manny being money

if you’re not familiar with the well-documented antics of hall-of-fame bound baseball slugger manny ramirez, you’re likely not a fan of sports. that’s completely ok, but many are saying that the latest chapter with ramirez and his mega-agent, scott boras, is their zaniest storyline yet – and an interesting study for our upside-down economy.

this offseason, manny has turned down three offers from the los angeles dodgers, the only team that’s seriously bidding for his services. one of the three offers would pay him $25 million in 2009 and make him the second-highest paid player in baseball. many of his peers, several also hall of fame bound,  are caving in with spring training fast approaching. all are accepting one year commitments, with paycuts as substantial as $15 million from their 2008 earnings and with very little guaranteed money. still others are retiring rather than taking the major league paycut, or worse, accepting a minor league contract.

not manny. he’s not even sweating it. this guy wants to be signed from now (at age 37) until he’s 42, and he wants you to  pay him $25 million a year guaranteed. he and his agent don’t care if the economy is tight, because they believe that he is the force that will loosen people up enough to spend their hard-earned money. after all, this is a guy who once sold a gas grill on ebay with his smiling mug in pose next to the aluminum beauty…and for a pretty penny. you can laugh all you want, but every lunatic act to date has set him up perfectly for his biggest surprise yet – to get exactly what he wants in the worst economic times since the great depression.

you see, love or hate manny, there is a big-time draw to this guy. he is the kind of person you want to watch, to see just what crazy thing he is capable of doing next. whether he blasts a 450 home run or hides in the fenway park scoreboard between innings, he transcends his initial purpose – to play great baseball – and becomes something far greater – a celebrity icon that pulls you away from your work, makes you leave your home and go to the park to watch him play. i know that many of you can appreciate firsthand just how hard it can be to get people to leave their homes for a night out. imagine one investment you can make that causes 40,000+ people to leave their homes each night.

at a time when parks like the new yankee stadium are opening to ticket prices of $1000 or more, how valuable do you think a guy like manny is? did you know that the dodgers had the highest increase in average ticket price in 2008, up 26.9 percent to $26.28 – and that they had the third highest average game attendance at 46,056 fans? is there anything more valuable that creating a buzz and selling things at a wild pace in an depressed economy like ours? don’t you think it’s possible that paying this guy $30 million a year would be a bargain? moves like this shouldn’t necessarily be viewed strictly as an expense against your budget – because they are also huge revenue generators.

here’s my simple formula: 46,056 dodgers tickets sold on average each night x $26.28 average dodger ticket price x 81 dodger home games each season ÷ 25 players on the dodgers roster x 2 = $15,686,157. this brings his value halfway to the $30 million. it only factors in ticket revenue for dodger home games. there is food, alcohol, merchandise, broadcasting rights, advertising, etc. etc. and yes, i’m willing to place a hard value on manny as being at least four times as valuable as his teammates. he’s twice as good a player and at least twice as big a draw.

i’d love for more math-minded people to speculate on this and break down the numbers even more intelligently than I could here.