FACTS and FIGURES:
* 16 of 30 OOBL teams lost money last year. 6 of these lost more than $9M.
* 8 teams will see their broadcast revenue go down next season.
* 7 teams currently have less than $500K in cash reserves. 3 of these are in debt.
* Three teams recieved revenue sharing money at the end of last season.
* The top 10 teams (in payroll) account for 49% of salaries.
* The Yankees (Evil Empire), with the highest paroll, account for 6% of the total league payroll, the bottom 6 teams account for 6.5%
* Four players salaries are higher than the current payroll of the Cleveland Indians. (Two of these play for the same team).
* Six teams currently have payrolls higher than their expected 2004 revenue.
One area of concern, is the growing gap between large and small market teams. While few are predicting the OOBL sky will fall in, privately some are worried.
One anonymous team official opined, "Eventually something will have to be done, the difference between the haves and have nots is growing. It will be difficult for some teams to even build respectable organizations, let alone contend."
Another issue could be a lack of fiscal responsiblity by ownership. There have been discussions about teams taking advantage of the OOBL policy to only allow teams to go $5M in debt. After this point the league has been picking up the tab, effectively giving owners free money.
At the heart of all financial issues is revenue sharing. This season only 3 teams qualified for what sometimes seems an arbitrary system. Some feel that this could definetly be improved and that a greater percentage of teams should be recieving shared funds.
Said one league official, "The league office is aware of this issue. They will be watching this in the future and looking at what, if anything, should and can be done to make the OOBL a better league."
Complete league finances