs Chicago 3 9,200,000 4,600,000 11 2,789,511 60.64 15

Rangers Dallas-Ft. Worth 9 5,200,000 5,200,000 9 2,800,075 53.85 16

A's SF-Oakland 5 7,000,000 3,500,000 17 1,728,885 49.40 17

Tigers Detroit 8 5,500,000 5,500,000 8 2,533,753 46.07 18

Red Sox Boston 7 5,800,000 5,800,000 7 2,585,895 44.58 19

Orioles Washington-Baltimore 4 7,600,000 7,600,000 5 3,297,031 43.38 20

Blue Jays Toronto n/a 4,200,000 4,200,000 13 1,819,919 43.33 21

White Sox Chicago 3 9,200,000 4,600,000 11 1,947,799 42.34 22

Dodgers Los Angeles 2 16,400,000 8,200,000 3 3,011,539 36.73 23

Twins Minneapolis-St. Paul 15 3,000,000 3,000,000 21 1,059,415 35.31 24

Marlins Miami-Ft. Lauderdale 12 3,900,000 3,900,000 15 1,218,326 31.24 25

Yankees New York 1 21,200,000 10,600,000 1 3,227,657 30.45 26

Expos Montreal n/a 3,300,000 3,300,000 19 926,272 28.07 27

Mets New York 1 21,200,000 10,600,000 1 2,820,530 26.61 28

Phillies Philadelphia 6 6,200,000 6,200,000 6 1,612,769 26.01 29

Angels Los Angeles 2 16,400,000 8,200,000 3 2,066,982 25.21 30

There's a couple of ways of interpreting the data when we look at it thusly.

GOOD BASEBALL TOWNS and/or WELL-RUN TEAMS

Ignoring the extra attraction factor of new parks, Cincinnati and St. Louis are the best baseball towns in terms of the proportion of their attendance to their population size. Yes, Cincinnati and St. Louis both have marquee attractions -- Griffey and McGwire -- but then again, their clubs were smart enough to go get them, weren't they? Denver and Cleveland are nearly on par with these two cities, but when you consider that the Reds and Cardinals played in two of the oldest and least attractive ballparks in the majors (at least in terms of modern amenitites common to the new ballparks), one must come to the conclusion that these are either very good baseball towns, very well-run franchises, or both.

As a balm for the Commissioner, it should be noted how much Milwaukee fans support their Brewers on a per-capita basis. Yes, the attendance last year was inflated a bit by the second round of 'last season at County Stadium', but the team has drawn pretty well -- relative to the number of people in driving distance to the ballpark.

BAD BASEBALL TOWNS and/or POORLY-RUN TEAMS

The Phillies stick out like a sore thumb. Huge metro area, yet they draw less than a quarter of their potential market size. Only the Angels were worse, and they have the excuse of being located in the suburbs (I don't think anybody who's ever been to Anaheim can correctly claim that there's a there there, to place Gertrude Stein's aphorism a few hundred miles south.) One can't say the Yankees, Dodgers, or Mets are in bad baseball towns -- only that their teams have a huge out-sized proportion of the overall market for baseball, which should be obvious. The Twins are also among the worst stinkers, although blaming their ballpark is probably almost fair, if they weren't the team that had pushed for it back in the late 1970s.

With the Expos, it's difficult to call it a bad baseball town, given that they supported the team when they were good even in one of the worst places ever devised to play a game of baseball. The last few years of naysaying, doom, and uncompetitiveness have been self-reinforcing. There's nothing about the size of the market to suggest they couldn't do perfectly well there, gallic inclinations or not, with a decent ballpark and a little bit of hope. The Blue Jays, with their enormous publically-funded balldome, actually don't draw that much more efficiently than the Expos. If Toronto and Montreal are bad markets, it's because of the relative lack of interest in team sports (both the Argos and Alouettes have been in serious financial trouble) that aren't played on ice, not the market size. Let's call them bad markets if that's what they are, though, not small ones.

Finally we must point an accursing finger at the Tigers, who don't even have the excuse of a bad ballpark (and never really did, although to be sure the neighborhood left much to be desired), and the A's., who have (or at least had, before the football modifications) at least a reasonable facility and a winning team.

Some Additional Observations and Conclusions

Contraction or Expansion?

The Czar has made noises recently about seriously pursuing contraction as an option, to take the two smallest-market teams out of the majors. However, these would be Milwaukee, which has a new ballpark, and Kansas City, which has a perfectly fine ballpark. Montreal and the D-Rays, who haven't drawn well at all compared to the last five expansion teams, both of which are stuck with dank and ugly facilities, are the only real logical candidates.

I'd like to suggest the opposite. Expansion to 32 teams, as has been pointed out by myself and other sages previously, would solve all sorts of problems with the schedule. But there are two markets really ripe for a team. Northern Virginia would have DC and the Virginia suburbs to draw on, but Norfolk is also a reasonably big population center. Some clever triangulation could achieve the desired effect of having a very viable market and assuaging Angelos' greed. I suggest the DC suburbs on the Virginia side, near the end of the Metro line and I-95 -- or even Richmond -- would be a very good location indeed.

