Economics

- How do Japanese teams' revenue compare with MLB?

Well, I don't have any data on revenues of teams on either side of the Pacific. Batting or pitching data I have.

Based on player salaries, I'd say that, no, Japanese teams don't have a high a revenue as their MLB counterparts. I've read that several teams tend to operate in the red here in Japan. How many are consistantly in the red in the Majors?

- Does Japanese teams make a lot of money of promotions, attendance or what?

I suppose that most of the money they make is in attendance. And a winning or losing season makes a big difference in attendance for the teams. For example, Daiei has won the Pacific League championship 2 of the last three years, falling to a close second last season. This has picked their attendance up from 2,163,000 in 1998 to a new club record of 3,087,000 in 2001 (as you already know from your question on this thread). Some speculate that the Hawks have actually been more profitable than their department store chain the past few years, despite their being on the selling block for the last two years.

Last Spring, Kintetsu was looking for a partner to share the burden of an unprofitable team. Then they took the Pacific League pennant last season and had a 38.8% increase in attendance from their last place finish the year before. They still barly cleared half Daiei's attendance, and I haven't read if they were profitable or not. But attendance did go up with the winning season. (And having Rhodes going for a new home run record added a lot to attendance there at the end.)

As for promotions, they tend to benifit charities that a specific promotion is targetted toward more than the clubs themselves.

Then there is the Nippon Ham Fighters' "Yankee Day" promotion that brings in a lot of foreign fans. However, tickets for the game are generally recieved free of charge as it's a promotion through one of the English language newspapers (that I don't read). A promotions like this doesn't have a direct positive economic effect, as your question asks. It's just a good PR promotion.

> - How do Japanese teams' revenue compare with
> MLB?
>
> Well, I don't have any data on revenues of teams on
> either side of the Pacific. Batting or pitching data
> I have.
>
> Based on player salaries, I'd say that, no, Japanese
> teams don't have a high a revenue as their MLB
> counterparts. I've read that several teams tend to
> operate in the red here in Japan. How many are
> consistantly in the red in the Majors?

According to the commissioner, nearly all of them, but who can believe him? The fact is, completely legal accounting tricks are used to make a profit look like a loss for tax purposes.

Still, I think you are right when you say Japanese teams generate lower revenue than their American counterparts. The reason for this is that the big television contract doesn't exist in Japan. In the US, NBC, ABC/ESPN, CBS and Fox bid competitively for regular season games, the play-offs, and the World Series. MLB generates the majority of its revenue from these contracts. In Japan, no team has a very high TV contract. Nihon TV, owned by Yomiuri, probably gets to broadcast Giants games at a bargain price, much like WGN and the Cubs. Plus, the Giants get money from other TV networks as well. No other Japanese team gets quite as much money from TV.