The other very, very obvious place to expand is New York. The TV money is so plentiful, and the population so dense, that it could easily absorb a third team. As for location, well, there are all sorts of possibilities, but something on the Connecticut side would seem to be logical, since that's where a lot of the population growth has been, the median income is high, and one could divide off a small fraction of Red Sox territory to be fair to the Yankees.

Los Angeles could also support a third team. San Diego is relatively close to the LA basin, and Anaheim is to the south and inland, so the ideal location is not clear. Strangely, I'd suggest it's Las Vegas -- which is getting closer and closer to being an exurb of LA, anyway, and is the fastest-growing city in the country. Las Vegas is a topic for another day, though.

Movement of Franchises

The Giants should not fear the A's moving to Santa Clara or San Jose. The evidence of geography and transportation connections suggests that most ex-A's fans would become more exclusively Giants' fans, while half of the peninsula would remain 'Giants Territory" anyway. As to whether the A's would do better in Santa Clara or not, I don't know. I'm a computer geek by trade, and not a lot of my compadres are sports fans. The economy's taking a hit. Not all indicators are positive there. Sacramento, being a smaller market but one more starved for professional sports, might be more viable.

As noted above, Northern Virginia is a perfectly viable market if a ballpark location can be found.

The Twins have absolutely no excuse for wanting to move. They've got a fine market, one that certainly supported its winners in the 1960s and late 1980s. San Francisco, which has a "natural" market only 15% or so larger than Minneapolis-St. Paul if you split it among the two Bay teams, financed a ballpark by itself. Why the Twins couldn't as well is unclear.

Among the smallest market teams, it seems to me like Milwaukee would be the most logical choice of a team to eliminate, since it's a fringe on the edge of the Chicago metro market. However, since they can also draw from that market, and do a little, and the fans support the franchise relatively well on a per-capita basis, I'd only put them on the warning list. Since they've got Miller Park, of course, the reality is that they'll be there at least another few decades, but if they can't make money, don't blame it on anyone but Bud Selig.

Assuming that there was freedom of movement of franchises, there'd be a half dozen or more cities that would be viable markets, or at least as viable as the bottom markets, given a chance. As noted, the Reds, Cards, Rockies, and Indians all play in bottom-of-the-order markets, they all draw well, and they've all been contending teams in recent years. If Sacramento, Portland, Columbus, Norfolk-Richmond, or Las Vegas showed other signs of being baseball-hungry, their base demographics for age and income are just as good as Cincinnati, et al. and certainly better than Kansas City.

Conclusions

There is no big-market / small-market gulf that MLB couldn't solve by abandoning territorial monopoly and allowing franchises to move at will. The census data in the context of attendance figures does not support a big-market/small-market gulf. Only equitable sharing of local TV revenues would be required to have a level playing field; and that in turn would eventually be addressed if markets were allowed to "right size" to roughly equivalent sizes.

There aren't really big-market and small-market teams. There are well-run franchises and poorly-run franchises, good baseball cities and bad baseball cities, and to the extent that politics, taxation, and public policy decisions like subsidizing baseball stadiums intersect with these two factors, there are good and bad places to see baseball games.

Contraction is a sily idea. Major league baseball and TV revenues are booming. If anything, the evidence of the boom of minor league baseball, especialy in certain AAA cities that have supported their teams well (add Buffalo to the list) suggests additional expansion would generate more revenue. It's the maldistribution of the markets that are the problem, and it's within baseball ownership's power to solve this problem themselves.

Next time you hear the Czar saying the sport is in trouble because of the market gulf, remember General Grosvenor: Figures won't lie, but liars will figure.

TODAY'S BASEBALL CRANK

More Official Enumeration

Roger Clemens broke Walter Johnson's all-time AL strikeout record of 3508 on opening day at Yankee Stadium.

Except Pete Palmer of Total Baseball, The Official Chronicle of Major League Baseball, says Johnson's correct strikeout total is 3509, having recovered an extra strikeout through research of Johnson's rookie season.

The Official Statistician of Major League Baseball, the Elias Sports Bureau, says Johnson's total is 3508. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Official Museum and Archives of Major League Baseball, says Johnson's total is 3508. The Official Spokesman for Major League Baseball, Rich Levin, says Johnson's official total is 3508. The Official Historian of Major League Baseball, Jerome Holtzman, was silent on the issue at press time.

With all these Officials at loggerheads with the Official Editor of the Official reference work, it's fortunate the stakes are so incredibly low. One is glad the US Government doesn't have as many Officials in charge of negotiating with the Chinese for the AP-3 spyplane and crew. (Maybe they do, and that's the problem.)

True authority, of course, lies with the truth, and we're inclined to give Total Baseball the nod based on their track record.

`Trivium, the Baseball Crank's Pyschic Psydekick, says: "Maybe it's time baseball used the instant replay after all."`

Patriot's Day Edition week of April 10, 2001

MLB Doesn't Make Census

The Truth about Demographics and Major League Market Sizes

Major League Market Efficiency, 2000

Some Additional Observations and Conclusions

Conclusions

More Official Enumeration

Patriot's Day Edition
week of April 10, 2001